Dervish (Persian) Driyosh (Pahlavi) Drighu (Avestan) (from Pers darvish seeking doors from dar a door; i.e., those who seek from door to door, beggars)

Poor one; an Islamic devotee, used in mystic Persian literature for one who shows his spiritual grandeur by turning away from the common norms of society and material wealth. Originally a mendicant, but now it generally indicates a member of a religious fraternity, whether mendicant or not, cloistered or lay. In Turkey and Persia it indicates a wandering, begging religious, called in Arabic-speaking countries a fakir. Those whose faith is so great that they have miraculous powers are termed walis.

The dervishes are the practical expounders of Islam. As with the fakirs and sufis, the origin of the dervish fraternities is assigned to either Ali or Abu Bekr. They are divided into two great classes, the ba-Shara (with the law), who govern their conduct according to the principles of Islam; and the be-Shara (without the law), who do not rule their lives according to the formal principles of any religious creed, although they call themselves Moslems. The sufis belong principally to the latter class.

There are reckoned 32 different fraternities of dervishes, with innumerable suborders, but the two principal ones known in the West are the Mevlevits (whirling or dancing dervishes), an order founded by Jelal ud-Din ar-Rumi, author of the great Persian mystical poem the Mathnawi; and the Rifa'ites (howling dervishes), who in ecstasy cut themselves with knives, eat live coals and glass, handle red-hot iron, and devour serpents.

In the symbolism of Hafiz (14th-century mystic Persian poet) dervish is one who has reached the highest degree of spirituality by giving up worldly possessions and in a beggar-like appearance holds the secret of alchemy. In later times, people who did not understand the subtleties of mysticism took the symbolic rejection of the material world too literally and the attitude of certain dervishes also contributed to this misconception, particularly during the Safavids, who were themselves dervishes, followers of the Sharia or Shariat (the outward rituals of religion).

(See also: Dervish, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Medicine As the healing art, medicine is as old as thinking man. Before the latent fires of mind were lighted in the third root-race, disease and death were unknown. However, with the physicalization of protoplastic humanity, and the separation of the sexes, the unnatural linking with the animals in the third and fourth root-races disordered the harmonious relations between man and nature. In addition, self-conscious man's continued evolution into matter, with the involution of his spiritual nature, brought about forms of disorder, disease, and physical death. Then, beings from higher spheres descended, and dynasties of divine kings and spiritual guides taught men, leading them to the invention of all the arts and sciences, including the medical use of plants (cf SD 2:364).

Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural "magic" which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became -- albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions -- a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars -- the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.

Of the archaic history of medicine -- as of the race -- little is to be found. However, echoes of the primitive wisdom have survived, and every country having a literature of its ancient periods has some account of the healing art. The Hindu sacred scriptures -- the oldest literature extant -- have treatises upon medicine and surgery, showing a profound and intimate knowledge of the subject. This high standard was not maintained when the Vedic writings became misunderstood and mutilated by later commentators. The exclusive Brahmins' assumption of the right to all knowledge also prevented original thought and research. What writings are available today are of little practical value without the lost key. Even our typically matter-of-fact interpretation of legendary and classical beliefs and customs, and of archaeological findings, overlooks that what is known of ancient medical practice is largely exoteric, symbolic of a deeper teaching than we possess.

Records of ancient medicine in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, etc., tell of the temples being used as hospitals, with priest-physicians supported by the state giving every care to the sick who came, both rich and poor. In addition to material means of treatment -- many of which we have rediscovered -- these devotees of the gods of healing used special incense, prayers, the "temple sleep," invocations, music, astrology, etc., which we regard as harmless superstition of an earlier day. However, such conditions, intelligently adapted to each case, in making a pure, serene, uplifting atmosphere around the sick person, would invoke the influences of wholeness within and without him. By putting the inner man in tune with his body, his disordered nature-forces manifesting as disease would tend to flow freely in the currents of health. Natural magic is as practical as the unknown alchemy which transmutes our digested daily bread into molecules of our living body.

There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.

