A conviction, founded upon seventy thousand years of experience, ** as they allege, has been entertained by hermetic philosophers of all periods that matter has in time become, through sin, more gross and dense than it was at man's first formation; that, at the beginning, the human body was of a half-ethereal nature; and that, before the fall, mankind communed freely with the now unseen universes. But since that time matter has become the formidable barrier between us and the world of spirits. The oldest esoteric traditions also teach that, before the mystic Adam, many races of human beings lived and died out, each giving place in its turn to another. Were these precedent types more perfect? Did any of them belong to the winged race of men mentioned by Plato in Phaedrus? It is the special province of science to solve the problem. The caves of France and the relics of the stone age afford a point at which to begin.
As the cycle proceeded, man's eyes were more and more opened, until he came to know "good and evil" as well as the Elohim themselves. Having reached its summit, the cycle began to go downward. When the arc attained a certain point which brought it parallel with the fixed line of our terrestrial plane, the man was furnished by nature with "coats of skin," and the Lord God "clothed them."
Monday, June 30, 2008
Windmills of your mind
Music by Michel Legrand
Lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman
Round,
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain,
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Like the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind!
Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
or the fragment of a song,
half-remembered names and faces
but to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair?
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Besant & Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
THE problem of Man' s origin, of his evolution, of his destiny, is one of inexhaustible interest. Whence came he, this glorious Intelligence, on this globe, at least, the crown of visible beings? How has he evolved to his present position? Has he suddenly descended from above, a radiant angel, to become the temporary tenant of a house of clay; or has he climbed upwards through long dim ages, tracing his humble ancestry from primeval slime, through fish, reptile, mammal, up to the human kingdom? And what is his future destiny? Is he evolving onwards, climbing higher and higher, only to descend the long slope of degeneration till he falls over the precipice of death, leaving behind him a freezing planet, the sepulchre of myriad civilisations; or is his present climbing but the schooling of an immortal spiritual Power, destined in his maturity to wield the sceptre of a world, a system, a congeries of Systems, a veritable God in the making?
Besant & Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
Besant & Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
Besant & Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
Some day Science will realise that what it calls the subjective mind, Religion calls the Soul, and that the exhibition of its powers depends on the physical and super-physical instruments at its command. If these are well-constructed, sound and flexible, and thoroughly under its control, the powers of vision, of audition, of memory, irregularly up-welling from the subjective mind, become the normal and disposable powers of the Soul; if the Soul strive upwards to the Spirit-- the Divine Self-- veiled in the matter of our System, the true Inner Man, instead of ever clinging to the body, then its powers increase, and knowledge, otherwise unattainable, comes within its reach.
Besant & Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
Besant & Leadbeater, Man: Whence, How and Whither
Monday, June 23, 2008
Kabbalah
By many centuries antedating the Christian era, and older than the Mosaic traditions, indeed, in its origin older than the Egyptian or any other system of religion or philosophy now known, the Kabbalah has all the claims to respectful consideration that antiquity can confer. These claims are enhanced and intensified when we discover evidence, not merely of its early origin, but of its important influence, in their structure and teachings, upon the religions of all lands and ages. Yet but few, even of the modern mystical thinkers, know enough of the wondrous Kabbalah to have the faintest conception of the vast debt the world of all ages has owed to that grand system of philosophy. Even while using the symbols, quoting the language, repeating the ideas, teaching and maintaining the doctrines of the Kabbalah, writers of modern times are generally ignorant of the source of the symbols, language, ideas and doctrines, and hence, naturally, they fail to realize their beautiful significance, far-reaching scope, and more than marvelous harmony.
