Mysticism Dictionary

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Spiritual Theosophical Dictionary on Thorah

Thorah (Hebrew, Jewish). "Law", written down from the transposition of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Of the "hidden Thorah" it is said that before At-tee-k-ah (the "Ancient of all the Ancients ") had arranged Itself into limbs (or members) preparing Itself to manifest, It willed to create a Thorah; the latter upon being produced addressed It in these words: "

It, that wishes to arrange and to appoint other things, should first of all, arrange Itself in Its proper Forms". In other words, Thorah, the Law, snubbed its Creator from the moment of its birth, according to the above, which is an interpolation of some later Talmudist.

As it grew and developed, the mystic Law of the primitive Kabbalist was transformed and made by the Rabbins to supersede in its dead letter every metaphysical conception; and thus the Rabbinical and Talmudistic Law makes Ain Soph and every divine Principle subservient to itself, and turns its back upon the true esoteric interpretations.

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on STRENGTH

STRENGTH

Tarot Trump number 8 (in Crowley's system, 11). This is probably the least understood of all the Atus. Our average mind, unable to appreciate the mystery of ordinary movement, conceives of M/magic(k) as the ability to move solid objects through the air without physical assistance. And yet we betray our own unconscious perception by the fact that we are invariably far less impressed at seeing a feather suspended in the air, than a piano. Is physical strength the equivalent of strength of will?

Strength, however, whether muscular or mental, is the foundation of true M/magic(k), for it is the magic of everyday life. When philosophy fails, when cleverness fails, when riches fail, when everything fails and one is stripped of all one's powers -- there yet remains the "coiled serpent" of being (Teth), source of all energy. The miracle of daily movement, work and pleasure is based upon our physical health and confidence. It is this connection to the "magic of everyday life," that drew Crowley to the decision to renumber "Strength" as 11, the well-known number of sorcery. Moreover, since he believed that the source of all strength lay in the sex drive, he renamed it Lust!

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

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Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on MIRROR

MIRROR

As one of the tools for "knowing" the self, mirrors are highly important. Although for a person possessed of youth and beauty the deliberate breaking of a mirror can serve as a symbolic sacrifice to Venus, to break a mirror accidentally is a sign that one has ceased to look "within" for one of the long, seven-year "Ages of Man". Hathor's mirror is defensive (like Perseus's shield) and used to reflect evil back upon itself. It is believed by the uninitiated that witches and warlocks fear mirrors, will not have them in their houses and, in any case, witches have no reflection! Like most superstitions, there is something behind it, though the truth is far from ordinary people imagine. One of the sine qua nons of M/magic(k) is that the initiate keep to his own boundaries of selfdom until his unorthodox procedures and formulae have been completely worked out. External "consensus" reality is a distraction from "the wisdom of the self" during this creative period. Strictly as devices for knowing the self, mirrors are no longer of much use to the advanced magician (except for very rare rituals), who dwells more and more in his center.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on ISIS

ISIS

The ("Thousand-Named") Egyptian Goddess, whose aspects are also the cow-headed Hathor and the hippopotamus goddess, Taurt (the first deity of magic). Mother and wife of Osiris. She was originally a mortal sorceress who desired to become a goddess. From some of Ra's spittle she fashioned a viper of clay, which she then brought to life and caused to bite and poison him. She released its antidote to him only when he agreed to tell her his secret name(s). The power thereof was so great that it ignited her deification. Ra has at least three names: Khepera, Ra and Atum ("Morning, Noon and Sunset"). At night he is Osiris and his eye is Thoth, the moon (as his eye by day is the Sun). Unfortunately, everyone already knows those names. Ra's secret name was heard only by Isis herself, and she has never deigned to share with anyone else. It is for this reason that she is identified as the Goddess of Mystery itself.