(See also: Medicine, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

NEOPLATONISM

By the 3rd Century A.D., an eclectic occultism composed of Neoplatonism and Qabalah seriously rivalled Christianity. All those who wrote on this subject went under the name of "Hermes," the best known book of which is "The Pymander." Later, Hermes was equated with alchemy. With Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, the religion of the Orient were fused to Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle and Stoicism eventually to form a doctrine of three hypostases (Monos, Nous, Psyche). The material world and its glories are the work of demons but union with the gods, our higher souls, our higher egos, can be accomplished only by theurgical means, which join us according to individual capacity to the divinely creative realm. Vatic powers reside in the higher ego which we all possess. In the 4th Century, Iamblichus (author of De Mysteriis), in struggling against the Galileans, stressed intellectual meditation and vigorously opposed magic and religion. But he virtually equated theurgy with raja yoga, calling samadhi manteia. In the 5th Century, Neoplatonism under Porphyry (who was Jewish), split into a Xtian version at Alexandria and an extremely short-lived Pagan version at Athens under Proclus. Porphyry and Plotinus also disapproved of "phenomenal theurgy" (physical magic). Neoplatonism was revived during the Renaissance by Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, whereafter it survived through the XIXth Century.

Its chief philosophy can probably be summed up as simple pantheism, but which the Xtians complexified to "the Logos that derives from One Divine Source."

Neoplatonism regarded Egypt as the source of all occult knowledge. Saccas himself rejected Xtianity totally, as it had in it nothing that could not be found in previous teachings. Paul Christian in his History of Magic tells us that, according to Proclus, Plato underwent a 13-year initiation in the mysteries of Thoth-Hermes by famed magi of Memphis -- Patheneitb, Ochoaps, Sechtnouphis and Etymon of Sebennithis. He emerged with what we now know as the "Platonic Doctrine."

At its best, Neoplatonism encouraged in the West an interest in Oriental systems, picking up Qabalah, Buddhism and Hinduism as enrichments. At its worst, it popularized an "anything goes" bubble-headed mysticism.

(See also: NEOPLATONISM, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

ELEMENTS

The four principles of reality. They derive their nature from the phases of the Moon (Waxing, Full, Waning, Disappearing) and can be associated with the four points of the compass (see TETRAMORPH), but we should be wary of trying to assign a logical progression to them. For instance, science tends to see them merely as matter, energy, space and time. But contemporary scientific rationalism does not apply to ancient intuitional philosophy.

The ancients were correct to advise us not to try to separate the elements from one another (the "unified field" theory, however, doesn't apply to this aspect either). They take their being from the context of one another acting in unison. Thus Earth is the materialized, magnetic form which seeks contraction (coagula) and Air is the medium of space, freedom and dispersion (solve). Water is the dual flow of involution and evolution, the End and the Beginning, quicksilver-like Creation and Dissolution, Surface and Depth. The waters are divided into the upper waters of the potential and the lower waters of the actual. Water is the element of transition between the other elements. Fire, the plasmic state of transmutation, is the energy behind all things.

Each element is unique in its relationship to the others and in fully exercising that uniqueness, disappears. Water confluences the elements into a duality, Earth contains them all and is their united totality. Air is the separation in which they individuate themselves and vanish, while Fire is the uniqueness itself that extracts anything from its context, particularly the separation of "something" from Nothing, or vice-versa.

The quartering of the elements takes innumerable forms. Eliphas Levi, for instance, even gives a tetramorphic quaternity to Alchemy (Salt, Sulphur, Mercury and Azoth) and to the Qabalah (Macroposopus, Microposopus and the 2 "Mothers").

In Facing the Sphinx, Marie Farrington gives the number of elements as seven: earth, water, fire, air, ether or vapor, blossom (the seminal principle) and the Wind of Purpose (or Ghost). Amongst the Hindus the sixth was Bala-Rama, "the representation of masculine virility, the semen virile. The 7th was the summit and soul of the rest." In Ancient China, we observe earth, water, fire, wind and space (wood is only a physical element). The seven Latin verbs are Velle, Audere, Scire, Tacere, Revelare, Resurgere, Renunciare.

