Angel:

1. Pay attention to the other symbols in the dream. A dream of an angel almost always implies that the dream contains an important message that could have a major impact on your life.

2. There are many different kinds of angels. Dreaming of a strong, commanding, six-winged seraph is a powerful sign that any difficulties occurring in your life will be overcome by your own strength and determination. A smaller, gentler cherub is a bringer of God's knowledge and wisdom, so dreaming of a cherub (not to be confused with a putto) hints at insights and revelations that are basically spiritual in nature but can be used to enrich your earthly life as well. Putti, which are the winged babies commonly and incorrectly referred to as cherubs, imply happy times ahead. Dreaming of one of the archangels - Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel - means that you are or soon will be doing God's work, and the usual type of angel pictured on Christmas cards implies divine protection.

3. A very positive symbol implying success, happiness, and rewarding friendships ahead.

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Angel, Meaning of Dreams about Angel, Dream Interpretation Angel)

Angel Dream Symbols:

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)

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

Angel, Angel

Angels

• To dream of angels is prophetic of disturbing influences in the soul. It brings a changed condition of the person's lot. If the dream is unusually pleasing, you will hear of the health of friends, and receive a legacy from unknown relatives.
• If the dream comes as a token of warning, the dreamer may expect threats of scandal about love or money matters. To wicked people, it is a demand to repent; to good people it should be a consolation.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Angels, Dreams - Meaning of Dream about Angels, Dream Interpretation Angels)

Dream Interpretation Angels

Dreaming of angels always means that you study your present attitudes. The angel is a divine messenger that can give you some new insights in finding a new way. If a woman dreams of an angel, the angel represents a longing for harmony, emotional connection and guidance. Seeing an angel symbolizes good luck and shows the strength of your character. If you are an angel in your dream, there is love and friendship on the way. Being surrounded by angels means you will find inner peace and satisfaction.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Angels, Meaning of Dreams about Angels, Dream Interpretation Angels)

Angels

Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome.

- Bono, U2, Rattle and Hum

The word 'angel' literally means 'messenger.' Often, delivery of a particular message in the dream is the role filled by these beings. As the needs arise, they may provide additional help to the dreamer beyond simply delivering information. Since so many religions and contemporary worldviews have made room for angels in their understanding of the universe, this topic needs to be broken down a little more.

The philosopher Carl Jung had room in his worldview for 'spirit guides'. These were apparitions that shared both knowledge and insight. This insight came as dialogue. Consequently, the Jungian angel was something of a spiritual mentor.

Religious angels have usually served more as ambassadors. They come with specific information, but not much dialogue. They are dispatched for specific purposes. Revelation, not dialogue, is the mission of the angel in this context.

Beginning with popular literature of the 1970s, angels have become more involved with tangible needs of this world. Tyres are repaired, oncoming traffic is diverted, and rickety homes are preserved from the weather by angels. This seems to be a reflection on the growing interest in finding a reliable help in a malevolent world.

Angels have also become, in a sense, the sort of instant wish-granter. Some people dream of angels helping them in this way. In this sort of case, you may be turning toward an actual friend in real life to give you something.

Many angels in dreams represent help from an unknown and unseeable origin to survive a difficult situation. You are turning out into the unknown, expecting help from beyond your actual means. This could be called 'wish-projection.'

Finally, the angel may be what the name implies: a message.

To discern which type of angel you have in your dreams requires some energy. Does your worldview include the possibility of such beings? If not, your angel may be wish-projection.

Did your angel speak or act mysteriously? If the angel spoke, what was the content? If the angel merely acted, what was the nature of the action?

What area of your life seems to need a special solution that exceeds your resources? Do you feel emotionally unsupported in one of your personal quests or spiritual struggles?

See also Death and Magical powers

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Angels, Meaning of Dreams about Angels, Dream Interpretation Angels)

Angels

Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome.

- Bono, U2, Rattle and Hum

The word 'angel' literally means 'messenger.' Often, delivery of a particular message in the dream is the role filled by these beings. As the needs arise, they may provide additional help to the dreamer beyond simply delivering information. Since so many religions and contemporary worldviews have made room for angels in their understanding of the universe, this topic needs to be broken down a little more.

The philosopher Carl Jung had room in his worldview for 'spirit guides'. These were apparitions that shared both knowledge and insight. This insight came as dialogue. Consequently, the Jungian angel was something of a spiritual mentor.

Religious angels have usually served more as ambassadors. They come with specific information, but not much dialogue. They are dispatched for specific purposes. Revelation, not dialogue, is the mission of the angel in this context.

Beginning with popular literature of the 1970s, angels have become more involved with tangible needs of this world. Tyres are repaired, oncoming traffic is diverted, and rickety homes are preserved from the weather by angels. This seems to be a reflection on the growing interest in finding a reliable help in a malevolent world.

Angels have also become, in a sense, the sort of instant wish-granter. Some people dream of angels helping them in this way. In this sort of case, you may be turning toward an actual friend in real life to give you something.

Many angels in dreams represent help from an unknown and unseeable origin to survive a difficult situation. You are turning out into the unknown, expecting help from beyond your actual means. This could be called 'wish-projection.'

Finally, the angel may be what the name implies: a message.

To discern which type of angel you have in your dreams requires some energy. Does your worldview include the possibility of such beings? If not, your angel may be wish-projection.

Did your angel speak or act mysteriously? If the angel spoke, what was the content? If the angel merely acted, what was the nature of the action?

What area of your life seems to need a special solution that exceeds your resources? Do you feel emotionally unsupported in one of your personal quests or spiritual struggles?

See also Death and Magical powers

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Angels, Meaning of Dreams about Angels, Dream Interpretation Angels)

Nurse

The nurse is a unique figure in medical personnel dreams because of the romance attached to the helping professions.

Sometimes nurses are even portrayed as angels. Aside from the romantic component, nurses often functions as extras in other medical or sickness dreams.

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Nurse, Meaning of Dreams about Nurse, Dream Interpretation Nurse)

Nurse

The nurse is a unique figure in medical personnel dreams because of the romance attached to the helping professions.

Sometimes nurses are even portrayed as angels. Aside from the romantic component, nurses often functions as extras in other medical or sickness dreams.

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Nurse, Meaning of Dreams about Nurse, Dream Interpretation Nurse)

Love : Dream Interpretation Dictionary - Embrace or Love

Embrace or Love

The mirror opposite of dreams of fleeing from a dangerous pursuer are those in which the dreamer happily embraces another. These figures may be animal or human (celebrities, movie stars, politicians, royals), angels, imaginary people, or the boy or girl next door. The defining element of this category is pleasurable physical contact.