The understanding of these names, indeed, is the key to all Egyptian wisdom, for sooner or later, all the Gods run into and become one another. As we have begun to suspect, the secret of magic is the knowledge that everything is everything else. Isis is the Goddess of Ultimate Mystery itself and the Mother of all M/magic(k). She is the great veil over the night that "none may remove." But in simple, she represents the manifest world, as Nephthys is the unmanifest.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on ZPG

ZPG

"Zero Population Growth" is an idea whose time has come. What has that to do with M/magic(k)? Nothing more than that any practitioner who ignores the state of the world and attempts to avoid controversy out of cowardice, is a charlatan and an ass. The population of the earth will have reached 10 billion within another decade. The beautiful forests and magnificent animals that our grandparents knew are gone forever. Human life grows cheaper with each mewling, puking infant that is born. Anti-abortionists and anti- homosexuals are doing the world a monstrous disservice by pushing their arrogant self-interest propaganda. Those who think that restricting birth is "inhuman" or draconian should be warned that ZPG and family Planning are conservative organizations by any standard. There are far more radical forces on the hell-horizon, growing rapidly in imminence every day: Radical Population Reduction ("Reaper," for short), to mention one on the edge of appearance.

To those who point out that had my mother felt as I do, I'd not have been born I'm bound to say that when I was born there were not yet quite two billion human souls on this planet and the dead still outnumbered the living. Moreover, my genetic material ends with me. I have always practiced that essentially ontological humility which is preached in Isaiah 54: "Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear..." If I have not the pride to perpetuate my own flesh, why should I condone the arrogance of others?

As for those, finally, who believe that natural patenting should be the divine right of every moronic pimp and cheap tart, rather than an earned and rare privilege, and who argue that anyone who tries to "play God" and set hirself up as a population damper can only be a "Fascist," such fools should be reminded that it hardly matters whether a Fascist, a Saint, a Yuppie or Zippy the Pinhead takes the job at this late date. If everyone's genes are to be sacrificed to the common good and if the said "God-Player" is himself free of issue, it matters little who rules. In any case, any form of birth control, no matter how unjust or extreme, is preferable to that tyranny exercised so criminally now by those who, in their filth, stupidity, rut and obnoxious lust, blindly and selfishly birth endlessly forth their disgusting progeny in chaotic, cancerous growth, shoving and forcing the guilty in with the innocent in this already over-stuffed planetary ratbox of accelerating madness and asphyxiation.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on MISTLETOE

MISTLETOE

The Encyclopedia Britannica cites Pliny the Elder as the authority for Druidic mistletoe lore. As a tea it was considered both an antidote for poison and a cure for sterility and barrenness. Thus, to kiss someone under the mistletoe is symbolic of its purpose. Some scholars call mistletoe the golden bough of classical legend.

In the French comic strip, Asterix le Gaulois, the tribal wizard, Panoramix, using his golden serpe, collects mistletoe for potions. These potions faithfully confer superhuman strength on the drinker, much as spinach does for Popeye. It's inevitable that we should think of physical strength as virility (maintaining erection) and from virility to fertility is a matter of course.

The word is Anglo-Saxon misteltan (the -tan being a "twig") from German Mistel, "mistletoe", a diminutive of Mist, "dung". For the mythic mind, excretion and birth are synonymous. Mistletoe was assumed to be the oak's product - hence, fertile. This also reflects, as we've seen many times before, the association, by the Unconscious, of supernatural powers with any "product" of the body.

We nature-deprived postmoderns should bear in mind that mistletoe is botanically unique. It is the only highly-evolved flowering plant that is parasitic; this unusual botanical fact should automatically alert the M/magic(k)all mind to the possibility that it must have unusual pharmaceutical properties as well. A cure for barrenness, of course, and an aphrodisiac are two entirely different things. There is no known chemical substance that has a specific, predictable aphrodisiac effect on human beings. We have too many complicated and individual reactions for that. Everyone knows, for instance, that alcohol isn't really an aphrodisiac. It simply releases inhibitions, some of which may be sexual, but not necessarily. Most drugs don't stimulate the sexual centers at all. They cause fatigue as they wear off and it is the fatigue (or lactic acid) so generated that acts as the stimulant.

Amongst the Germans the decorating of trees for religious effects goes back to pagan times. The Teutonic religions, however, borrowed much from the more advanced Celts and "tree-worshipping" is always associated with the latter. In the 8th Century it was St. Boniface who dedicated the fir tree to X, thus profaning the sacred oak of Odin (we see how the Teutons and the Druids had already joined forces). But the custom of bringing greenery into the house during the winter solstice is an ancient custom, long preceding Xtianity.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on REALITY ALTERATION

REALITY ALTERATION

First of all, discounting ESP, we must never forget that thought alone, no matter how powerful or dazzling, cannot change reality. Only the body can change reality -- through physical means. On the everyday level of realty-alteration we simply exercise the passive power of choice: emphasizing certain things that present themselves, while minimizing others. But even this, the most basic of natural powers, has psionic repercussions and occult meanings.