(See also: ELEMENTS, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Swastika svastika (Sanskrit) An auspicious or lucky object; especially applied to the mystic symbol -- a cross with four equal arms, the extremities of which are bent sharply at right angles, all in the same direction -- marked upon persons and things in order to denote good luck, although originally the symbol had a far deeper significance. Sometimes the arms are bent to the left, sometimes to the right.

The symbol is very widespread, and extremely ancient, engraved on every rock-temple and prehistoric building in India, and wherever Buddhists have flourished, as well as in Greece, among the ancient Scandinavians, and in ancient America. It has been called the Jaina Cross; Fylfot, Mjolnir, or Thor's Hammer by the Scandinavian peoples; and in the Chaldean Book of Numbers the Worker's Hammer.

One of the most comprehensive, important, and philosophically scientific symbols, it is a symbolic summary of the whole work of evolution in cosmos and man, from Brahman down to the smallest biological unit. "Few world-symbols are more pregnant with real occult meaning than the Swastica. It is symbolized by the figure 6; for, like that figure, it points in its concrete imagery, as the ideograph of the number does, to the Zenith and the Nadir, to North, South, West, and East; . . . It is the emblem of the activity of Fohat, of the continual revolution of the 'wheels,' and of the Four Elements, the 'Sacred Four,' in their mystical, and not alone in their cosmical meaning; further its four arms, bent at right angles, are intimately related . . . to the Pythagorean and Hermetic scales. One initiated into the mysteries of the meaning of the Swastica, say the Commentaries, 'can trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos and the whole period of Sandhya.' Also 'the relation of the Seen to the Unseen,' and 'the first procreation of man and species' " (SD 2:587).

The bent arms also signify the continual revolution of the invisible cosmos of forces, which on our plane becomes the revolution in time of the world's axes and their equatorial belts. In alchemy its shows that by the unceasing revolution of the four elements, equilibrium about a stable center is attained, the circle is generated out of straight lines, the complex and changeful nature becomes one. The two crossed lines represent spirit and matter, male and female, positive and negative. It shows man to be a link between heaven and earth, for the horizontal arm having one hook pointing up, the other down. In its applicability to all planes it contains the key to the seven great mysteries of kosmos.

(See also: Swastika, svastika, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Salt Used in alchemy for a fundamental principle of nature, a member of the triad mercury, sulphur, and salt, corresponding to spirit, soul, and body; or to fire (or air), water, and earth. Paracelsus regarded these as the mystical elements of all compound bodies.

All forms of matter were reducible to one or other of them -- everything was either a sulphur, a mercury, a salt, or a compound. The philosopher's stone was said to be a compound of all three. Thus salt is the physical rudiment, as illustrated by the cubical crystals of common salt. Ancient thought regarded such elements as fundamental principles which manifest on various planes, nor did it make hard and fast distinctions between physical and nonphysical; but modern thought has given a fictitious reality to physical objects, and regards the ancient use of the terms as metaphorical.

The veneration shown for salt was not a mere deification of its physical virtues, but a recognition of the salt-principle in nature, of which ordinary salt is merely a physical emblem. The well-known stimulant, flavoring, and preservative qualities of salt prove it to be a physical manifestation of an important principle; such phrases as bread and salt, and salt of the earth are therefore theosophy, as concerns not merely figures of speech but a use of salt in its more radical sense. For the same reason it played an important part, along with other substances, in sacrificial ceremonies.

The word was also used to include other bodies besides sodium chloride or common salt, and is still used in chemistry in this generic sense. With some alchemists we find arsenic taking the place of salt in the fundamental triad, and this would be one of the salts of arsenic.

The Roman Catholic ritual of the exorcism of salt, promulgated in 1851 and 1852 under the sanction of Cardinal Engelbert, Archbishop of Malines, and of the Archbishop of Paris, runs: "The Priest blesses the salt and says: 'Creature of Salt, I exorcise thee in the name of the living God . . . become the health of the soul and of the body. Everywhere where thou art thrown may the unclean spirit be put to flight' " (IU 2:85). A Qabbalistic version is similar.

(See also: Salt, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mercury For the Latin god,

See HERMES

Also the closest visible planet to the sun. Irregularities discovered in its orbit led astronomers at one time to suspect that there is an inter-Mercurial planet, and such a suspected planet, once claimed to have been seen crossing the solar disk, was named Vulcan. Mercury is included in the enumeration of the seven sacred planets of the ancients.