Source: Patricia Garfield, Ph.D., President of ASD

(See also: Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation Love, Dream Dictionary Love)

Ghost [82]

• To dream of the ghost of either one of your parents, denotes that you are exposed to danger, and you should be careful in forming partnerships with strangers.
• To see the ghost of a dead friend, foretells that you will make a long journey with an unpleasant companion, and suffer disappointments.
• For a ghost to speak to you, you will be decoyed into the hands of enemies. For a woman, this is a prognostication of widowhood and deception.
• To see an angel or a ghost appear in the sky, denotes the loss of kindred and misfortunes.
• To see a female ghost on your right in the sky and a male on your left, both of pleasing countenance, signifies a quick rise from obscurity to fame, but the honor and position will be filled only for a short space, as death will be a visitor and will bear you off.
• To see a female ghost in long, clinging robes floating calmly through the sky, indicates that you will make progression in scientific studies and acquire wealth almost miraculously, but there will be an under note of sadness in your life.
• To dream that you see the ghost of a living relative or friend, denotes that you are in danger of some friend's malice, and you are warned to carefully keep your affairs under personal supervision. If the ghost appears to be haggard, it may be the intimation of the early death of that friend.
• [82] See also: Meaning of Dreams about Death, Dead.  )

   

  Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

   

  (See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Ghost , Meaning of Dreams about Ghost , Dream Interpretation Ghost )

   

Ghosts : Dream Interpretation Dictionary - Ghosts

Ghosts

To dream of the ghost of either one of your parents, denotes that you are exposed to danger, and you should be careful in forming partnerships with strangers.

To see the ghost of a dead friend, foretells that you will make a long journey with an unpleasant companion, and suffer disappointments.

For a ghost to speak to you, you will be decoyed into the hands of enemies. For a woman, this is a prognostication of widowhood and deception.

To see an angel or a ghost appear in the sky, denotes the loss of kindred and misfortunes.

To see a female ghost on your right in the sky and a male on your left, both of pleasing countenance, signifies a quick rise from obscurity to fame, but the honor and position will be filled only for a short space, as death will be a visitor and will bear you off.

To see a female ghost in long, clinging robes floating calmly through the sky, indicates that you will make progression in scientific studies and acquire wealth almost miraculously, but there will be an under note of sadness in your life.

To dream that you see the ghost of a living relative or friend, denotes that you are in danger of some friend's malice, and you are warned to carefully keep your affairs under personal supervision. If the ghost appears to be haggard, it may be the intimation of the early death of that friend.

Source: http://dreaminterpretationsguide.com

(See also: Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation Ghosts, Dream Dictionary Ghosts)

Jacob ya`aqob (Hebrew) The younger son of Isaac, founder of the nation of the Israelites, and twin brother of Esau; the Israelites are occasionally called Beith ya`aqob (house of Jacob). The twins symbolize the dual principle in nature, Jacob being the feminine and Esau the masculine principle.

Jacob's pillar is equivalent to the linga; the twelve sons of Jacob are parallel to the Hindu rishis and can correspond to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The dream of Jacob, in which he sees angels ascending and descending a ladder from heaven to earth may be interpreted as the transferring of matter from plane to plane, or as the constant circulation of peregrinating monads or beings upwards and downwards, thus fulfilling destiny and feeding the structure of the universe.

(See also: Jacob, ya`aqob, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

PERICHORESIS

The word is Greek, as you might imagine: peri "around" + choreio "dance." But for the Greeks "dancing" wasn't the aimless shuffling we do. It was more like ballet. "Choreography" is a lot closer to the idea -- in which particular movements are carefully planned and executed. Travel from one dimension to another occurs simultaneously on all levels of reality. We travel in and out of the astral during sleep every night and think nothing of it. And, as you know, when the shaman interfaces with the earth by taking narcotic mushrooms or cacti into his system, he's moving deliberately and consciously between universes.

Parallel worlds stretch horizontally from sinister to dexter, or rather, from increasing shades of darkness to increasing degrees of light. Beings entering from the darkside are perceived by us not as merely ignorant but as demonic, whereas the wisdom of the beings from the lightside stands so far beyond our recognition that we see them simply as angelic beings. Depending on the level of reality that we happen to occupy, the dark and light worlds are perceived as more or less similar to the world we currently inhabit. On some levels of reality, the transfiguration is reversed and we perceive them as inhabiting regions above and below a horizontal plane of reality that stretches into inaccessible temporal limits of Past and Future. In such a world, reality is a given that is perceived as revealing itself only at such Past and Future vanishing points -- Alpha and Omega.

Everywhere horizontal parallel plane meets vertical parallel levels and an Aeon is established, symbolized by a cross. If the cross, however is not circumscribed by a circle (the familiar symbol of cross in circle, representing "earth"), there is no cohesion and the center does not hold. The so-called "extremes," in fact, are not extremes at all, but merely their own opposites in a spinning circle.

Because of the nature of infinity, we have to recognize that we may never stand at any of the four extremities, but always only at the exact center of the omniverse.

Notice also that in any formal religious painting, the god or saint is always placed in the exact center. If he is raised too high from the center, the lower world is given undue importance and power, because, after all, in completely "secular" pictures, the God has been raised so high as to have been left out of the picture altogether! Placing the God too far down divests him of his divinity because his intensity looks, on our level, simply grotesque. Likewise, if the God is placed too far to the left or right, an imbalance is also created.

Thus, uncircumscribed, the ends of the cross stretch unchecked into the infinite four directions and an uncontrollable wickedness is set forth into all manifestations. Without the "earthing" of the cross, there is no manifestation. The extremities lead only into infinite "otherness" and delusion. It is the inner being at the solar plexus that is the heart of the universe. When we nail (i.e., Christianize) the higher spirit of man to an ancient quadratic event, the center is blocked and closed forever. Moreover, the center has been locked in the past, away from the Eternal Now. Until the nail (Xtianity) has been pulled out, no further evolution is possible and Death will prevail.

The way out is toward the central, innermost point.

The parallel world-planes are accessible at all times. We move in and out of them constantly, but are mostly unaware of having done so. Occasionally we get the feeling that "things are suddenly different" or that "something is about to happen" and that means we've inadvertently stepped into a new probable world that is much different from the ones we've hitherto occupied. You can move back into the world you've just left, only if you do so at once.