Realty alteration by M/magic(k)al means can be accomplished with or without drugs or rituals, i.e., by the exercise of the Imagination and the Will. Drugs enhance the Imagination and ritual enhances the Will, although for the Adept such artificial enhancements are no longer always necessary.

The secret to the physical change of Reality is the M/magic(k) of the moment and the desperation of need. We also call this "Spontaneity." Being caught in a lie, for instance, will provide you with a crash course in stagecraft. If it's practice that makes perfect, then it's practice of invention that makes practice unnecessary. Therefore, learn the art of invention.

It's not necessary to memorize a set of rules. Every day is a new day -- every job is a new job. And we come to all things with a brand new mind. If there are principles to be grasped, they are vague and cover only certain rudimentary skills learned in childhood (such as riding congruencies and swallowing labyrinths). At the same time, since everything is the same thing, there is but one endless repetition in infinite regression -- and since everything is also unique, nothing can be counted, except One... One... One... One...

The key to transformation of the world is to move vertically from lower to higher levels of consciousness. As we rise, we do less and less "magic" because reality becomes more and more accessible to negentropic direct action of the Will. As we move downward towards material reality, we require more rigid technoscientific control and more onerous practical labor because we are dealing with harder and harder crystallizations. Eventually we reach the ultimate entropy of matter/energy, wherein no further change is possible because everything is already chaotically changing. Since we stand at some midway point, we are in a state of eternal metamorphosis. Reality, I'm bound to say, is also changed passively and unconsciously, not just by our gross manipulations, hackings, intentions, misunderstandings, negligences and mesmerisms. It is also changed by our simplest perceptions. When we poke at the skin of a pachyderm, it tightens. We must acknowledge that there are (from the photonic standpoint) two modes of reality, the subluminal (slower than light) universe and the superluminal universe (FTL). We are mostly involved with the subluminal.

Since anything is true, let's say that the dynamics of Reality are infinitely subtle. Everything emits its own unique radiation in holomovement with the potentiating space-grid of the reality-level that we happen to occupy. When a photon bounces off such a "wavicle," it registers the wavicle's particular vibration, conveying that reflection to our eye. We retain the photon-pattern, or that segment thereof necessary for our idiosyncratic mnemonic interaction. What is "returned" is the unused remainder or vehicle (the photonic shell) which is now infinitesimally altered in character and contains a slightly different "new" matrix. When a plurality of minds perceives similar shells, then the "new" visual reality is proportionately strengthened or established. In this way everyone contributes to the changing visual reality of one another and to the whole, merely through the passive act of seeing.

Nuit, as Crowley says, is "divided for the sake of love, for the sake of union..." In other words, take a tip from the sexual act. Self is divided from other so that it can experience the ecstasy of joining other into the One. The truth is, all separation, all variety, all opposition is part of one Whole. Once you know that you are not separate from the object you wish to transform, it is easily changed in accordance with the Will.

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Siddha Yoga Dictionary on Padukas

Padukas:

The Guru's sandals, objects of the highest veneration. Vibrations of the inner shakti flow out from the Guru's feet, which are a mystical source of grace and illumination and a figurative term for the Guru's teachings. The Guru's sandals are also said to hold this divine energy of enlightenment.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Siddha Yoga Dictionary on Upanishads

Upanishads:

The inspired teachings, visions, and mystical experiences of the ancient sages of India; the concluding portion of the Vedas and the basis for Vedantic philosophy. With immense variety of form and style, all of these scriptures (exceeding one hundred texts) give the same essential teaching that the individual soul and God are one.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Siddha Yoga Dictionary on Guru's feet

Guru's feet:

The Indian scriptures revere the Guru's feet, which are said to embody Shiva and Shakti, knowledge and action, the emission and reabsorption of creation. Powerful vibrations of shakti flow from the Guru's feet. They are a mystical source of grace and illumination, and a figurative term for the Guru's teachings.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Siddha Yoga Dictionary on Guru's sandals