Theosophy, as it does with all the visible planetary bodies, considers Mercury to be the lowest globe of a septenary chain of globes; so that this planet is not one of the seven globes of the earth-chain (SD 1:163 et seq). A connection with the earth-chain, however, is found in that the spiritual rector or genius of the Mercury planetary chain has especial influence over globe E of the earth-chain, and over the fifth or present root-race of our globe D. Astrologically, the zodiacal houses of Mercury are Gemini and Virgo; it has given its name to the day of the week Wednesday.

As Mercury is about ready to inaugurate its last or seventh round, it is far older as a chain in its present imbodiment than is the earth-chain in its. It is supposed to receive seven times more light and other solar energies from the sun than the earth receives. "Mercury is, as an astrological planet, still more occult and mysterious than Venus. It is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the genius, or god, 'established between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of "Sun" of Wisdom' " (SD 2:28). Esoterically the planets Mercury, Venus, and the Moon in ancient ceremonial rites were represented by three initiators. This is the origin of the three Magi or wise men associated with Christmas and the birth of Jesus.

The metal mercury plays a great part in alchemy, being one of the trinity of sulphur, mercury, salt -- denoting spirit, water, and blood; or flame, nature, and mother.

(See also: Mercury, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Urdhva-reta:

Upward refinement of the juice-current of life, the body's inherent capacity of "inner alchemy", or what is loosely known as sublimation.

(See also: Urdhva-reta, Kundalini, Kundalini Yoga, Kundalini Dictionary)

Atlanteans The various peoples which flourished during long ages, on the fourth great continent, called Atlantis by theosophists; the fourth root-race. "The Fourth Race Atlanteans were developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian Third Race Men, centred, roughly speaking, toward a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean. This continent was formed by the coalescence of many islands and peninsulas which were upheaved in the ordinary course of time and became ultimately the true home of the great Race known as the Atlanteans" (SD 2:333-4).

"The term 'Atlantean' must not mislead the reader to regard these as one race only, or even a nation. It is as though one said 'Asiatics.' Many, multityped, and various were the Atlanteans, who represented several humanities, and almost a countless number of races and nations, more varied indeed than would be the 'Europeans' were this name to be given indiscriminately to the five existing parts of the world; . . . There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans; giants and dwarfs . . ." (SD 2:433n).

It is customary to regard the later Atlanteans as a race of sorcerers because, according to the narratives told concerning the doom of Atlantis and its inhabitants (cf SD 2:427), many deliberately followed the left-hand path -- yet not all were black magicians, for there were millions in all ages of Atlantis who earnestly essayed to preserve the wisdom of their semi-spiritual forebears of the third root-race. There were wonderful civilizations during the millions of years of Atlantean development surpassing in material things anything that is known today.

In regard to the remarkable achievements that the Atlanteans made in all the arts and sciences, we read that the early fifth root-race received their knowledge from the fourth root-race. "It is from them that they learnt aeronautics, Viwan Vidya (vimana-vidya)

(the 'knowledge of flying in air-vehicles'), and, therefore, their great arts of meteorography and meteorology. It is from them, again, that the Aryans inherited their most valuable science of the hidden virtues of precious and other stones, of chemistry, or rather alchemy, of mineralogy, geology, physics and astronomy" (SD 2:426).

When the cyclic hour for the climax of the geologic changes in the earth's surface finally arrived, the catastrophe occurred during which the greater part of Atlantis and its population, largely of sorcerers, perished beneath the sea; yet many islands survived, some of them of large extent, such as Ruta and Daitya. But the wiser and more holy portions of the Atlanteans had left Atlantis before this, migrating to the high tablelands of Asia: they were the forefathers of the Turanians, Mongols, Chinese, and other ancient nations.

(See also: Atlanteans, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Fire Fire has been venerated in all ages as the symbol of spirit as opposed to matter. Its essence or substance is spirit; with essential or substantial air or water -- considered as primordial elements -- it becomes soul; with the further addition of the element earth, it becomes animated bodies because ensouled and enlivened with the attributes and qualities of the preceding more ethereal elements.