Whatever can be imagined, exists, will exist or has existed. Whatever has existed or will exist continues to exist now because time is one of the four real dimensions of things. Alongside this Reality there are an infinite number of co-existent realities of equal "solidity" and "substance." There are also an infinite number of "probable" realities and an infinite number of "possible" worlds. A moment's reflection will show that if this is so, then, obviously, available access to them must not be merely possible, but inevitable. Jane Robert's Seth describes the infinite "probable worlds" stretching out in either direction from this one. The closest ones being hardly distinguishable from this, as we progress outward, the probable worlds become stranger, increasingly incomprehensible and frighteningly unpredictable. In the fifth dimensional world, four dimensional objects have their own much more complete and solid "substance" which we cannot perceive so long as we inhabit lower planes of being.

You can, however, willingly and deliberately get up and walk from this world into the nearest adjacency and from there to the next, and the next. The only problem is that you're playing roulette. There's no way of telling what kind of world you are moving into.

If you are seeking to avoid some trouble in this world, be advised that things could be a lot worse in the world next door. Moreover, if you leave unsolved problem behind, your karma will continue to take you back there in future lives until eventually you are forced to solve them. On top of that, if you leave muddy footprints behind you as you run through world after world, you'll have added onto your present karma the extra burden of going back to mop them up.

Actual entrance/exit sites are a matter of intuitive perception. Dimensional doorways are not likely, for instance, to be found in your living room. They need to be places you've never crossed before (except as interdimensional thresholds). It's best to look for two pillars to pass between -- a couple of tall trees in a forest or park make excellent pillars. The more difficult the access the better. And the direction and angle of entrance are crucial. Select a "picture" framed by the trees as most nearly representing the world you want to leave behind you and before you a picture of what intuitively or esthetically looks to be an improvement of that. Make sure that nothing passes across your line of vision as you are actually walking through. If necessary, keep your eyes closed or look down at your feet.

At first the difference between adjacent worlds is scarcely discernible. Variations only become immediately evident at some distance. But if you are observant, you will eventually begin to notice tiny, subtle changes for the better (or worse). By the time these changes become evident, it's already too late to go back where you came from. The metaphors of artistic symbolism, religion and magic can also assist in perichoretic travel. With the enhanced ability to will and to imagine, the human mind can perceive parts of alternate realities with increasing clarity and may begin to see how to transform the reality we normally inhabit. In fact, so many are the pathways to alternate experience, it's a wonder anyone still believes that reality has but a single face!

There is, to be sure, ultimately only the One Plenum in which everything else transpires, but that sphere transcends experience in the Void of Nirvana.

Although, as we've seen above, there are relatively easy methods of interplanary travel (between planes), the ability to discover significant doorways into alternate dimensions, advanced perichoresis, not only requires an out-of-the-ordinary state of consciousness, but is a difficult technique in its own right, mastered properly only by experienced shamans. For instance, travel through time in the past requires us to move "forward" (i.e., towards the Beginning of Time) simply by ignoring vast areas of experience and being -- as we also do in the present -- in order to maintain a strict continuity of our own. Travel from the future (i.e., the End of Time), however, even though employing the same declination, creates an ever-thickening wall behind us, preventing all possibility of return to the starting point.

Kenneth Grant (Outside the Circles of Time) provides us with insights into the sexual avenue of interdimensional perichoresis and at the same time describes the procedure for creating a "moonchild." In his system, the door to our world opens inward in order for us to receive extratellurian immigrants.

Bipolar human sexuality, explains Grant, parallels cosmogenesis and the sacred void corresponds to the female vagina. Everything comes out of and falls back into this same eternal darkness. The creative light is sucked into its bottomless depths where it is swallowed up by vampiric blackness. Therefore, the doorway to the vacuum or zero of space is a priestess who has been chosen for her "master of the art of dream control." By allowing herself to become a mirror of impression-reception, she is able to generate illusions, "for all form is fantasy, and exists only in the dreaming mirror of the mind."

A material looking glass is placed above her, slanted to receive the starlight. Now, by her psychic ability she can project whatever star morph the magician requires onto the looking glass. A second mirror, creating an infinite regression reflection is placed 11 feet away, eleven being the number of the famous 11th Pathway of Black Magic. The circle of Daath is the corresponding doorway in the Qabalah.

Thereupon the priest uses his penis as the intergalactic conduit of the astro-seminal energy. His vibrations and invocations encourage the dream-manipulating priestess to focus the desired star-morph entity onto the mirrors. In the ultimate orgasm of priest, priestess and dream-entity, the eldolon rises briefly to life and erupts from the mirror as its starseed transmission runs down from the star to impregnate her. The zygote achieved by this cosmocopulation is a unique blend of human and extraterrestrial "genes."

According to most students, monstrous beings invisible to ordinary consciousness are entering our universe in unprecedented numbers, through this same interdimensional sexual doorway. (Apparently our time is a vector of unique significance.) The fantasy film, Ghostbusters, was a facetious rendering of this understanding, but revealed a good deal more than most viewers realized. Kenneth Grant teaches a heterosexual tantrism by which one may ride out again through the same door on the back of one of these demonic beasts and thereby escape. He calls this, again, the 11th Pathway. Others propose that there are homosexual and even solitary practices what serve this purpose equally well.

Sex and death are the two most common and well-known methods of conveyance between worlds, but such exclusively Scorpionic merkabahs are by no means the only ones. All of these methods follow the horizontal direction of planes to left and right, from darkness into light, or vice versa. There is also travel in the vertical direction from layers of reality and consciousness above and below. These cris-crossing horizontal and vertical planes endlessly extend out and recede into the vastnesses. Some of the planes are commonly thought, by the average person, to be "schizophrenic" because they appear to leave the traveller suspended in his "own little world." But such planes are of great importance to the magician or yogin. Reality, we must understand, is entirely a matter of the manipulation of illusion. The teacher, Gurdjieff, once pointed out that there is only one thing in the entire universe, but it is repeated endlessly in order to provide the illusion of "difference." Even chemistry and physics bear this out. The difference between each element is simply a difference in the number of their atomic electrons: Hydrogen 1, Helium 2, Lithium 3...

Some writers believe that there are denizens of other dimensions who use various perichoretic chariots that resemble the astral projections of those whose time and locality they visit. For Ezekiel and Daniel it was a fiery wheel bearing the tetramorph. For the Dogons it was a star ship. For our great grandfathers in the 19th Century it was frequently an airship. But they aren't just psychic experiences, say the witnesses, ufo's leave evidence behind ... a burned-out circle on the lawn, a map with indecipherable writing, MIBs, etc.