The Kabbalists claim that the source from which their knowledge is derived is divine; that God reveals it to the pure in heart alone, and that the fountain of the true Light of knowledge is itself known to those only who are illuminated by that Light within their souls. The philosophy of the Kabbalah was expressed in symbols, some of which are in use among the Masonic and other secret fraternities of our day, though much of their ancient force and beauty, which depended very largely and in some cases entirely upon their Hermetic meanings, is lost by erroneous interpretations.
http://www.alchemylab.com/jewish_alchemy.htm
The Kabbalists claim that the source from which their knowledge is derived is divine; that God reveals it to the pure in heart alone, and that the fountain of the true Light of knowledge is itself known to those only who are illuminated by that Light within their souls. The philosophy of the Kabbalah was expressed in symbols, some of which are in use among the Masonic and other secret fraternities of our day, though much of their ancient force and beauty, which depended very largely and in some cases entirely upon their Hermetic meanings, is lost by erroneous interpretations.
http://www.alchemylab.com/jewish_alchemy.htm
John, Revelations
"And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars . . ."
John, Revelations
John, Revelations
Emeral Tablet of Hermes
In its several Western recensions, the Tablet became a mainstay of medieval and Renaissance alchemy. Commentaries and/or translations were published by, among others, Trithemius, Roger Bacon, Michael Maier, Aleister Crowley, Albertus Magnus, and Isaac Newton.
C.G. Jung identified "The Emerald Tablet" with a table made of green stone which he encountered in the first of a set of his dreams and visions beginning at the end of 1912, and climaxing in his writing the Seven Sermons to the Dead in 1916.
Because of its longstanding popularity, the Emerald Tablet is the only piece of non-Greek Hermetica to attract widespread attention in the West. The reason that the Emerald Tablet was so valuable is because it contained the instructions for the goals of alchemists. It hinted at the recipe for alchemical gold, as well as how to set one's level of consciousness to a new degree.
Wikipedia.org
C.G. Jung identified "The Emerald Tablet" with a table made of green stone which he encountered in the first of a set of his dreams and visions beginning at the end of 1912, and climaxing in his writing the Seven Sermons to the Dead in 1916.
Because of its longstanding popularity, the Emerald Tablet is the only piece of non-Greek Hermetica to attract widespread attention in the West. The reason that the Emerald Tablet was so valuable is because it contained the instructions for the goals of alchemists. It hinted at the recipe for alchemical gold, as well as how to set one's level of consciousness to a new degree.
Wikipedia.org
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Simon Magus, by G. R. S. Mead
Of the universal Æons [periods, planes, or cycles of creative and created life in substance and space, celestial creatures] there are two shoots, without beginning or end, springing from one Root, which is the power invisible, inapprehensible silence [Bythos]. Of these shoots one is manifested from above, which is the Great Power, the Universal Mind ordering all things, male, and the other, [is manifested] from below, the Great Thought, female, producing all things. Hence pairing with each other, they unite and manifest the Middle Distance, incomprehensible Air, without beginning or end. In this is the Father Who sustains all things, and nourishes those things which have a beginning and end."
Simon Magus, by G. R. S. Mead
Simon Magus, by G. R. S. Mead
Erich Fromm, Selfishness and Self-Love
The problem of selfishness has a particular bearing on psychotherapy. The neurotic individual often is selfish in the sense that he is blocked in his relationship to others or overanxious about himself. This is to be expected since to be neurotic means that the integration of a strong self has not been achieved successfully. To be normal certainly does not mean that it has. It means, for the majority of well-adapted individuals that they have lost their own self at an early age and replaced it completely by a social self offered to them by society. They have no neurotic conflicts because they themselves, and, therefore, the discrepancy between their selves and the outside world has disappeared. Often the neurotic person is particularly unselfish, lacking in self-assertion and blocked in following his own
aims. The reason for this unselfishness is essentially the same as for the selfishness. What he is practically always lacking is self-love. This is what he needs to become well. If the neurotic becomes well, he does not become normal in the sense of the conforming social self. He succeeds in realizing his self, which never had been completely lost and for the preservation of which he was struggling by his neurotic symptoms. A theory, therefore, as Freud's on narcissism which rationalizes the cultural pattern of denouncing self-love by identifying it with selfishness, can have but devastating effects therapeutically. It increases the taboo on self-love. Its effects can only be called positive if the aim of psychotherapy is not to help the individual to be himself; that is, free, spontaneous and creative -
qualities conventionally reserved for artists - but to give up the fight for his self and conform to the cultural pattern peacefully and without the noise of a neurosis.
In the present era, the tendency to make of the individual a powerless atom is increasing. The authoritarian systems tend to reduce the individual to a will-less and feelingless instrument in the hands of those who hold the reins; they batter him down by terror, cynicism, the power of the state, large demonstrations, fierce orators and other means of suggestion. When finally he feels too weak to stand alone, they offer him satisfaction by letting him participate in the strength and glory of the greater whole, whose powerless part he is. The authoritarian propaganda uses the argument that the individual of the democratic state is selfish and that that he should become unselfish and socially minded. This is a lie. Nazism substituted the most brutal selfishness of the leading bureaucracy and of the state for the selfishness of the average man. The appeal for unselfishness is the weapon to make the average individual still more ready to submit or to renounce.
The criticism of democratic society should not be that people are too selfish; this is true but it is only a consequence of something else. What democracy has not succeeded in is to make the individual love himself; that is, to have a deep sense of affirmation for his individual self, with all his intellectual, emotional, and sensual potentialities. A puritan-protestant inheritance of self-denial, the necessity of subordinating the individual to the demands of production and profit, have made for conditions from which Fascism could spring. The readiness for submission, the pervert courage which is attracted by the image of war and self-annihilation, is only possible on the basis of a - largely unconscious - desperation, stifled by martial songs and shouts for the Führer. The individual who has ceased to love himself is ready to die as well as to kill. The problem of our culture, if it is not to become a fascist one, is not that there is too much selfishness but that there is no self-love. The aim must be to create those conditions which make it possible for the individual to realize his freedom, not only in a formal sense, but by asserting his total personality in his intellectual, emotional, sensual qualities. This freedom is not the rule of one part of the personality over another part - conscience over nature, Super-Ego over Id - but the integration of the whole personality and the factual expression of all the potentialities of this integrated personality.
Erich Fromm, Selfishness and Self-Love
aims. The reason for this unselfishness is essentially the same as for the selfishness. What he is practically always lacking is self-love. This is what he needs to become well. If the neurotic becomes well, he does not become normal in the sense of the conforming social self. He succeeds in realizing his self, which never had been completely lost and for the preservation of which he was struggling by his neurotic symptoms. A theory, therefore, as Freud's on narcissism which rationalizes the cultural pattern of denouncing self-love by identifying it with selfishness, can have but devastating effects therapeutically. It increases the taboo on self-love. Its effects can only be called positive if the aim of psychotherapy is not to help the individual to be himself; that is, free, spontaneous and creative -
qualities conventionally reserved for artists - but to give up the fight for his self and conform to the cultural pattern peacefully and without the noise of a neurosis.
In the present era, the tendency to make of the individual a powerless atom is increasing. The authoritarian systems tend to reduce the individual to a will-less and feelingless instrument in the hands of those who hold the reins; they batter him down by terror, cynicism, the power of the state, large demonstrations, fierce orators and other means of suggestion. When finally he feels too weak to stand alone, they offer him satisfaction by letting him participate in the strength and glory of the greater whole, whose powerless part he is. The authoritarian propaganda uses the argument that the individual of the democratic state is selfish and that that he should become unselfish and socially minded. This is a lie. Nazism substituted the most brutal selfishness of the leading bureaucracy and of the state for the selfishness of the average man. The appeal for unselfishness is the weapon to make the average individual still more ready to submit or to renounce.
The criticism of democratic society should not be that people are too selfish; this is true but it is only a consequence of something else. What democracy has not succeeded in is to make the individual love himself; that is, to have a deep sense of affirmation for his individual self, with all his intellectual, emotional, and sensual potentialities. A puritan-protestant inheritance of self-denial, the necessity of subordinating the individual to the demands of production and profit, have made for conditions from which Fascism could spring. The readiness for submission, the pervert courage which is attracted by the image of war and self-annihilation, is only possible on the basis of a - largely unconscious - desperation, stifled by martial songs and shouts for the Führer. The individual who has ceased to love himself is ready to die as well as to kill. The problem of our culture, if it is not to become a fascist one, is not that there is too much selfishness but that there is no self-love. The aim must be to create those conditions which make it possible for the individual to realize his freedom, not only in a formal sense, but by asserting his total personality in his intellectual, emotional, sensual qualities. This freedom is not the rule of one part of the personality over another part - conscience over nature, Super-Ego over Id - but the integration of the whole personality and the factual expression of all the potentialities of this integrated personality.
Erich Fromm, Selfishness and Self-Love
Saturday, June 21, 2008
"Energy as if from nowhere."
As science advances laws can change.
----------------------
The Law of Conservation of Energy is often referred to as the Principle of Energy Conservation and otherwise as the First Law of Thermodynamics. It is so firmly established that it has triple foothold in governing how we build our picture of the scientific world. We shall not question its authenticity. Indeed, all you need to accept is that one cannot take energy from nowhere and apply it to our needs, nor, indeed, can Nature create matter out of nothing, given that Nature is governed by her own laws.
-----------------------
I assume that you, the reader, will bear with me as I advance my case, because I assume that you think, as I do, that it is logical for energy, whatever that is, to be conserved and so, if matter can be created from energy and appear in our experiments as if from nowhere, then there is something in that 'nowhere'. I note that scientists now believe that particles of matter, pairs of electrons and positrons, can appear 'as if from nowhere', though they hide all this in their mathematical equations and refer to the phenomenon as 'vacuum energy fluctuations'.
They still pretend that there is no aether but we, in these tutorials, will take a bold frontal position and challenge the views of those who lead would-be theoretical physicists into their own non-aetherial field of confusion. Our sights are on that 'energy' theme and the fundamental question of whether we can ever ourselves mimic Nature by tapping into that sea of energy from which Nature created the protons and electrons that form the matter we see as the universe.
----------------------
... there are three dimensions to physics, namely energy, space (as the cube of distance) and time.
The real challenge of physics is to explain everything in terms of three such physical dimensions, M. L, T, that is mass, length and time being those adopted by tradition, but energy, space and time being those I believe that we should adopt in our ultimate quest to understand all that can become known about fundamental physics.
Harold Aspden
----------------------
The Law of Conservation of Energy is often referred to as the Principle of Energy Conservation and otherwise as the First Law of Thermodynamics. It is so firmly established that it has triple foothold in governing how we build our picture of the scientific world. We shall not question its authenticity. Indeed, all you need to accept is that one cannot take energy from nowhere and apply it to our needs, nor, indeed, can Nature create matter out of nothing, given that Nature is governed by her own laws.
-----------------------
I assume that you, the reader, will bear with me as I advance my case, because I assume that you think, as I do, that it is logical for energy, whatever that is, to be conserved and so, if matter can be created from energy and appear in our experiments as if from nowhere, then there is something in that 'nowhere'. I note that scientists now believe that particles of matter, pairs of electrons and positrons, can appear 'as if from nowhere', though they hide all this in their mathematical equations and refer to the phenomenon as 'vacuum energy fluctuations'.
They still pretend that there is no aether but we, in these tutorials, will take a bold frontal position and challenge the views of those who lead would-be theoretical physicists into their own non-aetherial field of confusion. Our sights are on that 'energy' theme and the fundamental question of whether we can ever ourselves mimic Nature by tapping into that sea of energy from which Nature created the protons and electrons that form the matter we see as the universe.
----------------------
... there are three dimensions to physics, namely energy, space (as the cube of distance) and time.
The real challenge of physics is to explain everything in terms of three such physical dimensions, M. L, T, that is mass, length and time being those adopted by tradition, but energy, space and time being those I believe that we should adopt in our ultimate quest to understand all that can become known about fundamental physics.
Harold Aspden
Thursday, June 19, 2008
C.G. Jung
“The foundation of all mental illness is an unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.”
C.G. Jung
C.G. Jung
C. G. Jung
The gigantic catastrophes that threaten us today are not elemental happenings of a physical or biological order, but psychic events. To a quite terrifying degree we are threatened by wars and revolutions which are nothing other than psychic epidemics. At any moment several millions of human beings may be smitten with a new madness, and then we shall have another world war or devastating revolution. Instead of being at the mercy of wild beasts, earthquakes, landslides, and inundations, modern man is battered by the elemental forces of his own psyche. This is the World Power that vastly exceeds all other powers on earth.
C. G. Jung
C. G. Jung
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Wallce quotes Aldous Huxley
WALLACE: You write in "Enemies of Freedom," you write specifically about the United States. You say this, writing about American political campaigns. You say, "All that is needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look sincere; political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The personality of the candidate, the way he is projected by the advertising experts, are the things that really matter."
Interview
Interview
Friday, June 13, 2008
De Maistre, Soirees de St Petersburg
I have heard and read of myriads of good jokes on the ignorance of the ancients, who were always seeing spirits everywhere; methinks that we are a great deal more imbecile than our forefathers, in never perceiving any such anywhere.
from Isis Unveiled
from Isis Unveiled
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
from Isis Unveiled
"There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,
Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten
With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members."
XENOPHANES: Clem. Al. Strom., v. 14, § 110.
Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;
But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten
With human sensations, and voice, and corporeal members."
XENOPHANES: Clem. Al. Strom., v. 14, § 110.
Baron Du Potet, La Magie Devoilee
You doubt sorcery and magic? O, truth! thy possession is a heavy burden!
Baron Du Potet, La Magie Devoilee
Baron Du Potet, La Magie Devoilee
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Papus
The Gnostic sects, the Arabs, Alchemists, Templars, Rosicrucians, and lastly the Freemasons, form the Western chain in the transmission of occult science.
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians
Papus, The Tarot of the Bohemians
The Brothers of the Rose Cross
Trustworthy information is unavailable concerning the actual philosophical beliefs, political aspirations, and humanitarian activities of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. Today, as of old, the mysteries of the Society are preserved inviolate by virtue of thier essential nature; and attempts to interpret Rosicrucian philosophy are but speculations, anything to the contrary notwithstanding.
Manly P. Hall
Manly P. Hall
Longfellow
A Psalm of Life
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act -- act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882)
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act -- act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882)
What is a Mystery School?
A mystery school is a university of the soul, a school for the study of the mysteries of the inner nature of humanity and of the universe. By understanding these mysteries, the student perceives his intimate relationship with his inner divinity and with the universe and.
An excellent primer on the role of mystery schools in antiquity is The Secret Teachings Of All Ages by Manly P. Hall.
Wikipedia
A Mystery school is a university of the soul, a school for the study of the mysteries of the inner nature of man and of surrounding nature. By understanding these mysteries, the student perceives his intimate relationship with divinity, and strives through self-discipline and devotion to become at one with his inner god.
Grace F. Knoch
An excellent primer on the role of mystery schools in antiquity is The Secret Teachings Of All Ages by Manly P. Hall.
Wikipedia
A Mystery school is a university of the soul, a school for the study of the mysteries of the inner nature of man and of surrounding nature. By understanding these mysteries, the student perceives his intimate relationship with divinity, and strives through self-discipline and devotion to become at one with his inner god.
Grace F. Knoch
The soul of man -- often called the Psyche, and in the Eleusinian Mysteries symbolized by Persephone -- is essentially a spiritual thing. Its true home is in the higher worlds, where, free from the bondage of material form and material concepts, it is said to be truly alive and self-expressive. The human, or physical, nature of man, according to this doctrine, is a tomb, a quagmire, a false and impermanent thing, the source of all suffering and sorrow. Plato describes the body as the sepulcher of the soul; and by this he means not only the human form, but also the human nature.
Manly P. Hall
Manly P. Hall
Monday, June 02, 2008
Newton's Third Law
(from Wikipedia)
In the above, as usual, motion is Newton's name for momentum, hence his careful distinction between motion and velocity.
The Third Law means that all forces are interactions - that there is no such thing as a unidirectional force.
In the above, as usual, motion is Newton's name for momentum, hence his careful distinction between motion and velocity.
The Third Law means that all forces are interactions - that there is no such thing as a unidirectional force.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
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