 Great importance was attached in ancient times to keeping alive the sacred fires of hearth and altar. In all this it was recognized that terrestrial fire is the representative of celestial fire, a phase of cosmic consciousness. Deity is often spoken of as the cosmic fire of consciousness.

The ancient conception of fire thus embraced far more than the ordinary view of fire as chemical combustion or one of its phenomena. Among all the older peoples fire was multitudinous in both characteristics and attributes, ranging from divine-spiritual intellectuality through all intermediate stages of its manifestations to the physical heat arising from the burning of material such as wood, or the natural heat of the body. It is for this reason that certain ancient philosophers, such as Heracleitos, spoke of fire as the primordial element of the universe, in close accord with the archaic outlook.

Fire is the active, energic, vitalizing, quickening principle on all planes. It is often paired with water as spirit and form; contrasted with earth, as celestial and terrestrial; air is spoken of as its vehicle, as is also aether, because the root of cosmic aether is the celestial fire. The order of the elements varies, from different points of view and on different planes of manifestation. The Secret Doctrine states that from primordial chaos came forth a fire that was cold, formless, and luminous -- essential consciousness-substance. The first manifested hot fires and flames issued at a much later stage in manifestation. Concealed within the central sun is the triple formless invisible fire, which precedes the septenary manifested fire of cosmos. Fire, whether heavenly or terrestrial, is the most perfect and pure reflection of the one universal flame; it is life and death, creator and recreator; the origin and end of every material thing -- divine consciousness-substance. From one flame all lamps can be kindled: fire imparts infinitely without loss. Fire alone is One, on the plane of the one reality; and on the plane of illusion, its particles are fiery lives.

Like most other things, fire has its nether pole and hence its infernal aspect; but the fires of hell are purificatory. By his power of self-conscious choice an individual may set himself at variance with nature's processes, thus creating his own devils. Fire was the great agent of purification in medieval alchemy, for it removes the dross from the gold. The same is true on the moral plane, for spiritual aspiration calls down an inner fire that purifies the gold from the dross in the aspirant's heart. The two births or baptisms relate to water and fire; the former being carnal, the latter being the spiritual birth or baptism that comes to the aspirant.

See also AGNI; ELEMENT; FLAMES; TAIJASA-TATTVA

(See also: Fire, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

THE EMPEROR AND THE STAR

These are Crowley's two greatest mysteries. We need to study them in tandem, because Crowley insists that the Emperor's proper letter is not Heh, but Tzaddi, so it must change places with The Star. Since these new attributions fly in the face of every tradition, let's try to guess why he does this.

By Crowley's reckoning, the star, Kokhav = 48 (a multiple of 12), the astrological number) or the "sphere of Venus". It represents Mercy (Gedulah or Chesed ). It also means, "strength" and "army". Forty eight divided by four is 14, the card of Temperance (or Alchemy), where we also have the angel pouring the waters. Qisar and Melech both translate as "Emperor". To continue with Crowley's reckoning, qisar would equal 371 ("Evil") and melech would equal 78 (that is, 15, or The Devil). However, if we use the ordinal value of the letters alone we get for Qisar and Melech, respectively, 60 and 33. Thirty Three is "sorrow, weeping" and a spring or fountain." Sixty is "watch-tower", excellence, sublimity, glory, pride, a Vision..." For kochav we get 28 or "Union, unity, power, and the mystic Netzach. . ." If we skip Aleph we get for Qisar and Melech, 60 and 30 ("Judah, Libra, Justice"). All of these seem appropriate enough for "The Emperor" but still do not explain why Crowley wants him to be the 17th card!

One reason that Crowley might have wanted to exchange The Emperor with Atu number 17 is so that (17 = 1 + 7 = 8) The Emperor (4) would serve as the higher exponent of Justice, which he had renamed "Adjustment" and already exchanged with Strength at 11. In his system, that places mundane authority (the Emperor) in the most subservient position and exalts Sirius (the Star) to the seat of greatest power at Atu 4. Meanwhile, Strength, now Atu 11, becomes the higher exponent of The Priestess (Atu 2), since 11 is the number of sorcery. This kind of highly rational manipulation of universal symbols is typical of Crowley's creative and very original approach to M/magic(k). The whole thing is extremely round-about and vexatious and looks like nothing so much as one of those infinitely-regressing whorls of cocaine-induced ratiocination, which were sometimes characteristic of Crowley. His paltry excuse that tzaddi is the letter that begins the word for Emperor "in many languages", is not meant to fool any serious student. It occurs only in Russian, Tsar, which is but a corruption of "Caesar."

Moreover, even if we assign the ordinal value to tzaddi (18), that translates as the notariqon of Yehi Aur ("Let there be light!"); Chai (the "living"); the antique serpent (Lucifer?); Hatred and "My Beloved". All of those seem strangely fitting for The Star, whereas "four" seems more natural to the Emperor if we think of him as the Tetragrammaton (IHVH). Apparently, that was precisely what AC wanted to avoid -- the ascription of IHVH to the Emperor. All the same, after all this numerology, we are no closer to the meaning of these cards. Indeed, we are farther at sea than ever!

(See also: THE EMPEROR AND THE STAR, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

QLIPHOTH/QLIPPOTH

Lit. "shells" (singular: qliphah). Shades of the dead whose names appear in the books of Dyzan or Thoth, or the Book of the Law (AL). They may contain formulae of magical powers. RAW calls them "souls of those who died insane... the tulpas of Tibet... avatars of Coyote, the American Indian prankster-god." RAW also identifies them with the Celtic "little people" or faeries. Some of the twenty-two qliphotic entities of the Black Tarot, as envisioned by Grant, are defined herein under separate entries, although strictly speaking, the qlippoth are the names of the guardians of the tunnels, not the tunnels themselves. To understand the qliphothic atus fully and to do them justice can be more deleterious to the artist or researcher than one might suspect. Conceivably, such complete understanding could result in the destruction of the ego without restoration in the Oversoul and therefore lead to actual madness. Dealing with the Qliphoth is the psychic equivalent of working with toxic wastes, dangerous animals or high voltage wires.

To invoke any force is to invoke automatically its opposite as well. In the more conventional sense, qliphoth are negative cosmic energies equating with the ten positive Sephiroth (e.g., Lilith is the evil counterpart of Malkuth). All positive aspects of divinity have their "excremental" sides, or demons: Beelzebub, Satanas, etc. The difference between metamorphosis and excretion is thinner than you might guess.

From the universal lexicon:

          scall         English                 scab

          chale         Cupeno                  husk, shell

          skalli        Icelandic               a peeled head

          geled         Hebrew                  skin

          kulit         Malay                   skin

          skull         English                 the "shell" of the brain

          azal          Basque                  peeling

          soale         Hausa                   to peel off

          scale, shell  English

          scalp< shell a Dutch M. schelpe Qabalah the of ?demons? or refuse? ?peelings, Qlipphoth discard husk, Hebrew qliphah husk peel; skin; to Malay kupas sheath English Middle>

In the waning years of Alchemy, occultists were fond of saying that the Philosopher's Stone was "that which all men despise" -- and this in turn led the puffers to experiment with various types of excrement in order to see if that substance, perchance, could possibly yield the Secret of the Ages, since nothing so far had succeeded in doing so. And of course all such experiments accomplished was to mark the nadir of human folly.

What is this word "excrement", after all? It's from Latin, excernere, "to separate." It is a separation, a peeling away, as when we peel away a scab or a blister, making it no longer a part of ourselves. German scheiden/schieden (divide, separate, divorce) is simply another form of the word Scheisse (Fr. chier, Engl. shit) or its Greek equivalent schizo, "to split."

Latin cutis (skin), we should notice, first of all, is a cognate of Greek skatos (dung). Like the snake, what we throw away begins with the "skin" -- a word which probably represents a form of one of the universal roots. Compare Peruvian kina (the bark, or tree peeling, whence we get quinine) and Malay sisek (fish scales). Perhaps even the Austrian Kakadu word, k…ngir meaning "skin" is distantly related. At any rate, k…ngir is almost certainly the origin of "kangaroo," particularly since the Australian Warramunga word, nguru, meant "foreskin." These two are clearly connected and the marsupial associations are plain enough.