My own interdimensional visits to "the Other Side" have been neither A.D.E.'s nor OOBE's. They have occurred either through true-dreaming or by psychotropic methods, i.e., strictly via astral travel. In all, I have several times visited the "conventional" Astral Plane -- or abode of the (after-dead) spirits, three or four times encountered higher beings (although only at a distance), dwelt in the All-Consciousness of All-Phyla and once visited a previous time. Lately I have begun experimenting with ordinary consciousness as a routine means of perichoresis. The occult path I've travelled (until now) has always been the lonely one of the hermit. The beings I've encountered have been the traditional custodians of the pathways, that is to say, those archetypes hovering somewhere between being and non-being. Else they comprise the angels, Gods and daimones of pantheons we already know. But I have increasingly come under the purview of something more important: the existence of what seems to be an infinite number of Eternal Doorways between worlds. These doorways are available to us, of course, under very special circumstances -- that is to say, in altered psychic states lying clearly outside normal consciousness: Yoga, Tantra, sex magic, primitive rites of passage, repetitive rhythms (micro-events), sensory deprivation or stimulation, pain, extreme trauma, trance, all the multifarious REM/sleep/hypnotic states, rushes of adrenaline or fatigue intoxication, epilepsy, metamorphic anomaly, drug intoxication, illness, psychosis proper, thanatolepsy and death. (See SOLIPSISM.)

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

Rabbis (Hebrew, Jewish). Originally teachers of the Secret Mysteries, the Qabbalah; later, every Levite of the priestly caste became a teacher and a Rabbin. (See the series of Kabbalistic Rabbis by w.w.w.)

1 Rabbi Abulafia of Saragossa born in 1240, formed a school of Kabbalah named after him; his chief works were The Seven Paths of the Law and The Epistle to Rabbi Solomon.

2 Rabbi Akiba. Author of a famous Kabbalistic work, the "Alphabet of R.A.", which treats every letter as a symbol of an idea and an emblem of some sentiment; the Book of Enoch was originally a portion of this work, which appeared at the close of the eighth century. It was not purely a Kabbalistic treatise.

3 Rabbi Azariel ben Menachem (A.D. 1160). The author of the Commentary on the Ten

Sephiroth, which is the oldest purely Kabbalistic work extant, setting aside the Sepher Yetzirah, which although older, is not concerned with the Kabbalistic Sephiroth. He was the pupil of Isaac the Blind, who is the reputed father of the European Kabbalah, and he was the teacher of the equally famous R. Moses Nachmanides.

4 Rabbi Moses Botarel (1480). Author of a famous commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah; he taught that by ascetic life and the use of invocations, a man’s dreams might be made prophetic.

5 Rabbi Chajim Vital (1600) ( The great exponent of the Kabbalah as taught R. Isaac Loria: author of one of the most famous works, Otz Chiim, or Tree of Life; from this Knorr von Rosenroth has taken the Book on the Rashith ha Gilgalim, revolutions of souls, or scheme of reincarnations.

6 Rabbi Ibn Gebirol. A famous Hebrew Rabbi, author of the hymn Kether Malchuth, or Royal Diadem, which appeared about 1050; it is a beautiful poem, embodying the cosmic doctrines of Aristotle, and it even now forms part of the Jewish special service for the evening preceding the great annual Day of Atonement (See Ginsburg and Sachs on the Religious Poetry of the Spanish Jews). This author is also known as Avicebron.

7 Rabbi Gikatilla. A distinguished Kabbalist who flourished about 1300: he wrote the famous books, The Garden of Nuts, The Gate to the Vowel Points, The mystery of the shining Metal, and The Gates of Righteousness. He laid especial stress on the use of Gematria, Notaricon and Temura.

8 Rabbi Isaac the Blind of Posquiero. The first who publicly taught in Europe, about A.D. 1200, the Theosophic doctrines of the Kabbalah.

9 Rabbi Loria (also written Luria, and also named Ari from his initials). Founded a school of the Kabbalah circa 1560. He did not write any works, but his disciples treasured up his teachings, and R. Chajim Vital published them.

10 Rabbi Moses Cordovero (A.D.1550). The author of several Kabbalistic works of a wide reputation, viz., A Sweet Light, The Book of Retirement, and The Garden of Pomegranates; this latter can be read in Latin in Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Denudata, entitled Tractatus de Animo, ex libro Pardes Rimmonim. Cordovero is notable for an adherence to the strictly metaphysical part, ignoring the wonder-working branch which Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi practised, and almost perished in the pursuit of.

11 Rabbi Moses de Leon (circa 1290 A,D.). The editor and first publisher of the Zohar, or "Splendour", the most famous of all the Kabbalistic volumes, and almost the only one of which any large part has been translated into English. This Zohar is asserted to be in the main the production of the still more famous Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Titus.

12 Rabbi Moses Maimonides (died 1304). A famous Hebrew Rabbi and author, who condemned the use of charms and amulets, and objected to the Kabbalistic use of the divine names.

13 Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi (born 1641). A very famous Kabbalist, who passing beyond the dogma became of great reputation as a thaumaturgist, working wonders by the divine names. Later in life he claimed Messiahship and fell into the hands of the Sultan Mohammed IV. of Turkey, and would have been murdered, but saved his life by adopting the Mohammedan religion. (See Jost on Judaism and its Sects.)

14 Rabbi Simon ben Jochai (circa A.D. 70-80). It is round this name that cluster the mystery and poetry of the origin of the Kabbalah as a gift of the deity to mankind.

Tradition has it that the Kabbalah was a divine theosophy first taught by God to a company of angels, and that some glimpses of its perfection were conferred upon Adam; that the wisdom passed from him unto Noah; thence to Abraham, from whom the Egyptians of his era learned a portion of the doctrine. Moses derived a partial initiation from the land of his birth, and this was perfected by direct communications with the deity. From Moses it passed to the seventy elders of the Jewish nation, and from them the theosophic scheme was handed from generation to generation; David and Solomon especially became masters of this concealed doctrine. No attempt, the legends tell us, was made to commit the sacred knowledge to writing until the time of the destruction of the second Temple by Titus, when Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, escaping from the besieged Jerusalem, concealed himself in a cave, where he remained for twelve years. Here he, a Kabbalist already, was further instructed by the prophet Elias. Here Simon taught his disciples, and his chief pupils, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Abba, committed to writing those teachings which in later ages became known as the Zohar, and were certainly published afresh in Spain by Rabbi Moses de Leon, about 1280. A fierce contest has raged for centuries between the learned Rabbis of Europe around the origin of the legend, and it seems quite hopeless to expect ever to arrive at an accurate decision as to what portion of the Zohar, if any, is as old as Simon ben Jochai. (See "Zohar".)