Guru's sandals:

The Indian scriptures revere the Guru's feet, which are said to embody Shiva and Shakti, knowledge and action, the emission and reabsorption of creation. Powerful vibrations of shakti flow from the Guru's feet. They are a mystical source of grace and illumination, and a figurative term for the Guru's teachings.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on LEGERDEMAIN

LEGERDEMAIN

Sleight-of-hand. It is said of Mohammed that he put seed in his ears in order make it look as if the birds were whispering messages to him. True or not, for some reason, that weighs more heavily on the minds of some than the power of the Koran to affect the behavior of millions over a span of centuries. HPB was often caught out trying to create some magical effect to prove that she had mystical powers over the material world. (Since matter is the manifestation of spirit, what could be more reasonable?). On more than one occasion she was seen to attach strings to make letters and documents drop from above at critical moments. She constantly deplored the fact that she was trapped in a physical body (obese, crippled) that she could not control. Yet, through her role as amanuensis for the hidden masters of metaphysical wisdom, she managed to transcend the temporal, physical world, after all.

It seems to be a rule that the more advanced into magical understanding that the initiate proceeds, the more he is obliged to recognize his own physical limitations. Crowley, for all his miracles, never really overcame his addictions to morphine and cocaine. Gurdjieff was more successful in being able to control his body and to transfer energy and healing powers from himself to others because he abandoned the occult early on for "objective magic", his own brand of highly pragmatic community yoga. But to acquire even the slightest control over basic physiological functions takes several years of serious yogic practice. And to effect the most minor of changes in the nature of human society takes all of one's efforts over a long course of time.

The all too common notion that "magic" is a synonym for "easy" is deplorable. People seem to be impressed more by speed of accomplishment and minimization of human labor than by the things themselves. Rather than being awestruck by the beauty of the palace, we are impressed instead by the djinni's instantaneous teleportation of it. Magic in the 20th Century has become a minor attribute of technology. Jet flight, television and micro-wave cooking at the touch of a button - these are magic for the multitudes, the limits of hoi polloi imagination. Yet there is more wonder in a horse than in an automobile. A good meal that takes hours to prepare is a lot more "magical" than a fast-food sushi-burger.

A student of the Academy of M/magic(k)al Arts recently asked, "How can you tell when what appears to be magic is really a trick?" I suppose most people will always confuse prestidigitation with thaumaturgy. Although stage magic never has any but a trivial, useless result, "real magic" is a significant act that alters reality for the better. Never forget that we dwell in a world of illusion - what the East calls maya - indeed the roots of magic and maya (mag-, may-) are the same. Reality is nothing more than a consensus, an agreement of the crowd, that thus and thus is so. If your eyes were closed you'd be unable to tell the difference between a peacock feather tickling your nose and a fly lighting upon it. The true magus doesn't do "tricks" because the world itself is already a piece of legerdemain. Instead, he is bent on embuing the world with a new meaning, with transforming the basic foundation of the hell that we inhabit.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on THE EMPEROR AND THE STAR

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!

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on SOTHIS

SOTHIS

The Star of the Tarot. Greek for Sirius, the Dog Star, the Egyptian Soped. Sothis, bearing a star in her crown, is the Nilotic goddess of inundation. Her Egyptian title was "Ruler of the Stars." At Elephantine she was known as Hathor and elsewhere as Satis, another aspect of Isis. Sothis is also called "The Star of Set and is represented by the Silver Star of the Great White Brotherhood.

Colin Wilson says that an "Egyptian treatise attributed to Hermes Trismegistus" asserts that Hermes landed on earth to teach mankind civilization and then returned to the stars. Sirius continues, however, Grant tells us, through the focus of the Andromeda connection, via Soror Andahadna and others, to "equilibrate" groups like the O.T.O. (transmitting through beings such as Lam, Aossic-Aiwass, etc.) and to bombard the "Interior Planes" with Maatian Age emanations.

