Preliminary Pages include:
I†N The Present Context:
The Neith Network LibrArian Re-Members:
I†N In Hyde Park, #11 April 1971 & …
On Glastonbury Tor I†N July
Letter “To a #Wayfarer ”, 7
February 1998…
As a boy William Good, who later became a priest, served Mass in Glastonbury Abbey just before its dissolution. Referring in a document he left in the English College in Rome to the ‘grave’ of Joseph of Arimathea (possibly from the Hebrew ari'meth: lion's death), he wrote: “The monks never knew for certain the place of this Saint's burial. They said the body was most carefully hidden either there or on a hill near Montacute, called Hamdon Hill, and that when his body would be found the whole world would wend their way thither on account of the number and wondrous nature of the miracles worked there…”
Looking down the centre of the triangular-shaped valley of Hamdon Hill, which is 111 furlongs South of Glastonbury, one's line of sight is in the direction of the peak mid-winter full Moonrise over the Wash which ‘pierces’ this ‘vale/veil’ once every 18.61 years and, despite the silting-up of the East Anglian coast across the millennia, this line of sight still almost precisely bisects the 365.25 miles long May Day Ley-Line from Land's End through St. Michæl's Mount in Cornwall, the Hurlers, St. Michæl's chapel on Glastonbury Tor, St. Michæl's church in Avebury, Royston Cave, Bury St. Edmund's, etc., to Horton-on-Sea.
This line being perfectly aligned to Sunset at Imbolc and Sammhain and to Sunrise at Beltane and Lammas, or, to express it slightly differently, to Sunrise on 6 May, old May-Day, the day that falls exactly half-way between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, as so famously celebrated in the old tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and also in 1432 by the brothers Hubert & Jan van Eyck's masterpiece: L'Agneau Mystique, which was completed for 6 May that year and very clearly also alludes to both the Sephirotic Tree of Life and the Great Pyramid (and therefore, by implication at least, also to the Fisher King, the Castle of Camelot and the Grail Chalice.
Although completed for 6 May, the triptych of which this painting is the central panel was displayed for the first time on the feast of St. John the Evangelist, 6 June 1432; it is kept in St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. In Father Good's day that 6th May Sunrise was, no doubt, hailed as a miracle, and, whether or not we agree with G. K. Chesterton that it certainly is so still, this richly evocative traditional context deservedly remains for many a fruitful invitation to contemplative adoration, praise and thanksgiving to our Divine Lord and his Holy Mother. Cf. especially: R. Hughes & G. Faggin, The Complete Paintings of the van Eycks (London: 1970); A. L. Dierick, Van Eyck - The Mystic Lamb (Gent: 1970); Michael Beckett, The Pyramid and the Grail - towards a parallel reality (Romsey: Lailoken Press 1984).
|
|
|
|
|
BINAH - UNDERSTANDING by left shoulder. |
|
CHOKMAH - WISDOM by right shoulder. |
|
GEBURAH - POWER/STRENGTH left hand. |
|
CHESED/GEDULAH - GRACE/MERCY right hand. |
|
|
|
|
|
HOD - GLORY, Secret Knowledge: right knee. Castle of Magic Chessboard - One of the Wines I+N The Cup. |
|
NETZACH - VICTORY I+N Joust of Love: left knee. Castle of Joyful Guard - One of the Wines I+N The Cup. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Above the Cup of the Holy Grail, which was seen over Glastonbury Tor in the centre of a circular rainbow in a cloudless, bright blue sky on Saturday, 3 July 1971, one naturally places the equally Holy Lance. This is not displayed point downwards, as if dominating and penetrating the vessel of the Sacred Chalice but, I+N accordance with a Cathar tradition also acknowledged by the Rosicrucians, ascends or, better, is assumed vertically. As the Kundalini sense awakens and matures, male energy, nourished and nurtured by feminine support, is no longer buried within the Earth, but is instead drawn up into and then consumed I+N the radiant and all-encompassing Heaven the Lovers together fertilise and enliven with a Divine because truly human meaning and value. This Tantric Rose I+N full blossom IS The Tree of Life. It is this profoundly spiritual, sexual-initiatory and transcosmic revelation of the Qabbalah and the Holy Grail that is so beautifully reflected in Hubert & Jan van Eyck's L'Agneau Mystique.
Helpful references as background to deeper reflective meditation: Meditations on the Tarot - a journey into Christian Hermeticism (New York: Amity House/Element Books 1985, 1991); Albert L. Schutz, Call Adonoi - manual of practical Cabalah and Gestalt mysticism (Goleta, CA: Quantal Publishing 1980); Gérard de Sède, Le Secret des Cathares (Paris: Éditions J'ai Lu 1974); Alfred Weysen, L'Île des Veilleurs (Paris: Robert Laffont 1986). Besides -
“Sunday, 11th April, 1971…
We enjoyed Hyde Park. The trees and the grass were as alive as ever, more resilient than humans under the impact of urban pollution. ‘Weep not for us,’ they seemed to say, ‘but for yourselves, and for your children.’
There is an oak-tree, somewhat detached from the other equally venerable trees of the forest, that grows apart in a patch of meadow to the East of the Albert Memorial. We lay beneath it for a while, and watched the sky turn round. Faster and faster it moved, gyrating on the instant out of an illusion of midday Sun into a deep peace of countless resting stars.
The contrast between their white brilliance and the inky vacuum of the space in which they were suspended, held my attention for a moment. The dark tresses of my companion merged with the heavens. Her russet cloak was touching the base of the oak, and seemed to grow out of its roots. Her face was cherry red and full of elfin laughter, her breasts girlish, her waist a wisp of stardust.
As I looked into the pools of her eyes, she mellowed. I held her hands, and found them like the skin of russet apples. Ancient hieroglyphics etched on her brow and nose, and spiralling round her cheeks, summed up for me all the secrets of the universe into a single mystery, the meaning of Love.
She was Mother Nature. Her bosom swelled. Her visage disclosed a granite Wisdom more ancient than the seven seas, and her raiment became all at once majestic, autumnal and imperious. I knelt before the Fountain of Life. I knew then that no moment could ever add to nor subtract from the plenitude of that eternal instant. We were on sacred ground.
This was the hill of Calvary. She was Mary, and I was lying on the ground, face downwards, just after my crucifixion. But I had not been taken down from the Cross; I was the Cross - a Tree of Life, gnarled and hardened by my excessively ascetical, self-crucifying life, fossilized into stone by centuries of foolish self-denial.
Mary felt sorry for me, yet shed no tears. Her warm hair caressed my neck. Her fingers massaged my back. Her loving touch was my three days in Hell, the Hell of my own cold hardness, of my resistance to the impact, however loving, of any personality other than my own, and of my realisation that my companion, too, was doomed to die…
In 1971 I also made the acquaintance of a very dynamic, if somewhat unorthodox leader of private encounter groups, who told me that he had had previous experience as a Buddhist monk, had studied bioenergetics with Alexander Lowen, primal therapy with Janov, and orgone therapy with Wilhelm Reich. He said he was familiar with the Qabalah, Scientology and ritual magic, and he professed himself interested in the religious side of life. His name was James Rice Alexander, but he preferred to be called Yann Reece, and also used the name John Doran. He attended some of my Upsurge meetings, and also took part in my encounter sessions at the City Literary Institute, in Stukeley Street, which was quite close to his flat in Coptic Street, just by the British Museum. (Some years later he moved to Maida Vale. He died while I was still living in London, and I was one among the many who attended his funeral in the local Church and internment in Highgate Cemetery.)