(See also: Rabbis, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

PARSONS, JOHN WHITESIDE

I hight Don Quixote, I live on peyote,

marijuana, morphine and  cocaine,

I never know sadness but only a madness

that burns at the  heart and the brain

I see each charwoman, ecstatic inhuman,

angelic,  demonic, divine.

Each wagon a dragon, each beer mug a flagon

that  brims with ambrosial wine.

So goes a poem written by magician Jack Parsons, head of the California lodge of the O.T.O. (1944-52), as privately printed in a 1943 issue of The Oriflamme. This was, synchronistically enough, as Robert Anton Wilson has pointed out, but a few weeks before the discovery of LSD.

All of Crowley's disciples struggled valiantly to "discover the identity of the hidden God" within them, their "True (Thelemic) Will" and to find a way to implement their knowledge. Their endings were mostly dismal. Those who claimed success in the Great Work ceased all further activity and led lives thereafter of total obscurity. One of them, Frater 210, Jack Parsons, claimed success, only to go up in flames shortly thereafter.

Jack Parsons was a co-founder of The California Institute of Technology. His contributions to the aerospace industry and nuclear research were so considerable that he has the unique distinction of being the only North American sorcerer in the 20th Century to have had a mountain on the moon named after him. He was also one of Aleister Crowley's more bizarre disciples.

He was born on October 2, 1914, in Los Angeles, California. The only offspring of divorced parents, he spent a solitary and uneventful childhood. He devoted himself, as solitary children do, to reading and daydreaming. He also harbored a grudge against authority and interference and nursed a rebellious spirit. His studies led him into aerospace technology, but by temperament he was apparently not a scientist and his life did not truly begin until 1939, when an acquaintance, Wilfred T. Smith, introduced him to Aleister Crowley's writings and invited him to join his Agap‚ Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis.

Wilfred T. Smith, or Frater 132, had ostensibly been a special protege of Crowley's, who had decided for astrological reasons that Smith was a god imprisoned in human flesh. This seems curious to us now, because Smith's behavior was totally psychopathic. The truth is that Smith had fallen into disfavor with Crowley, who had decided the man was turning the O.T.O.'s California Lodge into a cheap love cult, which Crowley considered a "slimy abomination." As soon as Parsons came into the order, Smith grabbed Parson's wife, Helen, as his very own familiar and had a child by her. Thereupon Parsons abandoned her and took her younger sister, Betty, as his mistress and magickal partner. This arrangement appeared to work well enough for him and he soon advanced into the inner circles of the lodge. Meanwhile, Crowley very cleverly gave Smith a specific formula for his apotheosis and ordered him to resign in order to identify this God within. This was the easiest way of getting Smith out of the Lodge so that Parsons could be put in charge. Immediately, Smith's star began to fall. He conceived a hatred for Parsons and "attacked him astrally." Kenneth Grant in his Magical Revival recounts a curious hallucination or dream that Parsons underwent with a black-caped figure whom he transfixed with knives and eventually drove away.

But now Parsons, determined to repeat his initial disasters, brought in a mysterious "Frater X" as his secretary and who seemed a promising candidate for the lodge which Parsons had now taken over. His new friend, however, also proved to be a rogue and quickly wormed out of Parsons the top-secret psycho-sexual and magical techniques of the Agape Lodge. Soon thereafter, Frater X got him to enter a business venture with him, with Parson's money as the lion's share of the investment. Next Frater X persuaded him to sell the property that was the headquarters of the Lodge. Then he and Betty went on a yachting cruise around the world. Now that Frater X had reduced him to poverty, Parsons had to earn his living in an "aircraft company." What it is about the occult that could possibly interest dreary U.S. government agents defies the imagination, but Parsons was, after all, working for the government. So by now the O.T.O. was swarming with U.S. intelligence agents posing as members!

Since his mistress had also been stolen from him, Parsons set about, by evocation (and ritual masturbation supervised by Frater X), to obtain an Elemental Spirit to take the place of Betty. And in 1946 he wrote to Crowley that he had actually found such an elemental -- a woman named Marjorie Cameron. She soon became his second wife. Crowley wrote to warn him to avoid excessive devotion to an elemental, but his warning had little effect... Now Parsons contacted an "Intelligence" who spoke to him, directly at first. It was not long, however, before he began speaking through Fr. X, who, it seems, had returned and been forgiven! This time Frater X informed Parsons that he was "overshadowed by an Angel with flaming hair." Parsons now set about to make a Moonchild -- a procedure that must take place at a time when the moon is "void of course" or without earth influence. This endeavor annoyed the dying Crowley very much. In fact, by now, Crowley was thoroughly disgusted with Parsons and the Californians. At this point Parsons took the "Oath of the Abyss" and the magical name of "Belarion Armilus All Dajjal Anti-Christ." In 1948 he took the oath of the Antichrist and in 1949 penned his autobiographies. Finally he took up the "Black Pilgrimage," a terrible path forcing him to chose between suicide, madness and the Oath of the Abyss. In this endeavor he would open himself up to the influence of the demon, Choronzon.

Not long after that, in June of 1952, Parsons began a dangerous invocation in a last ditch effort to release his Will. He called upon an Aethyr who had already brought disaster to a fellow magus (Kelley), backed up by a sexual magick of his own. In his further rituals with the woman of the flaming hair and the invocation of the Lady of Babalon (not to be confused with "Babylon") there are constant calls to fire and flame, "Flame is out Lady, flame is her hair. I am flame" (In this case, "fire" refers to its opposite, "blood.") Suddenly, while working in his lab in Pasadena, he dropped a phial of fulminate of mercury and burst up in a terrible explosion -- ordinary fire being the opposite and balancing complement of blood.

Twenty years after his fiery death, official maps depicting the dark side of the moon prominently honored his many aerospace contributions with "Parson's Crater." Perhaps this act was fully intended as a deliberate pyrrhic mockery, suggesting mythic figures of old who were translated to the skies as immortal stars. Parsons is not the only mortal to have achieved celestial recognition without apotheosis, but he's the only one who deliberately tried, failed and then made it by default.