In the Maatian system, according to Grant's theory, everything is conscious, with galaxies being super-evolved complexes of consciousness. Sirius (like all stars) not only has "Sirians" in bodies like ours, but also has star consciousness, just as Earth has a planetary consciousness. Each galaxy is responsible for assigned "solar" systems and there are many cosmic streams with termini scattered through the continuum of the space-time warp, from interstellar to interplanetary to intermolecular. The Sol-Sirius link is just one of these termini. Other binodal power lines are Isis (a not yet discovered planet) and the Andromeda galaxy, Uranus-Algol and Jupiter-Betelgeuse. Our own Milky Way connects star systems at more than Andromedan distances. The termini act as giant transformers or power-relay systems, focussing the galactic emanations like laser beams. One such ray is relayed to Sirius, "the Sun beyond the sun," which thereupon bibranches for a number of subsequent star-systems, including Sol, which decodes the "message" and serves as its own laser focus for the planets.

Man in reacting to all the cosmic influences unconsciously and unsystematically erupts with energy of his own. Human energy, like the energy of other races in the Comity of Stars (see COMITY OF STARS) being sent along their respective links, arrives at Andromeda through the Isidian connection. Andromeda is our primary broadcaster, Sothis is the amplifier and cpu, Sol the receiver and decoder. Through the Sothian circuit we receive back some of what we have emitted, as direction and information. Thus, K.G. tells us, we obtain the words to define the Age of Maat. R.A. Wilson mentions some of the Sirian manifestations in his book, The Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati. The only flaw is his demonstration of the active intervention of Sothis in the affairs of planet earth is the omission of the fact that Sothis (Sirius) is the Star of Set and that Shaitan-Aiwass (commonly known as Satan) is its inhabiting spirit. That Gurdjieff was also receiving inspiration from the Star of Set is not surprising in view of the nature of his work, which was, in many ways, similar to Crowley's. Also, Wilson fails to detect the presence of the invisible twin of this influence and its astral level manifestations. Said influence has resulted in the so-called "New Age" (or Maatian consciousness). In mythology, Andromeda was sacrificed to the Fish Goat (esoterically understood to refer to the Aeon of Maat).

An unfortunate few (such as Whitley Streiber has shown in his diary, Communion) now suffer pseudo-nightmares on a regular basis. These dream shapes, terrible though they be, collectively serve to concentrate and steady the door-frames enabling magicians at will to enter the Tunnels of Set and pass over into the unknown "Universe B." The portals leading into the Space Battlefield (Armageddon on the Astral Plane) are located between Shaitan's eleven-pyloned Towers. We can also understand the Sothian current as a variation on the Ophidian Current (Great Old Ones).

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on LANGUAGE

LANGUAGE

Maurice Nicoll in Living Time says: "We communicate badly, partly because we never notice how we are doing it, and partly because it is an extremely difficult matter to communicate anything save the simplest observations, without the danger of our signals being misinterpreted. Also, as often as not, we do not exactly know what it is we are trying to communicate. Finally, nearly everything of importance cannot be expressed."

Since this is so, doesn't it stand to reason that we should devote a good deal more time to language than we do? And since the more tongues we learn the better we understand our own, shouldn't learning other languages have a high priority? Part of the teaching we should impart to our chelas is never to stop struggling with language, recognizing that it must always be welcomed as a challenge. In every M/magic(k)al community - whether in a sophisticated modern city or in the midst of a Stone Age tribe, the magician is always the one who knows the longest words and can use them. What is a "spell", after all? What is gematria, but an attempt to dissect words and rebuild them? A "grimoire" was originally a "grammar." "Vedanta" is actually the "grammar" of the Sanskrit Vedas! As we begin to understand more about the Past and the necessity to turn back to it, we see that language looms larger and larger in human consciousness. The ancients understood what we have forgotten - birds fly and lions predate, but language is what man does. It is language that lies behind everything we make, which is why the word "poet" derives from a Greek word meaning "one who makes," the most important thing being, for the Greeks, to make words and which is why in the bible it is said, "In the beginning was the word." Words, like all things that are made, come out of the Void, magically. And words come before the thing! A spider may weave a web but it is always the same web built on the same blueprint resident in her instincts, no different from the eggs she lays instinctively. Compare that to the variety of human works! By the same token, the man who has no language is not just a spider that can't weave webs. He is a frog that can't leap, a seal that can't swim, a deer that can't run.