At Yann's invitation, I participated in some of his groups, and I organised a special week-end encounter marathon at an address in Pavilion Road, Knightsbridge, for some of his entourage. He also invited me to meet him and a few of his other friends in Glastonbury on Friday, 2nd July 1971.
Copyright © Nicholas R. Mann 1996
I spent that night with two girls in a rather monastic attic-room in Lambrook Street. Four other guests turned in at about 3 o'clock in the morning. Otherwise, I passed a peaceful and uneventful night.
Some other visitors had been lodged in different parts of the house, and after a frugal breakfast of muesli, we were joined by other acquaintances of Yann from different parts of the town.
A little after 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, he led twenty-four of us in spiral fashion up the grassy slopes to Glastonbury Tor and the ruins of the
14th-century chapel of St. Michael the Arch-Angel, who is, of course, a Seraph. I had not at that time read Brian Williams's How The Gospel Came To Britain, but the ideas it contains were certainly among those we spent some time in discussing, as we processed along our way.
After a few moments on the summit, spent in scrutinizing the hieroglypics on the faces of my companions, I made my way over to the concrete triangulation-point close to the ruins. I was standing on the highest point of a high, conical hill. An immense tract of flat land, intersected with artificial drainage ditches lined by pollarded willows, surrounded the Tor and
the immediately adjacent hills. The Mendip Hills rose to the North. Moors stretched westwards to the distant sea.
As perhaps you know, the Quaker movement started in Pendle in Lancashire after the founder, George Fox, climbed to the 1,831-feet-high top of Pendle Hill in 1652 and had his vision 'of a great people waiting to be enlightened and gathered in'.
From the top of the Tor I allowed my own eyes to move northwards, beyond the hills and the immediate horizon, first to my mother's home at Bolton, about 20 miles or so to the South-West of Pendle, and then northwards again, to my sister's residence in Irvine on the Scottish coast. After taking my bearings in this way, I spread out my vision to encompass the whole Earth.
I had informed Yann a few days previously of my interest in the Eastern approach to meditation, and he had invited me to join him at about 7a.m. on the terraced roof of his London flat, where he had asked me to meditate under his direction by walking about in silence for an hour and a half.
For the first half hour he had held me by the shoulders and, walking by my side, had directed me to move my right leg, move my left leg, move my right leg,… stop, look at the wall, raise my hands, touch the wall, lower my hands, turn round, move my right leg, move my left leg,… stop, look at the wall,…, etc.
For the second half hour, I had had to behave in the same way, and with just as much care and deliberation, but at my own discretion.
For the final half hour, my task had been to move with entire spontaneity.
Afterwards, in private, I had been recommended to reflect upon this experience. I am not convinced that we need have taken up all ninety minutes, but Yann's approach was certainly fascinating. I had found myself feeling afterwards that my head was a symbol of my embryonic self; it was a single cell exploding unceasingly into growth. I concluded that the widespread anxiety about some possible nuclear explosion that disturbed so many people, was partly the expression of their fear of letting go the restricting shells of their individual egos. I felt I wanted to let it flow.
My head seemed to have become unmoored, and to be floating off into space. My feet, and then my legs too, were streaming, and I was generally relaxed, without my tensions being thereby annulled or even diminished - my relaxation was undoubtedly very real, but it was at a different level from and unrelated to my consciousness of tension.
This feeling of letting go reminded me of an earlier fantasy I had had, that of my being a pig's head in a butcher's shop at Christmas, with an apple inside my mouth; it also recalled my fantasy about being simply a headless suit of shining armour. I remembered a dream in which I had been chased in the blackness and eventually beheaded by several dark figures, who had then proceeded to kill each other, until there had been only one survivor remaining - he had then turned out to be me!
Let it flow! Let it flow! I remembered film sequences of floating mines at sea, Saint Peter's dome, the Rome sports-stadium, a dome in the Turin 1961 international exhibition, a dome arriving from outer space in a science-fiction film on the telly, radishes, turnip-watches in an illustrated edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, a hunter watch my uncle used to have, the tops of women's bosoms and the edges of their bottoms springing out in a vital and joyful explosion from the frontiers of bras and panties, bowls on a bowling-green, barrage balloons near Tong Cemetery in Bolton during World-War II, the bowls carved on the headstone of my own father's grave there now, rosettes of spraying water in Bolton's Town-Hall Square, Christmas puddings, the dough rising in fron of the fire in the front room of my childhood home at 113 Beaconsfield Street, Bolton, just before my mother put the bread she was baking into the oven, a copper-bottomed kitchen-boiler she used to use, and also the entire music of the spheres.
Yann had invited me to go on thinking about spherical objects. As a result I had suddenly felt there was something exactly right about the shape of a spherical glass lampshade. I had become more aware of being fascinated by policemen's helmets, toy balloons, oranges, goldfish bowls and goose pimples. I had been happy to remember bowler hats, ping-pong balls, belisha beacons, Viking headgear, deep-sea divers' helmets, ripe tomatoes and glass marbles. I had reaffirmed my liking for pomegranates, cherries without stalks, lollipops and the planets or heavenly spheres.
I had also recalled my childhood fantasies of the headlike body of the octopus, and of the spider, especially Septimus Spider in some comic, perhaps the Beano, I had read avidly as a boy, fascinated and intrigued by the various adventures of Desperate Dan. I thought, too, of the tortoise and the turtle as walking brains. My mind passed next to the idea of brains floating in tanks of nutrient cultural fluids. I felt I wanted expansion, buoyancy and emergence.
Now, standing by that triangulation-point on the top of Glastonbury Tor, I began to think of myself as one half read hemisphere and one half drab flat metal. And then I though of that apparently drab half expanding into a sphere that filled my world, indeed, that was my world, with the still small red hemisphere being it controlling focus of propulsion, as it zoomed through space first, and then, being itself already everywhere, came to rest, or rather attained a state in which motion and rest were as one, a state in which the redness had diffused itself throughout the whole white mass, one in which I seemed to have achieved some final sort of unity and peace, a state beyond motion and rest, beyond human concepts of good and evil, beyond subject and object, even beyond living and dying - I was floating in the silent eloquence of an imaginary and yet strangely real eternity.
I felt I was Merlin come again. My white locks billowed in the wind roaring round the Tor. This was the slip-stream of cosmic process. That triangulation-point was the very apex of the swiftly advancing and deeply probing nose of the space-ship Earth, which was
zooming through space, delicately responsive to my directing touch of control, bearing with it in its wake the other planets of our solar system, the Sun itself and all the stars of our galaxy,
flying along in proud progress, flanked to left and right by its sister galaxies in all their radiance and splendour. Truly, I was the Lord of the Worlds!
At that moment I realised very clearly that the point behind and beyond Reich, on which the real future of human consciousness centred, was that all genuine growth is selflessly centrifugal, and that for this very reason it never upsets the homeoestatic balance and relative stability of the central and centering Self.
Precisely because my own control over my ever-moving world was, as I then imagined, so perfect, I had no need to confine myself any longer to a post of command. I smiled quietly to myself, as I relinquished my hold on the triangulation-point, symbol for me of the presence of the all-pervading Holy Trinity, then turned to descend the hill.