What makes Parsons so intriguing, no doubt, is that he appears in so many footnotes by so many different authors and yet hardly anything is known about him. Moreover, trying to cut a path through his zigzagging life is extremely frustrating for the biographer. Most lives, whether dull or interesting, tend to tell us something about the person, but Parsons' life seems almost deliberately labyrinthine. His writings are not easily unearthed and jealously guarded. The reason for that isn't hard to discern. Parsons was a social and intellectual rebel during an era of rigid conformity. He was not only the author of the two-volume book about the Anti- Christ: The Black Pilgrimage and The Manifesto of the Anti-Christ (which eponym he conferred on himself) but also claimed, says Colin Wilson, that he had been advised by a Higher Power "to declare war on all authority that is not based on courage and manhood... the authority of lying priests, conniving judges, blackmailing police and to call an end to restriction and inhibition, conscription, compulsion, regimentation and the tyranny of the laws."

The "Higher Power," it turned out, was an even more elusive character: our old friend, the sinister Frater X.

Until quite recently the Identity of Frater X remained unknown. Rumor had it that he had lived to a very old age in fame and luxury from the misuses of the magickal secrets that he had stolen. His identity remained a mystery until the late 1980's when it was revealed in several places at once that Frater X was none other than L. Ron Hubbard, father of Dianetics and Scientology.

Even initiates may not always recognize the daring, inspired and cosmic scope of Parson's effort. How much Hubbard was involved is uncertain, but that extraterrestrial contact of some kind was made through Parsons' rift in the wall between worlds was revealed, according to Kenneth Grant, by the Babalon working. He and Achad began this only a year before Crowley's death in 1947 and that year coincided with the first wave of ufo "invasions." "Parsons opened a door and something flew in" says Grant. Whatever that may be, something more than Babalon and channeled writings, we now realize, erupted into our world and continues to pour in, moving at weird and mocking variance to our sublunary science and reality systems. Crowley's and Achad's initiations, says Grant in his Outside the Circles of Time, led up to the "40's framed by AL. III. 46, the number of Mu, Cry of the Vulture of Maat and key of the mysteries" and that in turn finally "fulminated in Hiroshima of 1945." Grant wrote those words in 1980, before AIDS and the greenhouse effect, quoting from Crowley: "Now the 80's cower before me and are abased."

Ego and Initiation run the same hurdles. Ego interferes with the natural course of apotheosis. And for Grant, psychiatry is out of the question. It exposes the sensitive, personal and private talismans and techniques needed for reshaping social progress to the killing glare of mindless immediacy and expediency. Initiation, says Parsons himself, must proceed as best it can through and past the barriers... "until the misty bastions of infantile Trawenfells change into the rocks and crags of eternity; the garden of Klingsor into the City of God."

The Xtian idea of a God descending to become a man is the exact reverse of Magick. If Crowley's goal was to release the God hidden inside every human being, Jack Parsons dared to go a step further. His intention was to raise Hell to earth's level, to elevate our hellworld a step closer to Heaven! Since he was by nature a quiet and humble man, such a fusilary and hubristic ambition proved so powerful a charge for him that it burst out of the astral plane and destroyed him on the physical plane.

(See also: PARSONS, JOHN WHITESIDE, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

MAGIC

From Latin magi, pl. (Greek magoi, pl. of magos, a Magian, one of the Median tribe; also an enchanter, properly a wise-man who interpreted dreams; Old Persian mugh, one of the Magi, a fire-worshipper; Sanskrit maga "a priest of the sun"; maybe related to maha, "great" and maya, illusion; perhaps, ultimately, even the Maya of Central America. Compare Hebrew makeshef, "magician"). Magic is actually short for "Magic Art". The connection between magus and magnus "great" also appears in Hebrew. As in Latin the word for "great", produces "master or teacher" (magister) , so Hebrew rab produces "rabbi". However the confusion in Hebrew does not arise because the word for "magic" (qeshem) is not related to rab".

The word in this form is found with precisely the same meaning (or mystery) in most European tongues and even in Japanese majutsu, (which they no doubt borrowed from the Portuguese). Elsewhere, however, we find different senses altogether, such as the old Teutonic Helliruna (lit. "Hell's secret") which is surely a folk etymology of the Arabic word for "mandrake", albiruhan or alyabruhin, the same word we find in Spanish as the word for "magician", el brujo, because alongside that there is indeed the Old High German word for "mandrake", Alruna. The only question we need ask is which form came first, but we find the Arabic influence extending east as far as Mongolia, where, in passing, we may note ilbi for "magic."

The otherness of ego enwraps each of us like a prison, but the magus takes all of earth as his body. Magic itself is but a symbol of the greater Magic, which is Unity. The Oneness frees us from the dungeon of darkness and the self and resembles the teaching of Buddhism.

From yet another perspective, magic, mind and life are the same thing: living cells are sometimes kept alive in labs. A specialized cell, so protected, fed and allowed to reproduce, eventually turns into a basic and undifferentiated cell. This indicates that life is not only exceedingly plastic but that it is also purposive. If such adaptation were attributable to mindless mechanics, a bone cell would go on reproducing a bone cell and a blood cell a blood cell forever.

Since all things are connected, then experiential reality, which is Mind, can be altered by the implementation of the Will and Visualization. There is no "orthodox" doorway of the "Self" through the various universes, so the magician must build his own bridge, without assistance, across the Abyss, from the otherness of the separate ego to Cosmic Unity. Since the goal and purpose of existence is knowledge, then the magus is obliged to seek experience on numerous planes of being reached via perichoresis and also to effect material changes in the earth's reality. Thinking isn't just the beginning of creation, it is creation itself.

Marc Edmund Jones classifies magic into categories. Divination is the effort to gain knowledge, particularly of the future (in order the better to assist the "Divine" plan). The evocation or invocation of elementals or angelic powers, functioning through the ethers, is another class of magic. Then there is hypnotism, which works through "imitative" magic. Finally, there is tantrism, or the development of supernatural siddhis.

Colin Wilson suggests that magic is simply the development of the Will and the Imagination, Versluis that it is "not a means to an end, but a means to heighten means." Clearly, the object of magic is the raising of consciousness. The magus is empowered to effect events only to the extent that he is able to recognize that inside and outside are one. To transform the world is to transform oneself and vice-versa. Traditional rituals, the using of symbols and the altering of consciousness through herbs, smells, sounds, repetitions and meditation are all inward-directed processes designed to educate, focus and strengthen the faculties of Imaging and Willing. Alchemy is the same endeavor directed outwardly. We fail to control the transformation of our selves to the degree that we isolate ourselves from the world, just as we lose our ability to change the world at the exact moment that we begin to lose touch with ourselves.