The puffers didn't understand that excrement isn't exactly what all men despise. Or to be more precise, what matters isn't so much what is discarded and thrown away, but the value we place on the kept, as opposed to the trash. That faulty decision itself is where the problem lies. In fact, the Finnish proverb: Kulta kultainen v„lkkya roskatta, "gold glitters in what is thrown away", is a sentiment well understood by shamans, witches and other marginal people, who are drawn to the rubbish heaps and middens, much as the money-vultures circle the stock market.

What all men despise is "that out there," that is to say, the world. And they try incessantly to dissociate themselves from it. Yet, obviously, if we really were one with the world, then we'd have in hand "the universal solvent," we'd have immortality because the world is immortal. In the world's all-powerful Nature is the very secret of turning lead into gold. Instead man tries desperately to throw out everything that is not self.

Part of the problem is that the verb "to be" has two meanings (as in Spanish): one is an expression of permanent identity or equivalence to something else and the other an expression of a changing, on-going process. When we accept the error that we are not gods, we cease all self-examination, self-disciplines and self-improvement. We define god as an embodiment of "pefection" (or completion) instead of as the avenue of evolution and becoming. Only idols are perfect. Not even Odin ever thought of himself as perfect: he had to make many sacrifices in order to gain wisdom. Ditto Osiris, who was so far from being "together" that he was chopped up into little pieces. Granted, Jehovah is perfect, or thinks He is, but He is also a difficult God to respect, for that same reason. When you say we are not gods, you mean we are not idols. But an idol is precisely what modern man has made of himself. He worships himself, even though gods never worship themselves. Obviously, they don't have to. Only man worships himself, though not really as a god or potential god. He worships himself just as he is: as a fatted, golden pig wearing Gucci shoes.

The reason people push gods "outside" is the same reason they shove everything else outside, separating everything and calling it evil because it is unwanted. Anything which is not self, including the planet earth, is felt to be of no real value. In fact, matter is simply unwanted "dirt." Most of the self is thrown away, at least that part of the self which demands the most work or struggle. All that may remain is the momentary gratification of physical need: food, drink, sex, rest, entertainment. To put a god into that strait-jacket, even a minor one, is to disrupt the routine, to interfere with the direct line of ice cream to mouth. Besides, the puffing up of an imaginary personal ego is a thousand times easier than the expression of difficult, real Divinity. Standing far enough away from the world empowers objectivity to serve as the perfect defense of the ego. Here ego cannot be challenged and "Science" and "Reason" become the last refuges of Subjective Solipsism.

In the Qabalah this peeling away of the self, this separation or "excrement" is called a Qlipha (pl. qlipphoth). The qliphoth are the negative personifications. All the expressions of Divinity have their "qlipphoth": Samael, Beelzebub, Satanas, etc., as we've said. And, in truth, these are what people actually bow down to: these idols that are made up out of excrement. Divinity that lies outside of self is not divinity.

In contemporary Occidental man's desperate struggle to separate himself we would do well to remember Alan Watts' comparison of the self to an onion. You can peel and peel until there is nothing left.

(See also: QLIPHOTH, QLIPPOTH, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

dream counseling: A form of dreamwork that involves dream telepathy and interpreting dream learnings through alchemy.

(See also: Dream counseling, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Alchemy Dream Symbols:

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)

Related pages: Dream Symbols, Dream Interpretation, Dream Symbol Alchemy, Dream Dictionary Alchemy, Meaning of dreams about Alchemy, Dream Interpretation Alchemy, Dream Analysis Alchemy, Dreaming of Alchemy

Alchemy, Change, Changes, Transformation, Spiritual

Gold Dream Symbols:

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)

Related pages: Dream Symbols, Dream Interpretation, Dream Symbol Gold, Dream Dictionary Gold, Meaning of dreams about Gold, Dream Interpretation Gold, Dream Analysis Gold, Dreaming of Gold

Gold, Alchemy gold, Alchemy, Color for God, New life, New beginnings, True self