I felt I had arranged things well. Even without my needing to think about it at all, my Earth could now be relied on to stay on course, and my planets and stars would maintain their proper paths through the heavens. It was very nice to feel I could trust them — yes, I could now afford to trust my world, to trust everything, everybody.
I joined my companions for the week-end on one of the lesser hills, close by the Tor, but the lady of the house where I had slept the previous night was already vanishing in the distance, on her way home to prepare our lunch and, in her green dress and tights, hardly distinguishable from the grassland surrounding her.
A slight tremor passed through my body. I swept my eyes evenly over the assembled company. Then, with a dramatic gesture of my right hand, I called out, ‘Look!’ All turned their eyes to the cloudless eastern sky.
A huge chalice, surmounted by a large circular host well over a hundred yards in diameter, was now hanging suspended in the blue air, clearly and exquisitely outlined in all the colours of the rainbow.
A sign from heaven, a heavenly banquet, the Holy Grail, or just a picture traced out in the sky by a few aeroplanes? Whatever it was, I had, at the very least, timed my gesture well.
Our lady-in-green was waiting to greet us all back in Lambrook Street, with special rice dishes, spiced meats, chutney and excellent coffee.”
Colin James Hamer, The Rainbow
Cymbal, Vol. 2, pp. 723-4, 730-33 - from the desk of:
His Benevolence, The
Extra-Reverend Doctor Colin James Hamer DCH, MRP, STL, PhD, AFPhys
(ITEC), DSc (otherwise known as Shivananda) Preliminary LibrArian I+N
The Neith Network The Rainbow Programme, Creativity House 9 Oxford
Street, St. Thomas EXETER EX2 9AG Dear Wayfarer,
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) has explained that sculptors differ
from painters. Painters add; sculptors subtract. So, although one
Alpha-4 database I maintained when I was still using a Packard Bell
computer stored the titles of more than 3000 relevant books or
periodicals and of several excellent related audio-cassettes, compact
disks, records and video-tapes, my current aim is not unnecessarily
further to swell their already relatively small number but, instead,
whenever possible, increasingly to reduce in length any lists of
available materials I recommend to whatever seems to be the very
minimum compatible with utility, integrity and Truth.
Please find herewith, with my compliments and good wishes, copies
of two recently prepared leaflets. If your intelligence and energy
and background enable you to read them objectively, the two books by
Bernard Lonergan and by Helen Luke, the details of which are provided
in bold type on page 2 of "FREE TO GROW AND MATURE INDIVIDUALLY AS
PERSONS", would, when taken together, by themselves suffice to
provide you with any keys you need to answer all your remaining
questions.
That “if”', however, is big enough for me to have felt the need to
develop the Neith Network Library Resource at Creativity House
and also to append a few further borrowed comments to this short
letter.
I write as another Wayfarer, and as a sexagenarian life-long
exponent of Raja Yoga, Tantric initiate and Lay Roman Catholic member
of the ordained Christian Priesthood who readily acknowledges that
not all who claim to have knowledge are credible witnesses.
Asked, shortly before he died, whether or not he believed the
Church needed women priests, Bede Griffiths replied that we shouldn't
need any priests at all. Many question the wisdom of our continuing
use of such titles as Divine, Venerable, Extra-Reverend, Right
Reverend, Reverend & Holiness, Benevolence, Eminence, Worship,
Majesty, Excellency... these titles put many people off. That is why
I suggest you use mine only in their appropriate official context. As
regards yourself -
Should you at any time wish to visit me for counselling and
direction, you are, therefore, naturally more than welcome - and
there is a wide choice of hotels and B-&-B accommodation in this
ancient and beautiful City…
Dei gratia si quid est:
Saturday, 7 February 1998.
"People ask what are my intentions with my films - my aims. It is
a difficult and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive
answer: I try to tell the truth about the human condition, the truth
as I see it. This answer seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not
quite correct. I prefer to describe what I would like my aim to be.
There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck
by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came
from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and
together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They
worked until the building was completed - master builders, artists,
labourers, clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remained
anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of
Chartres.
Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are
unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its
basic creative drive the moment it was separated from worship. It
severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own sterile life,
generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist
remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and
died without being more or less important than other artisans;
'eternal values,' 'immortality' and 'masterpiece' were terms not
applicable in his case. The ability to create was a gift. In such a
world flourished invulnerable assurance and natural humility.
Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest
bane of artistic creation. The smallest wound or pain of the ego is
examined under a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The
artist considers his isolation, his subjectivy, his individualism
almost holy. Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we stand
and bleat about our loneliness without listening to each other and
without realising that we are smothering each other to death. The
individualists stare into each other's eyes and yet deny the
existence of each other. We walk in circles, so limited by our own
anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false,
between the gangster's whim and the purest ideal.
Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my
films to be, I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in
the cathedral on the great plain. I want to make a dragon's head, an
angel, a devil - or perhaps a saint - out of stone. It does not
matter which; it is the sense of satisfaction that counts. Regardless
of whether I believe or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I would
play my part in the collective building of the cathedral."
"Endeavour, therefore, to remain quiescent as life unrolls, work,
toil, strive, aspire, and hold the inner calm. Withdraw steadily into
interior work and so cultivate a responsiveness with the higher
planes. A perfect steadiness of inner poise is what the Masters need
in those whom They seek to use. Is is an inner poise that holds to
the vision yet does its outer work on the physical plane with a
concentrated physical brain attention which is in no way deviated by
the inner receptiveness. It involves a dual activity."
I invoke the path and experience of completeness so that the
unconscious part of my immortal mind is open to the present moment
and I am happy by the breaking of all material bonds and horizons.
"No blame, no condemnation, no criticism, no judgment, no
resentment - just love. A state of love growing, developing,
extending itself from the deepest level of the person which is me. I
let my love go to the whole human race, without distinction of race,
creed or colour. I let my love go wherever it is needed most, without
knowing where or to whom. Always a love which awakens growth. One
with myself, one with each member of the human race, in love, in that
love G-d is one with me IN Christ in the depths of my being."
"Hayek, Friedrich August von (b. Vienna, Austria-Hungary
[now Austria], 8.5.1899; naturalized British citizen, 1938; died 1992).
Austrian/British economist and political philosopher whose immensely
fertile mind has produced nearly 200 separate works, including major
contributions to scientific methodology, psychology and the history
of ideas. Hayek's name is virtually synonymous with the cause of
libertarianiam, the modern successor to the political liberalism of
the 19c. His career has encompassed periods as a civil servant and
teacher in Vienna (1921-31), Tooke professor of economics at London
University (1931-50), professor of social and moral sciences at the
University of Chicago (1950-62) and professor at the universities of
Freiburg (1962-8) and Salzburg (1968-77). In 1974 he shared the Nobel
prize for economics with Gunnar Myrdal, and other honours have been
showered on him. His early work, including The Pure Theory of
Capital (London, 1941), was largely concerned with industrial
fluctuations and associated questions. In a second phase of his
thought, he concentrated on the problems of individual values in a
world of increased economic controls. Works like The Road to
Serfdom (London, 1944) argue the case for an economic system
based on free markets and a political system granting individual
freedom within the law. The importance of prices in controlling the
functioning of the economy has been a constant theme. Law,
Legislation and Liberty (3 vols, London, 1973-9) is the major
achievement of his later years":
(W)Ri(gh)T[H]ings… The version you are now reading, wyTch is
“Volume Eleven” I†N The Present Series, contains no more
than an Initial Selection from The Preliminary LibrArian's
collection of personal correspondence and other documents currently
held at Creativity House, but this Table of Contents has been
extended to include a listing of other archive materials sometimes
available for consultation on site only by appropriately
recommended bona fide research students:
Virtuous Realities - A Conversation:
PREFACE;
INTRODUCTION;
BEGINNINGS;
TEXTS AND INTERPRETATIONS;
Prime Numbers related to 37; Boundaries and
THRESHOLDS; Traditions and
TRADITION; Freemasonry and Religion; Max
Heindel and “The Rosicrucian Fellowship”; Enochian Chess of The
Golden Dawn; The Enochian Tarot + The Qabalah Tree of Life;
Gematria of The Old & New Testament; The
Glastonbury Giants or Zodiac; Covenant
of The Heart; The Secrets of
Nostradamus.
Initiating Further Conversations: Sacred Geometry I†N
Ancient Wessex; Cross+Words:Truth -Triumph of Beauty & Deceit? ;
Discernment Antiquity of the Great
Pyramid; Context: Carl Nylander on Excavation in archæology;
Myth: Sitchin's understanding of “mythology”;
“myth” according to Argüelles; “myth” I†N its proper context;
Symbol: Pseudo-Dionysius on “initiation”.
A Coherent Pattern of Relationships:
Dante 's Divina Commedia; P. Lambert, C.
Tansey & C. Going, Caring about Meaning - Patterns in the Life
of Bernard Lonergan; Frederick E. Crowe, Lonergan; E .
Doyle, St. Francis and the Song of Brotherhood; S.
Houédard, “Buddhist Halœs & Catholic Halœs - Are they the
same colour?”; Julius Evola, The Mystery of the Grail; Alfred
Weysen, L'Île des Veilleurs; Bodvar Schjelderup's more
recent findings.
Complementary Readings: Joan D'Arcy Cooper on
meditation - The Litany or General
Incantation - Iman Wilkens on
church - Joseph Blenkinsopp on tolerance - The Hitch
Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Zecharia Sitchin on the Phobos 2
incident - position of Jesus of Nazareth & St. Paul - Sitchin's
reading of Genesis 1:1 - Bonnie Gaunt on
kedem - Alan F. Alford's Chronology of Gods
and Men - Peter Plichta's Deciphering of the Riddle of the
Universe - Numbers - Joan D'Arcy Cooper's account of Creation.
Additional Complementary Readings: Faith Javane & Dusty
Bunker, Numerology and the Divine Triangle - Mollie
Moncrieff, Memoirs of an Esotericist
- Peter Tompkins, Secrets of the Great Pyramid - Da Free
John, The Knee of Listening - Dudley Wright, The Eleusinian
Mysteries & Rites - Õm
namacivãyamê - - Sir John R. Sinclair, The Alice
Bailey Inheritance.
Potter and Fisherman - A Parable
by Bodvar Schjelderup
As The Rainbow Sings -
A SELECTION OF POEMS OLD AND NEW: ANON: Before Sleeping; A
Voice From Heaven; The Dream Of The Rood; Olde Exeter; Storm Clouds -
ALMA, NASIRA: I will go up to the altar of G-d - BENSON, ARTHUR
CHRISTOPHER: The Shepherd - BEST, CHARLES (fl.1602): A Sonnet Of The
Moon - BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757-1827): A Tear Is An Intellectual Thing;
The New Dispensation - PHILLIPA BOWES: How did I get here? - BYRON,
GEORGE GORDON, LORD (1788-1824): She Walks In Beauty - COWPER,
WILLIAM (1731-1800): Books - CRASHAW, RICHARD (1613?-1649): Saint
Teresa - DANIEL, SAMUEL (1562-1619): O Blessed Letters -DE GREY,
AMANDA: Logos - Fita Lux/Or - DRUMMOND, WILLIAM (1585-1649):
The Book; DRYDEN, JOHN (1631-1700): Song For Saint Cecilia's Day,
1687 - ELIZABETH I, QUEEN (1533-1603): On The Sacrament - EMERSON,
RALPH WALDO (1803-1882): Give All To Love - FANSHAWE, CATHERINE
(1765-1834): Enigma On The Letter H - FLETCHER, PHINEAS (1579-1625):
Song To Pan - FOWLER, ELLEN THORNEYCROFT :Sunshine; A Weaving Song -
HAMER, YASHA: Illuminations; Monsieur Shakespeare; Speculations;
Speculation II; The Vessel ;Turning Point - HEMMING, JOHN: The wHole
in the Net (Psi No More) - HILLYER, CAROLYN: House Of The Weavers;
Turquoise Lady; Night Woman; Magdalene; A Sister's Passion; Jaguar;
Rise Of The Corn; Secret Stream; Sacred Marriage; Egypt Dust; Angels
Of The Rising Dawn; Tread Gently; Mother Of The Moor; Give Me Wild;
Heron Valley; A Mystery Unfolding; Holly Woman; The Mask; Two
Drumbeats; I (Am The Spirit); The Fish And The Moon; Filled By You
Little Bird; Celebration Road - HUNT, JAMES HENRY LEIGH (1784-1859):
Abou Ben Adhem - JOHNSON, E. PAULINE (TEKAHIONWAKE): Shadow River,
Muskoka - LYTTON, EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER, LORD LYTTON
(1803-1873): Absent Yet Present - MACDONALD, GEORGE (1824-1905): Baby
- MACKAY, ERIC: Ecstasy - MENZIES, G. K.: Truth - MILTON, JOHN
(1608-1674): Philosophy - NORRIS, JOHN (1657-1711): To Darkness -
DEAN S. READING: O, Alabaster Bastions - JANE RHAPSODY: In Blue -
ROLLESTON, T. W.: Song Of Maelduin - SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
(1564-1616): To Gild Refined Gold; There Is A Tide In The Affairs Of
Men; Being Your Slave; Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds -
VAUGHAN, HENRY (1622-1695): To His Books - WELLS, CHARLES JEREMIAH
(1800-1879): Rachel - WILMOT, JOHN,EARL OF ROCHESTER(1647-80): My
Light Thou Art - ZUVUYA, UNCLE JOE, SERVANT OF THE: Merlyn - A Song
Of The Crystal Earth
MUSIC FOR THE INNER JOURNEY:
OM
An Initial Selection of Letters & Papers:
5/01/1994 The Way of Woman IN Today's World; 24/01/1994 Letter
to Mrs. Anuschka I. Jordan; 25/01/1994 Letter to Zecharia Sitchin;
7/02/1994 Letter to the Radio Times; 14/03/1994 Learning from
Doctor Crawford Knox; 16/03/1994 Letter to Dom Aldhelm Cameron-Brown;
18/03/1994 Letter to Mrs. Agnes J. Odell; 6/06/1994 Letter to the
Bishop of Crediton; 2/06/1994 Letter to Baroness Miranda von
Kirchberg; 24/07/1994 Letter to Sister Dominic Savio, C.P.; 4/08/1994
Letter to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger; 5/08/1994 Letter to Reverend
Doctor Ian Paisley, M.P.; 1/01/1995 Letter to Sister Dominic Savio,
C.P.; 7/04/1995 Letter to Jean Hutton & 99 others; 21/04/1995
Letter to Father Felix Donnelly, Ph.D.; 7/06/1995 Letter to Mrs.
Doriel Sybil Hall; 9/06/1995 Letter to Father Terence O'Brien,
S.D.B.; 23/06/1995 Letter to Archbishop Luigi Barbarito; 11/07/1995
Letter to Bishop Christopher Budd; 12/07/1995 Letter to Father
Frederick E. Crowe, S.J.; 14/07/1995 Letter to Father Bernard Grogan,
S.D.B.; 7/10/1995 Letter to Sister Dominic Savio, C.P.; 12/05/1996
Published Letter by Joseph Ellul . Various Dates ; Letters to Joseph
Ellul; 24/06/1996 Letter to Joe Fitzpatrick; 10/08/1996 Letter to
Elizabeth Bailey; Papal Infallibility; 25/10/1996 17/11/1996 Letter to Austin Winkley; 11/12/1996 Faxed Letter to Mr. Bell; 17/01/1997 The Common Good - Initial Complementary Reflections; 18/01/1997 Letter to Professor Giuliano Di Bernardo;
9/02/1997 Magisterium; 26/02/1997 Hail to the Dove! the
Restorer of Light!; “Introducing Robert Powell's Hermetic
Astrology”; 13/03/1997 The Wisdom of the Wyrd ; 16/3/1997
Quo Vadis? - The Subversion of the Catholic Church; 20/3/1997
Dialogue between Roman Catholics & Freemasons; 21/03/1997
Letter to Professor Giuliano Di Bernardo; 21/3/1997 Letter to Don
Luigi Bogliolo; 7/04/1997 Letter to Godfried Cardinal Danneels;
16/041997 Christian-Jewish-Muslim Dialogue; 29/05/1997 Letter to Professor
Giuliano Di Bernardo; 13/06/1997 Letter to Rt. Hon. & Mrs. Tony Blair & Family; 29/06/1997 G-d's Secret Formula; 22/07/1997 Letter to Dr. Brian C. Bates;
7 & 11/8/1997 Letter to Zecharia Sitchin; 7/11/1997 The
Millennium Moment; 9/11/1997 Actuality 2000 - Why Is The
Millennium News?; A Millennium Prayer; 21/11/1997 Letter
to Patricia J. Ryall; 22/11/1997; Letter to Malcolm Stewart 592
18/01/1998 Primordial Wisdom for the New Millennium;
19/01/1998 Letter to Godfried Cardinal Danneels; 6/02/1998 Letter to
Archbishop-Matriarch Meri Spruit; 16/02/1998 Letter to Archbishop
Pablo Puente; 15/03/1998 Letter to Anuschka I. Jordan
Selected PapersThe Crossroads of
G-d; Modern Science is catching up with Ancient Knowledge;
Scientific & Human Implications of Ninurta's & Nergal's
Detonation of Seven Atomic Bombs in the Sinai Peninsula in 2,024
B.C.; Critical Notes to extracts selected from Christopher Knight & Robert
Lomas's The Hiram Key (1996); Edward Ashpole, Where Is Everybody? - The
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (1997); etc.
Holy Styx!1 Holistics… Sticky Holes? It is 5.24 a.m. on
Friday, 5th September 1997, and I am increasingly aware that there is
so much we do not know.2
Tomorrow, with an unprecedented waiving of protocol, the Royal
Standard will be lowered over Buckingham Palace and, as “a unique
funeral service for a unique person” is held in Westminster Abbey,
the Union Jack will replace it and fly at half-staff.
Princess Diana, Dodi Al Fayed and Henri Paul, the driver of the
hired car in which the happy couple were travelling, died in Paris in
tragic circumstances in the early hours of Sunday, 31st August, and
the New Moon on Monday, 1st September, which signalled the beginning
in Oslo of nineteen days of intensive international negotiations to
put an end to the manufacture, sale and distribution of
anti-personnel mines, was maintaining a dark and solitary orbit
around a whole Earth which, thanks to satellite television and a
world-wide web of computerised communications, was already entirely
shrouded in grief.3
As Elton John will sing tomorrow:
And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind:
Loveliness we've lost; those empty days without your smile.
Goodbye England's rose, from a country lost without your soul,
“All true teaching is about the spiritual evolution of individual
men and women, about their growth of being, and about the ‘new man’
which is ultimately possible for each person.”5 In
Dhyana “the word ana is used to denote the development
of Objective Mind in man. The word ana is not a noun, which
stands for a state already acquired or developed, but a verb denoting
activity and the efforts necessary to become aware, or more
sensitive, or to stay awake to purpose and direction. It implies,
therefore, the making of special kinds of effort - not the efforts
necessitated by a man's physical life on earth or called forth by his
life on etheric planes, but extra effort: effort needed to go against
a tendency to drift which exists in every man on both the etheric and
physical planes. Growth of being at every stage depends upon this
extra effort signified by the word ana; and consistent effort
is required to achieve those attributes which belong, in differing
degrees and qualities, to the three different kinds of mind (i.e.,
As, Dhar and Dhy), namely, flexibility, sensitivity,
responsiveness to direction - and, above all, the effort needed to
stay ‘awake’… Each new stage or formation of mind may take hundreds,
or even thousands, of years to accomplish - especially if the person
allows himself to drift and his mind to diminish.” However, “after
the man's mind has clarified as a many-facetted crystal, there is the
next - and final - stage of Dhyana in which his efforts are
focussed on the cleansing and polishing of each crystal for the
achieving of Objective Mind… mind that is able to reflect Objective
Truth, that is, Truth about the spheres in which a man has his being
and that comprise all etheric life to which he is related and for
which he has any responsibility.”6
Tuesday's early morning post brought me a long, hand-written
letter expressing the personal concerns and private grief of a
correspondent in Kent and, in my reply, I strongly recommended a
careful reading of the whole of St. Paul's Letter to the
Ephesians.
I am especially fond of Ernst Cassirer's son, the Oxford Kantian
scholar, Heinz W. Cassirer's G-d's New Covenant - A New Testament
Translation7
in which Paul is translated as having written:
“I was to bring to light the scheme which was at work in the
mysterious design, kept hidden in the mind of G-d, the creator of
everything there is, from the very beginning of time. This scheme was
kept hidden to the intent that G-d's multifarious wisdom might now,
through the Church, be made known to those rulers and authorities
whose field of operation is in the heavenly realms…
Take the utmost care, then, about the manner in which you lead
your lives, not as fools but as wise men, making the most of the time
granted to you, for these are evil days…
Draw your strength from the Lord, from the mighty power which
is his. Clothe yourselves with all the armour which G-d provides, so
that you may be able to stand firm against the wily schemes of the
devil. For what we have to deal with in our struggle is not creatures
of flesh and blood. It is rulers and authorities reigning in a place
above the earth, those who have mastery over this world in these days
of darkness; it is the spirit-hosts of wickedness domiciled in the
heavens.
May grace be by the side of all who love the Lord Jesus Christ
with a love undying.”8
Although Joan Cooper - especially by her constant insistence that
our individual personal growth is not only an undying but, even more
importantly, an unending and increasingly vital process - has
undoubtedly shed some additional light on the meaning and relevancy
of Paul's words for truth-loving men and women today, many will be
inclined to question the validity of the Apostle's claim that G-d's
creation is grounded in some sort of “scheme” or “plan”.