However, although those who don't know what they are doing are obliged to perform magic strictly through the observation of rituals, those who understand its real nature and purpose can move directly to its center and act from there, without incantations and conjurations.

Here are some definitions of M/magic(k) by various authorities on the subject:

ANONYMOUS: "Magus Nascitur Non Fit."

ALICE BAILEY: "No man is a magician, or worker in white magic, until his third eye is opened, or is in the process of opening." (That means 'transmission of consciousness to the universal mind').

WADE BASKIN: "The art and science of magic is based on three basic principles. 1) one may communicate with other realms, or planes of existence, through the medium of the Astral Light; 2) the power of the magician is unlimited; 3) external characteristics (signatures) are signs through which everything internal and invisible can be revealed."

MORRIS BERMAN: "Magic is not necessarily gnostic in nature, since it is not particularly dualistic, and it never includes the notion of an outside savior or redeemer, which Gnosticism (particularly in its early forms) sometimes does."

HELENA P. BLAVATSKY: "The art of divine Magic consists in the ability to perceive the essence of things in the light of nature (astral light), and - by using the soul-powers of the Spirit - to produce material things from the unseen universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought together and made to act harmoniously". (The Secret Doctrine).

"Magic is spiritual wisdom. Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery.

"Magic was considered a divine science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity itself."

"Magic was the highest knowledge of natural philosophy... and the magician differed from the witch in this, that, while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands of demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of science, which was only within reach of the few, and which these beings were powerless to disobey."

BERNARD BROMAGE: "The word has, more often than not, been used, not for illumination, not as a guide to ascertainable verity, but as a camouflage to conceal a man's ignorance; and, worse, his calculated ineptitude and folly. The word can be said to have ceased to be a word and to have become a byword: a symbol surrounded by an evilly phosphorescent light, of man's infernal capacity for avoiding the issues. . . Magic, tout court, is immensely concerned with the 'Extension of Consciousness'; the widening of frontiers; the increase and development of every variety of sense perception. To be a magician one must learn to investigate all phenomena with the eye of the scientist who scorns no possible hypothesis nor neglects to take into the fullest consideration the complete structure of our actual and potential being. . . it is not a solace for the frustrated, but a reward for the pure of heart. Its final appeal is not to curiosity or greed, but to reverence and acceptance."

PETER CARROLL: "The world is magical but designed to make us believe we are not magi."

"All events are basically magical, arising spontaneously without prior cause. Physical laws are only statistical approximations. Consciousness, magic and chaos are the same thing. Consciousness also makes things happen without prior cause."

ALEISTER CROWLEY: "All Art is Magick"

"The Goal of Magick is the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel."

NEVILL DRURY: "Magic is the technique of harnessing the secret powers of Nature and and seeking to influence events for one's own purpose. If the purpose is beneficial it is known as white magic, but if it is intended to bring harm to others, or to destroy property, it is regarded as black magic."

"High Magic is intended to bring about the spiritual transformation of the person who practices it. This form of magic is designed to channel the magician's consciousness towards the sacred light within, which is often personified by the high gods of different cosmologies. The aim of high magic has been described as communication with one's Holy Guardian Angel, or higher self. It is also known as Theurgy."

"Whereas science deals with empirically observable causes and effects, occultism deals pragmatically with methods of altering consciousness to produce certain effects. One of these is the assimilation within the self of the characteristics of a deity, another is the separation of consciousness from the physical body."

DION FORTUNE: "Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will."

KENNETH GRANT: "Magick is the apotheosis of the Irrational, the acme of the absurd, and the reification of the impossible."

GURDJIEFF: ". . .I decided to call those undertakings which required intentional action of higher centers - those centers which are properly the feeling and thinking centers, capable of emotional sensing and of mentation respectively, but which are ordinarily unformed through absorption of their rightful impressions by the false emotional and intellectual centers of the psyche - objective magic, having as its result the obtaining of real knowledge."

"I thus separated this objective magic from its ordinary counterpart, 'magic of the psyche', in which purely fantastic results are obtained, and self-calming and amusement are the only attainments. Under this category I placed my former endeavors as a medium and psychic, as well as those results obtained by theosophy, occultism and so forth, all of which up to then had quite fascinated and attracted my attention."

WILLIAM JAMES: "We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self. . ."

MARC EDMUND JONES: "Occult, as distinct from secular, science; Occult as the effort to compel the cooperation of others, as well as deity, nature, in enterprises of self, illustrated by miracle or thaumaturgy, known as white when ethical and black when amoral."

ELIPHAS LÉVI: "The Arcanum of the Magnum Opus is the mastery or government of Ignis."; "Would you learn to reign over yourself and others? Learn how to will. How can one learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initiation. . ."

MACGREGOR MATTHEWS: "To practice magic, both the imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work. . . The Will unaided can send forth a current. . . yet its effect is vague and indefinite. . . the Imagination unaided can create an image. . . yet it can do nothing of importance, unless vitalized and directed by the Will."

JOHN MIDDLETON: "We may say that the realm of magic is that in which human beings believe that they may directly affect nature and each other for good or ill, by their own efforts (even when the precise mechanism may not be understood by them) as distinct from appealing to divine powers by sacrifice or prayer (i.e. religion)."

JOHN O'KEEFE: "Magic is the defense of the self against the malevolence of society."

PARACELSUS: "The exercise of true magic does not require any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making of circles and signs; it requires neither benedictions nor maledictions in words, neither verbal blessings or curses."

JOHN COWPER POWYS: "Magic is simply the choice between emphasis and rejection."

DIANE DE PRIMA: "Look at the forces behind the things rather than just at the object or event. If I have a working definition of magic it's that behind every single thing in the world an infinite tunnel opens of reference, cross-references, and forces, and how these things interlock in nets. What I basically say is, yeah, learning to see force. . . learning to see the etheric and the astral, etc. to the thinner and thinner layers of stuff. And learning to work off those layers rather than . . . if you want to push that rock you don't necessarily have to go out there and put your shoulder to it."

RIMBAUD: "The Poet transforms himself into a seer through a long, immense and determined, rational disordering of all his sense. Every form of love, suffering and madness he seeks within himself and exhausts in himself all poisons, preserving but their quintessences. Ineffable torture where he will need all of his faith and superhuman strength, making him among men, the great Sick Man, the Thrice-Damned, the Arch-Criminal - and the supreme Savant! - for he arrives at the Unknown! Since he has cultivated his soul, already richer than any other man's, he thereby reaches the Unknown, and, even if, insane in the end, he should lose every shred of understanding gained so laboriously, he will have had his Visions! He may perish in his leap into those innumerable, unnameable things, there will follow other terrible workers. They will begin at the horizons where he fell."