The reason Latin, Greek and Sanskrit are hard to learn is that they are ancient tongues and our linguistically-diminished consciousness is no longer able to deal with convolutions of thought and esoteric syntax. Nevertheless, it's still true that if you really want to understand Plato or the author of Genesis you must learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew. There was a time when English also used conjugations and declensions as highly structured as Latin. Today we can barely translate Shakespeare. The progress of language always mirrors the deterioration of the human spirit and moves downward from difficult to easy. And in return, as language decays it brings civilization down with it. Already it's virtually impossible for all but a handful of scholars in the world even to attempt to master anything bizarre, like Babylonian cuneiform or Mayan hieroglyphs - although a century ago, when all well-educated people knew Latin and Greek, such studies, had the material been available, would have been relatively common. If the day ever comes that we should actually encounter an extraterrestrial civilization, we will discover to our dismay that our technology is useless. Because we have lost our sense of language, to attempt to learn what they are saying may be completely beyond our capacity. We've traded communication for the ease of machines.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Alternative Health Dictionary on Jewish meditation

Jewish meditation (Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalistic System of Insight): Judaic approach to personal growth promoted by Chabad Lubavitch of Long Island, New York.

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on WANDS, Rhabdology

WANDS (Or Rhabdology.)

The other day I found myself replying in this way to a fairly common request for more information on magic wands that chelas submitted to the Academy of M/magic(k)al Arts:

"No, polishing metallic wands doesn't build up static electricity in me, or at least I keep dispersing it. Although after I pushed the elevator up button yesterday, the unfortunate fellow right behind me, pushed it also and he got a flash that was visible and nearly knocked him over. I'd better be more careful. Sorry I contracted to buy this one, since it's not double-ended anyway, and is twice what they were charging for similar ones at the last New Age Fair I attended! [1986]. Still, it does have lots of amethysts (eupeptics) and the crystal is well-shaped. but this particular tool is ill-named: "power wand." Quartz is mainly a counter-measure against malefics, evil influences and diseases. My teacher, to protect herself on the street, keeps a small, double-ended power wand in her purse, like a lady's revolver. Mine, however, doesn't do too many positive things, except that is excellent for visualization cuttings, like the ritual knife (see ATHAME). but it's supposed to be used ritualistically, so is of minimal value to those too indolent to conduct rites. I have heard rumours that it can be "programmed" provided it can first be "cleared." (Always consult your books for instruction on "clearing" your wand before using it and then "consecrate" it for what you plan to do with it). Since this one is not double, but single-ended, it should be powerful in first-time situations, initiations, etc.

However, if I want to do really creative things, I use a small Hindu vajra, which is double-ended and can be half hidden when held in the fist. The vajra is a true thunder-stick and must always be of traditional design -- not always doubled and hence not always to be used as a wand. The txuringa is another individualistic type of "wand," actually more like a personal totem -- but it's too private to discuss in public. A txuringa, however, is always made of wood or stone, never bronze, lead or crystal."

So much for the idiosyncratic point of view.

Asking what to do with a wand is a question that would probably not occur to a man -- though it is hardly like asking what one does with a penis! (Some women use their "power wands" as surrogate phalloi -- which is useful in drawing down Hermes or Ares as an imaginary love partner.) Wands represent the creative fire locked inside everything -- it's the power to transmute and be transmuted. On a simplistic level, a wand can be seen as the same as the thing that produces life, but actually it's even more basic than that. The wand is the source of manifestation in any form on any level. It's the connective "One" in face of the womb "Zero."

Next time you start something, anything, from scratch -- think of the wand as its producer. Its purpose is to make you more creative, to facilitate doing as opposed to mere being. Practice and experimentation will enable you to discover uses for yourself. Magical implements are tokens of spontaneity.

Wands are extremely individualistic. Some are very powerful, some only very subtle. I have a number of them which serve different purposes. The most expensive one, made of crystal and velvet, is very mysterious to me. I'm never sure how to use it properly. My most effective one is a twig I found in the woods. I've stuck all kinds of junk onto it and stained it different colors. It has been baptized with all of my own bodily fluids and carefully exposed to all seven elements. It is so powerful that I never use it! No. Again, the wand I actually use is that same two-ended Tibetan vajra. I use it to evoke curiosity sometimes, but mostly as protection and a guide for meditation in the midst of everyday life.

Wands should be of wood. If possible a wand should be a still living branch. The preferred wood for wands is almond. The almond tree possesses a virgin delicacy, sweetness and fertility. First to blossom in spring, it is also fist to succumb to the frost of autumn. The almond nut is the most advanced seed of life in the evolution of the vegetable kingdom. Hazel wood is second best. In any case, it is a good idea to fashion your own wand from scratch, using virgin tools. It should be personalized and earthed. Then it must be exposed to fire, immersed in water, hurled into the air and buried.

How do wands work? They aren't intended to serve as mere "indicators," worse yet, as "directors" (like an orchestra conductor's baton). I'm afraid we have to go back to the sexual aspect and think of what the Egyptians called bah -- "phallos" -- but apart from its ordinary sexual usage. If you can imagine such stuff outside the context of raw pornography, wands are non-penetrative. They are the conduits or vehicles of life (or being/becoming) and energy, and as such, demand of their users sometimes superhuman abstinence. We have to understand also that it's only one of the four magickal ikons (Wands, Cups, Coins, Swords). By themselves wands summon only the fire-world, the Lion of courage (and through the archangel Michael, one of the archangels of the celestial quaternary). Fire can be Will, Artistic Creation, Procreation, Health Protection, Life, etc. Wands are not hazy, mystical, psychedelic, emotional, desiring or delusional as Cups are. They are the masculine, Yang-bearers, but only symbolic of the phallus, as the Cups symbolize the vagina. (Beware -- don't try to take these things all the way down into the gutter! This is not Freud's world! Such glibness will cause you to be eaten alive and your unhallowed remains tossed into the eternal fire!). In Paracelsus' teaching, Sex is the 7th of the 7 Magickal Principles, not an activity necessarily involving the human body in any way. The Cup, i.e., Chalice (Holy Grail), being virginal and receptive, is to be contrasted in similar fashion to the Coin or Pentacle (Devil's sign), which is "closed" because "pregnant."

Amongst the Hebrews, there is the Rod of Almond, "Mateh Hashaqad" of numerological value 463 (400 = tau or Malkuth to Yesod, 60 = samekh or Yesod to Tiphareth, 3 = gimel or Tiphareth to Kether). Thus the staff is the whole of the paths from the Kingdom to the crown. (Reference is to Exodus -- the staff of Moses.) The top of the wand is in Kether, which is one, whereas the Qliphoth of Kether are the Thaumiel, or opposing heads that rend and devour one another.

At any rate, wands are unifying, juxtapositive, connective devices, whereas swords are penetrative and divisive. Fire (the wand) transmutes in the "melting pot," whereas air (the sword) disengages and separates things.

So wands work by coping with disparate or opposite things. If you want to repel, use single-ended quartz (or two ended quartz/amethyst, i.e., Moon/Jupiter). If you want to attract, use double-ended diamond, gold, ruby or carbuncle. Since the vajra is itself the "diamond" of the Bodhi-Sattva, it is harmoniously proportioned, even a vajra of brass will serve -- for that matter, even paper will suffice! Longevity, however, is an ideal attribute of life, so metal is more suitable than paper as a carrier. And if your wand must be of metal, then gold is best.

Finally, on the most pragmatic level (earth of fire), the wand is one's oath. The Word herewith must express the Will, hence the mystic name of the Probationer is the expression of his highest will.

You might think that the more wands you have, the better, and that is true to some extent. But after accumulating four or five of them, they begin to be a burden to carry around. You may have more powers, but you also begin to attract more challenges. Four wands indicate established strength without competition, but after that, if you start collecting more and more wands, you'll have to go on acquiring more still, in order to meet the new obligations associated with these power levels. Ultimately you will either become monarch of the unwieldy things or the inundated sorcerer's apprentice. At that point your responsibilities will outnumber your privileges. The King of Wands is executor of power, engaged continuously in the fulfillment of endless obligations.

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

Mysticism Dictionary - K: Mysticism Magick Dictionary on QLIPHOTH, QLIPPOTH

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, )