In recent years such doubts have been considerably increased by
widespread acceptance of a loosely linked assortment of
pseudo-scientific concepts, theories and beliefs, notably those
associated with such terms as “relativity”, “probability”, “quantum
mechanics”, Heisenberg's “uncertainty principle”, “chaos theory”,
etc.9
Today, however, individual privately experienced and publicly
manifested reactions to Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed's shockingly
unexpected death are not alone in clearly indicating the dynamic
presence of a strong and fresh sense of certainty and
certitude.10
“Rectitude of conduct, trustworthiness and honesty are essential
elements in the foundation of stability and progress in the world…
Purity of motive offers a guiding light for all human endeavour,
inasmuch as sincerity of purpose is a trait that can be recognized
and practiced by any soul, regardless of his or her culture,
education or background… Service to humanity - not the pursuit of
money, position or status - is the source of happiness, honour and
meaning in life.”11
Granted all that, why have I today decided to write yet another
book?12
Deliberate lies, unintentional falsehoods and dangerously
incomplete or distorted presentations, interpretations and
evaluations of the available data are everywhere to be found, and the
most authoritative sources of information are also manifestly to be
numbered among our primary sources of misinformation.13 As
a sincere lover of Truth I am currently experiencing a strongly felt
need to do all I possibly can to set the record
straight.14
Many may remain convinced that I am pursuing an impossible
ideal.15 Many, too, will feel strongly that my aims and
objectives are, from both an educational and psychological point of
view, individually unattainable and socially undesirable and, indeed,
that they run the risk of seriously compromising our present levels
of individual mental health and community prosperity and
well-being.16
On the other hand, in the last few years and especially throughout
the course of the last few months synchronicities seem to be
multiplying within the context of my daily life. Increasingly,
therefore, I feel that the immediate background to my present mode of
being has already been conveniently summarized by Alice Bailey in her
Treatise on White Magic:
“Should the new mode of work appeal to you, see to it that the
personality is subordinated, that the life of meditation is kept
paramount in importance, that sensitivity to the subjective realm is
cultivated, and any necessary outer activities are handled from
within outwards. Avoid a purely mystical introspection or its
opposite extreme, an over-emphasized organizing spirit, remembering
that a life of truly occult meditation must inevitably produce
outer happenings, but that these objective results are produced
by an inner growth and not by an outer activity.
An ancient Scripture teaches this truth in the following terms:
When the Sun progresses into the mansion of the serving man, the Way
of Life takes the place of the way of work. Then the Tree of Life
grows until its branches shelter all the sons of men. The building of
the Temple and the carrying of the stones cease. The growing trees
are seen; the buildings disappear. Let the Sun pass into its
appointed place,17 and in this day and generation
attend ye to the roots of growth.”
At the Consecration in the Roman Catholic Mass, the celebrating
priest thus renews in English the words of Jesus: “Take this, all of
you, and eat it: this is my body”. I now understand “all of you” most
emphatically to mean not only “each of us” but also “every bit of
each one of us”, formally baptized Christians or not - and that is
why, pace Graham Green, I don't ultimately feel any
individuals are ever intrinsically “evil” or “bad”, even if there are
obviously endless ways in which many of us are sometimes very, very
“naughty” - and that, unfortunately, very often without our also
being at the same time “deliciously wicked” as well!18
Mother Teresa of Calcutta has just died, and Princess Diana's
mother and her two sisters have been attending a solemn Requiem Mass
celebrated by Cardinal Basil Hume in Westminster Cathedral. Darkness
cradles a broken world - may we rest I+N Peace…19
“Great is Diana of the Ephesians.”1
“Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”2
But the Ephesians' “Rose” by any other name may smell as sweet…
“Great is Artemis, goddess of the Ephesian people!”3
Greater by far, however, is Neith.4
…On Friday, 16th September 1994, I heard His Holiness Tenzin
Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, read in the English translation
here reproduced and then comment upon, partly in English and partly
in Tibetan, the following seven verses from Saint John's Gospel:
“Jesus proclaimed: ‘To believe in me, is not to believe in me
but in him who sent me; to see me, is to see him who sent me. I have
come into the world as light, so that no one who has faith in me
should remain in darkness. But if anyone hears my words and
disregards them, I am not his judge; I have not come to judge the
world, but to save the world. There is a judge for anyone who rejects
me and does not accept my words; the word I have spoken will be his
judge on the last day. I do not speak on my own authority, but the
Father who sent me has himself commanded me what to say and how to
speak. I know that his commands are eternal life. What the Father has
said to me, therefore - this is what I speak’.”15
His Holiness very helpfully referred to an enlightening Buddhist
near-parallel. Just as the one who sees impermanence thereby receives
the Dhamma, so only those who see, instead of merely seeing Jesus,
truly see the Father…
That, I feel, is exactly right.
According to John Lightfoot (1602-1675 A.D.) Adam's creation by
G-d occurred at 9 a.m. on 23rd October 4,004 B.C. Truth to tell,
however, that date is very far from being generally accepted.
“Most chronology for dates pre-600 B.C. is based, after the close
scrutiny of experts, on shifting foundations,” and in any tabulated
listing of conventionally accepted dates the allowable margin of
shift varies from “as wide as 1,000 years in the prehistoric
(pre-3,200) dates, to a 200/300-year gap that needs somehow to be
closed up during the beginning of the first millennium
B.C.”1
In the Jewish calendar 1997 A.D. is the year 5,757, but this does
not mean that Jews believe our world only came into existence 5,757
years ago in 3,760 B.C. Thoth had initiated Ancient Egyptian use of
the Pharaonic Calendar in 4,240 B.C., the Kalassasaya-Calendar
gateway had been inaugurated at Tiahuanaco in what is now Bolivia in
4,050 B.C., Susa had been founded c.4,000 B.C., and Glastonbury
emerged as Europe's earliest power-centre c.3,800 B.C., when urban
civilization was also being revived in Sumer where, according to
Zecharia Sitchin, the Anunnaki re-established the pre-Deluge Olden
Cities of Eridu and Nippur and founded a new temple-city, Uruk/Erech,
to honour the state-visit to planet Earth in 3,760 B.C. of the divine
Anu, whose beloved great-grand-daughter Inanna/Ishtar then made it
her official residence.2
At that time on Earth “there were two lines of priestood - one
Enlilite and oned Enki'ite; and two central scientific academies, one
in Enlil's Nippur and the other in Enki's Eridu. Both competing and
cooperating, no doubt, as the two half brothers themselves were…
‘Say, if thou knowest science: Who hath measured the Earth, that it
be known? Who hath stretched a cord upon it?’ So was Job asked when
called upon to admit that G-d, not Man, was the Ultimate Keeper of
the Secrets.”
But which god? - it seems pertinent to ask. “In the scene of the
introduction of the king-priest to Shamash, the purpose or essence of
the occurrence is indicated by two Divine Cordholders. The two
cords they stretch to a ray-emitting planet form an angle, suggesting
measurement not so much of distance as of orientation… The stretching
of cords to determine the proper astronomic orientation of a temple
was the task of a goddess called Shesheta in Egypt. She was on the
one hand a goddess of the Calendar; her epithets were ‘the great one,
lady of letters, mistress of the House of Books’ and her symbol was
the stylus made of a palm branch, which in Egyptian hieroglyphs stood
for ‘counting the years.’ She was depicted with a seven-rayed star
within the Heavenly Bow on her head. She was the goddess of
Construction.”3
Sitchin has done well in inviting us to ask the question: which
god? The most appropriate reply, however, I suggest, is neither Enlil
nor Enki, and neither Enlil's grandson Utu/Shamash nor Enki's gifted
and much travelled son Ninghishzidda/ Thoth/ Quetzalcoatl, but (as
the cited text itself declares) the lady of letters, goddess of the
Calendar, mistress of the House of Books. Why so?
Communion only flourishes in a union that enriches without
annulling plurality. Christians are called to acknowledge G-d as that
Unity which is Trinity. Accordingly, ecumenists seeking to promote
“Christian Unity” need always to remember that, when Jesus of
Nazareth prayed “that we may all be One”,4 he at
the same time used a plural verb, and it was that verb which gave to
the G-d/ man's human prayer whatever life-force it had/has.
“Fools,” explained the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus,
“do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself; it is a
tension of opposites, like the strings of a bow or a lyre.” That is a
saying we do well to remember, as we ponder the text of John
the Evangelist: “It was the Word that was at the very beginning; and
the Word was by the side of G-d, and the Word was the very same as
G-d. It was he who at the very beginning was by the side of
G-d.”5
Admittedly, although all sacred writings are precisely that
(texts, that is, not speeches), unlike human writing systems which
have never been developed primarily as representations of spoken
languages,6 according to tradition “divine words” or
hieroglyphics cannot fulfill their function independently of
the spoken words of the gods whose symbolic ikons they effectively
are conceived so to be that all manifest beings are writings and no
writings are fictitious.
In the Ancient Egyptian tradition Thoth was also in this sense the
god mainly responsible for divine writing, and his inventory of
written signs was, therefore, a catalogue of the whole of creation.
However, as is clear from the surviving texts, Isis and Horus could
also read and write, Osiris employed a number of assistant scribes,
and Neith, in addition to conducting her own extensive
correspondence, had the prerogative of actually calling back
and so effectively annulling any book carried by her
emissaries.7
Similarly, for the New Testament writers Jesus is the New Adam and
the New Covenant/Testament promulgated by Pontius Pilate from his
Cross on Calvary in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, and signed in Christ's
own most precious blood, fulfills Old Testament prophecy precisely by
annulling the Law of the Old Covenant in favour of that of
Unconditional Divine Love. Hence, Saint John's “the very beginning”
is not to be confused with any of the many real or imagined
beginnings associated with our everyday distinctions between “here
and now”, “there and then”, “once upon a time and far beyond the
limitations of this universe”, etc.8
Hindu tradition allocates a Catuyuga or Great Age of 4,320,000
years to Earth's and Mankind's history, beginning with a Golden Age
of 1,728,000 (i.e., 4 × 432,000) years, followed by an
Age of Knowledge of 1,296,000 (i.e., 3 × 432,000) years,
then an Age of Sacrifice of 864,000 (i.e., 2 × 432,000)
years and, finally, with its beginning at midnight, 17/18 February,
3,102 B.C., our present 432,000-years-long Kaliyuga or Age of
Discord. According to this same tradition, each Kalpa or Day of the
Lord Brahma comprises 1,000 such Catuyugas (i.e.,
4,320,000,000 years), a period of time which approximately coincides
with present-day scientific estimates for the age of our Solar
System.9
Robert Cowley, however, who delivered a lecture on these matters
to fellow members of RILKO (Research Into Lost Knowledge
Organization) in 1986, reports that the Kaliyuga actually began not
at midnight 17/18 February, but at 2 hrs., 27 mins., 30 sec. a.m. on
16 February, 3,102 B.C., when a notable conjunction of
planets10 marked Lord Krishna's departure from this
Earthly plane and the whole of mankind was plunged into darkness.
He adds: “In 1894, in India was held a Khumbha Mela at Allahabad
at the confluence of the Ganges, Jamuna and Saraswati rivers. A
visiting sage was invited to meet with the Mahavatar Babaji and to
him he opened his heart, describing to him his view of the state of
mind which mankind was presently experiencing. He pointed out that in
the Western world were many persons of great intelligence, far
greater than most present at the Mela, fit to hold communion with the
spiritual devotees, but who were sadly caught up in materialist
pursuits… Babaji smilingly informed the sage that the task of
enlightening the West by writing a book about the subject was his,
and he was invested with the title of Swami, later taking the name
Sri Yukteswar. The book was written in the same year.”11
Correcting the more generally held view, Sri Yukteswar states
that, although the Golden Age is followed successively by an Age of
Knowledge, an Age of Sacrifice and an Age of Discord, this Age of
Discord is then followed in its turn by a further Age of Discord
which is followed successively by an Age of Sacrifice, an Age of
Knowledge and a Golden Age, in other words, the cycle of the Ages has
an ascending as well as a descending arc. He adds that the dates
usually assigned to the various Ages are, as a result of errors
having crept into the almanacs c.700 B.C., also very far from
being correct.
If we accept Sri Yukteswar's figures, which suppose a precessional
cycle of 24,000 years rather than the more usual astronomical one of
25,200 years, the most recent descending-arc 4,800-years-long Golden
Age (which had been quasi-immediately preceded by an
ascending-arc Golden Age of similar length) began c.11,500
B.C., was followed by a 3,600-years-long Age of Knowledge that
started c.6,700 B.C., a 2,400-years-long Age of Sacrifice
beginning c. 3,100 B.C., a descending-arc 1,200-years-long
Kaliyuga that began c.700 B.C. and a new ascending-arc
Kaliyuga of the same length c.500 A.D. This latter gave way to
our present 2,400-years-long Age of Sacrifice c.1,700 A.D.,
and it needs to be added that each Age comprises three distinct
phases so that, e.g., 1,700-1,900 A.D. witnessed the dawn of
the current Age of Sacrifice, which may, therefore, be expected to
have its day until 3,900 A.D., and its twilight from then until 4,100
A.D. It is not difficult to demonstrate the plausibility of these
particular figures.
Since, however, “astronomical observations indicate that the
central region of the Milky Way, the source of its creative energy,
lies towards Sagittarius,” so that “when we face Gemini we are
looking towards the edge of the galaxy, when the Sun is in
Sagittarius the radiations from the Milky Way and the Sun are in
conjuction, when the Sun is in Gemini the radiations reach us in
opposition,” and since the true figure for each half-cycle of
precession is 12,960 years, Robert Cowley proposes (a) that the cycle
of the four Ages is not, as suggested by Yukteswar, one of 4,800 +
3,600 + 2,400 + 1,200 + 1,200 + 2,400 + 3,600 + 4,800 + 4,800+ …, but
instead of 5,184 + 3,888 + 2,592 + 1,296 + 1,296 + 2,592 + 3,888 +
5,184 + 5,184 + …, etc. years, and (b) that in calibrating the
details of this cycle the year 213 A.D. as the known date of a Vernal
Equinox in 0º Aries must be taken into account. Such
adjustments, clearly, are not devoid of practical implications.
However, as has already been mentioned, Shesheta's function as
goddess of the Calendar does not appear to have been that of
annulling the differences between Enlilite and Enki'ite calculations,
but rather one of artfully maintaining them in a state of creative
tension. Similarly, the Christian theologian St. Thomas Aquinas's
psychological trinitarian theory, which is not a conclusion that can
be demonstrated but simply an hypothesis in accord with divine
revelation as received within the Catholic Church, does not exclude
the possibility of our having recourse to some other alternative
imperfectly but fruitfully helpful explanatory
hypotheses.12
If, for instance, the application of Aquinas's dictum “agere
est pati quoddam” be extended, albeit only hypothetically, to
Infinite Being, Dom Bede Griffiths' claim that “in Eternity the Son
is begotten of the Father and conceived in the womb of the Mother,
the Holy Spirit, just as in creation the Father sows the seed of the
Word in matter, and the Holy Spirit, the Mother, nourishes the seed
and brings forth all the forms of creation”13 can be
appreciated as harmonising Catholicism and several other religious
and philosophical traditions, especially the Tao.14
In the Symposium15 Plato (429-347 B.C.) reports
his teacher Socrates as having had “Diotima of Mantineia, a woman
wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge” as his personal
instructress in “the art of love.” “G-d”, she explains, “mingles not
with man; but through Love all the intercourse and converse of god
with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on. The wisdom which
understands this is spiritual… Love is always plotting against the
fair and good.”16 Love is “bold, enterprising, strong, a
mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the
pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times,
terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist… by nature neither mortal
nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment… and dead at
another moment, and again alive… But that which is always flowing in
is always flowing out, and so is never in want and never in wealth…
Wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful;
and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and
being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the
ignorant… Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love.
The error in your conception [of Love] was very natural, and as I
imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and
the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful. For
the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and
blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such
as I have described’.”
The following passage in the Saktisangama Tantra also
invites attention: “Woman is the creator of the universe, the
universe is her form; woman is the foundation of the world, she is
the true form of the body. Whatever form she takes, whether the form
of a man or a woman, is the superior form. In woman is the form of
all things, of all that lives and moves in the world. There is no
jewel rarer than woman, no condition superior to that of a woman.
There is not, nor has been, nor will be any destiny to equal that of
a woman; there is no kingdom, no wealth to be compared with a woman;
there is not, nor has been, nor will be any holy place like unto a
woman. There is no prayer to equal a woman. There is not, nor has
been, nor will be any yoga to compare with a woman, no mystical
formula nor asceticism to match a woman. There are not, nor have
been, nor will be any riches more valuable than woman.”17
Manuela Dunn Mascetti takes us some way towards understanding this
difficult passage by imaginatively reminding us of the freshness and
unfettered freedom of early maidenhood: “The young woman who has just
passed the threshold of puberty and is now facing a new life of the
senses and of the psyche, can be compared to a butterfly who has
begun to spread her wings on a spring day. Animated by youthful and
positive energy, the young virgin sees life as a vastness of colours
and shapes all of which have become available to her. Her impulse to
fly is undaunted.
The archetype of the virgin represents that part of woman which is
‘untouched’ by worldly bonds, which has remained pure and
uncorrupted. It does not mean that she is literally and physically
virginal. She speaks and lives only her own truth and is
straightforward in her actions, following only her own
instincts.”18
The whole of Mascetti's lovingly written, beautifully illustrated
and lavishly produced book amounts, I feel, to a near apotheosis of
her above quoted physiologically and psychologically warranted but
philosophically and theologically highly questionable observation.
“The emphasis of modern education lies19 in the
flowering of the mind. We probe and question every detail, every
aspect of ourselves and the world that surround us, in an attempt one
day to understand.20 The process, however, is far from
being the innocent inquiry of the child or of the true saint, for
everything around us exists as evidence of the system's
success:21 a worthy career, a nobility of spirit, social
respectability. Even the trees, the soil and its fruits are good,
solid things. Things that matter. But still we remain empty,
spiritless, worthless, as if we lived in a world of
shadows.22 Why?
In this quest for understanding with its ever growing avenues of
complexity, we have fallen into the rapture of constantly asking. The
truth is we already know the answer, an answer which is deeply rooted
in our past, shaping our reality every day of our lives, even though
we may not always be aware of it. For this is mythology…
Certain imprints, deriving from the direct physical experience of
life such as day and night, above and below, cold and heat, are
impressed upon the nervous system in the period between birth and
death and many of these are the source of our most widely
known mythological images. The responses of pleasure and fear to the
experience of the world, for instance, shape our mode of being so
profoundly that they are recorded in mythology as the foundation of
our lives.”23
A source and a foundation? No doubt… But beyond that?
“Kali is generally represented as black. ‘As all colours disappear
in black, so all names and forms disappear in her.’24 In
Tantric literature she is described as totally naked, free from all
covering of illusion25… ‘Material cause of all change,
manifestation, and destruction, the whole universe rests upon her,
rises out of her, and melts away into her; she is both mother and
grave.’26 Kali is usually portrayed with a garland of
human heads, each representing one of the fifty letters of the
Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizing knowledge and wisdom as well as one of
the fifty fundamental vibrations in the universe.”27 The
Sanskrit language “was said to have been invented by Kali who created
the magic letters of the Sanskrit alphabet and wrote them out on her
rosary of skulls. The letters were runes or magic symbols hung around
Kali's neck because they stood for primordial creative energy. By
creating a word, the world sprang into existence.”28 Kali
was, in other words: “cosmic power, the totality of the universe, the
harmonization of all opposites.”29 “Material cause of all
change, manifestation and destruction… the whole Universe rests upon
her, rises out of her, and melts away into her.”30 A much
more promising beginning…
one of four gold-lettered volumes bound in green calf
by Ann Muir of West Woodlands, Frome, who also bound
the huge Book of Spells that features in the film Witches.
Letter to a Wayfarer
+ Colin
Preliminary LibrArian I†N The Neith Network
Creativity House, EXETER
"What has made men good is neither nature nor reason but tradition." - Law, Legislation and Liberty (reprinted 1993, vol. 3, p. 160).
Virtuous Realities
A Conversation
The name “Diana” is related to the Sanskrit word “dhyana”
and this, as is clear to me, is no accident. Although, as Joan D'Arcy
Cooper (1927-1982) concedes, “Social Behaviour may be ‘right’ for the
society in which a person lives… unless - or until - a person is able
to reveal in some degree what society seeks to hide or repress, he
can never discover the true nature of his own etheric being and begin
to fulfil the reason for which he came into a physical life. This is
why every form of authoritarian or highly-organised society is
inimical to individual spiritual evolution, because it prevents the
individual person from expressing and therefore facing his true self
from which experience alone comes the desire for his own spiritual
growth.”4
“Goodbye England's rose; may you ever grow in our hearts.
You were the grace that placed itself where lives were torn apart.
You called out to our country, and you whispered to those in pain.
Now you belong to heaven, and the stars spell out your
never fading with the sunset when the rain set in.
And your footsteps will always fall here, along England's greenest hills;
your candle's burned out long before your legend ever will.
This torch we'll always carry for our nation's golden child.
And even though we try, the truth brings us to tears;
all our words cannot express the joy your brought us through the years.
who'll miss the wings of your compassion more than you'll ever know.”
- Shalom & Welcome! - 
© The Neith Network Library 2008
Webmaster: H.B. ExtraReverendDoctorColinJames Hamer, The Rainbow Programme
Creativity House, 9 Oxford Street, St. Thomas, EXETER, Devon EX2 9AG, U.K.
Updated 12:34 1/7/2008.