MARTIN DEL RIO: "An art or skill which, by means of a non-supernatural force, produces certain strange and unusual phenomena whose rationale eludes common sense."

ROMULUS: "Magic is living poetry."

"Magic is the invocation and exploitation of synchronicity. All practices build up a momentum of their own. What we desire eventually comes true, with interest."

"Every magician's tricks are his own, to help him with own special problems, to get himself over his own inner obstacles. Our Individual tasks are to learn and overcome our own obstacles. That's why the study of great men and women is so very instructional and worthwhile. Not because they teach us to be like them, but because they show us how they became themselves! "

"Self-confident, integrated personalities already are fairly much in control of their powers and are magical to some extent. When circumstances intrude, such as sickness, enmity, financial loss, etc. and self-confidence wanes, the 'magical' side begins to seem spurious. The more 'magical' we try to be, the more charlatanry rises to the surface in us."

FRANCIS KING & STEPHEN SKINNER: "Four basic assumptions of magic: 1. That the [physical] universe is only a part of total reality. 2. The human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained and concentrated, and that the disciplined will is capable of changing its environment and producing paranormal events. 3. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination. 4. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences, but an ordered system of correspondences, and the understanding of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to use them for his own purposes, good or evil.

HUTTON WEBSTER (1948): "As regards purpose, Magic is divinatory, productive and aversive. The magician discovers or foretells what is otherwise hidden in time or space from human eyes; he influences and manipulates the objects and phenomena of nature and all animate creatures so that they may satisfy actual or human needs; and finally he combats, neutralizes and remedies the onslaught of the evils, real or imaginary, afflicting mankind. The range of magic is thus almost as wide as the life of man. All things under heaven, and even the inhabitants of heaven become subject to its sway.

COLIN WILSON: "Human perception is 'intentional.'" (Consciousness is a muscle).

"The great personality-inhibitor is caution. . . even in a few people who seem fairly well integrated. I can suddenly catch a glimpse of a more sophisticated, confident personality that has never succeeded in emerging . . . Even criminality is a form of caution, the desire for immediate and tangible returns, based upon the feeling that the universe has no intention of giving you anything you are not prepared to take by force. In fact, the study of murder leaves one with an impression of weak and crippled personalities who left half their potentialities to stagnate."

"Outside our everyday personality there is a wider self that possesses greater powers than the everyday self. . . When the will is hindered by too much self-consciousness it often produces the opposite effect from the one intended. (Poe called it "the imp of the perverse"). The wider self would be happy to oblige, but the contracted ego is somehow opposing itself, like someone trying to open a door by pushing it instead of pulling it. So it does the next best thing." (Psychokinesis).

"Modern civilization induces an attitude of passivity. When a Stone Age hunter set out to trap wild animals, he was aware of his will as a living force. When the prehistoric farmer scored the surface of the earth with a crude plough, he knew that his family's survival through the winter depended on his effort, and his will responded to the challenge. When a modern city dweller walks down a crowded thoroughfare, he feels no sense of challenge or involvement. This city was built by other people, all these shops and offices are owned by other people. He can get through an ordinary day's work in a state approximating sleep. Most of his routine tasks are carried out by the 'robot'. There is neither the need or the opportunity to use the will."

ZORN ZUCKERMAN: "The 20th Century has been so much a time of everything 'losing its magic, that the only thing left is magic itself."

CONCLUSION:

Is magic simply the search for "ultimate knowledge" without the burden of "worship"? Not exactly. The Golden Dawn used to say, "The aim of religion, the method of science," which was as ambitious as it was inaccurate. The "Transcendental" without religion, as opposed to mere "Revelation" without religion, would be closer to the mark than soulless "Ultimate Knowledge." The latter is a logical, scientific goal, not a magical one. The Scientist is obliged to go wherever his will-o'-the-wisp may lead him, as Mary Shelley pointed out, stopping not even at Frankenstein's monster nor the Hydrogen Bomb nor tailor-made diseases. Thus, the scientist inevitably winds up in Hell, the epitome of "Reason". The Magician knows where he is going, dares to go there and will what he will discover and create. His work (ideally) is the transmogrification of Hell. Moreover, about what he does he can make no statement, because it is always unique, never a repeatable "trick". That is, he is in the business, not as the scientist is of "finding" meaning, but of "creating" it. But we have to remember that the phenomenological world is an illusion, which requires the magician always to remain watchful of the illusory nature of what he is doing.

Life without magic is not possible. Moreover, the important "passages" of life cannot be handled except in a frank context of High Magic: birth, adolescence, marriage, death, etc.

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

The belief in angelic beings is of course ancient, and spans many cultures. In the West, many associate angels with Christianity, Judaism and the Bible, but references to angelic beings can be found in Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Islam. Even some Native American teachings include angels, and other shamanistic spiritual belief systems include interaction with birds or other winged creatures who bring guidance. Created prior to these more "recent" religions, depictions of angelic beings can be found in ancient Egyptian art, and Isis is traditionally depicted with angel wings. In all of these religious cultures, angels are believed to be messengers of God, aiding and guiding humans through life.

Read more here: » Angels: Angels Abound! - About Angels

A dictionary of Parapsycology. Please note that words in grey are hyperlinked to a corresponding archive with articles related to that particular topic.

Angels

In the past ten years there has been a renewed appreciation and interest in angels. They represent goodness, protection, and the heavenly realm. As a dream symbol they may attempt to focus the dreamer's attention on his own divine qualities and the supportive and loving aspects of life. Some say that dreaming about angels is a symbol of good luck, while others believe that you will see an angel in your dream around the time when there is a birth or death in your family, or in your close circle of friends. Angels are mystical and spiritual symbols; traditionally they have been the messengers of God. The interpretation of your dream angel depends on your own views. Generally, the message coming up from your unconscious may be of important magnitude, so record your dream and think about all of its details and implications.

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Angels, Meaning of Dreams about Angels, Dream Interpretation Angels)

Dream Dictionary Index with links to 10.000 dream interpretations from many different sources.

Please note that all words in grey are hyperlinked to an archive with articles related to that word, including dream interpretations.

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

Read more here: » Dream Interpretation Index: Dream Interpretation Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations