Pythagoras

Greek philosopher from Samos noted for his doctrine of the Harmony of the Spheres and teaching that all is number. (-6th century)

(See also: Pythagoras , Body Mind and Soul)

PYTHAGORAS

Greek philosopher, born circa 572 B.C. on the island of Samos. Taught mathematics, reincarnation, meditation, psychic immortality, the "music of the spheres" which related celestial orbits to the musical scale, vegetarianism and a system of geometric archetypy. His religious community and school in Crotona, Italy lasted his lifetime and Pythagorean societies continued well after his death into the 3rd Century, based on the original (ipse dixit) teachings. It is important to remember, however, that Pythagoras himself separated his own teachings into "exoteric" and "esoteric."

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

Ten Pythagorean Virtues. Virtues of Initiation, &c., necessary before admission.

(See " Pythagoras ".) They are identical with those prescribed by Manu, and the Buddhist Paramitas

of Perfection.

(See also: Ten Pythagorean Virtues , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Pythagoreans The school founded at Crotona, Italy in the 6th century BC by Pythagoras of Samos. Pythagoras was an initiate not only into the Mysteries of his own native state, but also into those of the ancient Orient, where he had pursued extensive studies. His special work was to translate his esoteric knowledge into terms of the Grecian thought of that period. He shows the ultimate derivation of his wisdom and consequent teaching both by the content of his philosophical doctrines and by his insistence upon purity and self-mastery in life as a prime requisite to the attainment of wisdom.

His word metempsychoses is given as meaning the transference of the soul from one body to another; whereas by its Greek etymology it should mean the various highly occult transformations undergone by the soul-ego after death, and preceding the process of reensoulment -- something of larger significant content than what the word reincarnation has mainly come to mean today, as implying merely soul-reimbodiment. It is the teaching of the various successive karmic transformations and imbodiments of a monad during its evolutionary cycle -- not only in the larger sense of cosmic destiny, but also in the smaller sense of its karmic transformations between death and the succeeding physical birth.

Pythagoras is famous for his use of numerical and geometrical keys, which he illustrated by reference to the geometrical figures, the musical scale, astronomy, etc. He is supposed to have "discovered" the Divine Section, the regular polyhedra, and the proposition relating to the square of the hypotenuse; what he did was to show that these were keys to the interpretation of mysteries. Porphyry reports that the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical symbols by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things: (Vita Pythag) or, Blavatsky adds, "the origin of the universe" (SD 1:361). His tetraktys is a gem of condensed esoteric symbolism.

The influence of his school may be traced in subsequent Greek history, inspiring such characters as Epaminondas; "It was Pythagoras who was the first to teach the heliocentric system, and who was the greatest proficient in geometry of his century. It was he also who created the word 'philosopher,' composed of two words meaning a 'lover of wisdom' -- philosophos. As the greatest mathematician, geometer and astronomer of historical antiquity, and also the highest of the metaphysicians and scholars, Pythagoras has won imperishable fame. He taught reincarnation as it is professed in India and much else of the Secret Wisdom" (TG 266).

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

Jesus (Latin of Greek Iesous from Hebrew Yeshua` contraction of Yehoshua` a proper name meaning savior or helper, or that which is spacious or widespread)

Indubitably a historical character, whose life as narrated in the Gospels is pure allegory, a story of the initiation chamber. There is a story current from medieval times among the Jews, mentioned in the Sepher Toledoth Yeshua` (Book of the Generations of Jesus), to the effect that the Jesus of the Gospels was a Jehoshua ben Panthera, a Jewish adept living about 100 BC. Jesus illustrates the typical sequence in occult history: 1) the coming of a leader or teacher to a people needing to be led and taught; 2) his passing, followed by the adoration, even worship, of his followers; 3) the gradual transformation of historic facts into more or less embroidered legends or mythological tales, which in time cluster so thickly about his memory that his identity as a person, and even his name, are lost; 4) the myth, allegory, or legend; and 5) the efforts of other, later teachers to explain, interpret, and reinstate this earlier teacher, now a purely mythic figure or else materialized and misunderstood.

The Christian Gospels appear to have originated in mystery-dramas, beautiful and often sublime in their inner significances, in which were depicted the experiences of the neophyte and adept in his union with the Logos, and hence such unified individual was called a Logos incarnate as a man, the Logos itself being variously named as Christos or Dionysos, and to have been by stages adapted and given a semi-historical guise, as has happened in other instances besides the Christian mythos. Christ therefore, or the Christos, is not a particular man or an especial incarnation of divinity, but a generic term for the divine as incarnated in all human beings, although Jesus was undoubtedly the name of this great Jewish initiate-avatara as an individual. Hence this universal allegory in its Christian version has a true historical peg to hang from; for there did appear, sometime before the Christian era, a special cyclic messenger who was due to come on the change of the ecliptic point from one sign of the celestial zodiac to another, from the sign of Aries to Pisces. In theosophical literature, Jesus is considered to be an avatara, the messenger for the European Messianic or Piscean cycle. As such, Jesus represented a ray sent from the Wondrous Being or spiritual hierarch of the earth into the soul of a pure human being, while the racial buddha, Gautama Buddha, supplied the intermediate or psychological nature in this act of white magic.

"But it is probable that the theosophic effort which Jesus attempted to initiate did not endure for fifty years after his death. Almost immediately after his passing, his disciples, all half-instructed, and in some cases almost illiterate, men . . . foisted upon the world of their time the forms and beliefs of early Christianity; and had there been nothing but these, that religious system had not lived another fifty years. But what happened? During the oncoming of the dark cycle after Jesus (which began as before said about the time of Pythagoras), the last few rays from the setting sun of the ancient light shone feebly in the minds of certain of these Christian Fathers, Clement of Alexandria for one, and Origen of Alexandria for another, and in one or two more like these, who had been initiated at least in the lowest of some of the then degenerate pagan Mysteries; and these men entered into the Christian Church and introduced some poor modicum of that light, . . . which they still cherished; and these rays they derived mainly from the Neo-pythagorean and the Neoplatonic system" (Fund 486-7).

The Hebrew name Jah or Jehovah became identified in the mind of Christians with the name of Jesus, although Jesus never was in any wise identical with the Jewish Jehovah, but was identified in initiation through his own inner god or Father in Heaven, and the Jewish Jehovah mystically was the regent of the planet Saturn.

The first three letters in Greek make I.H.S. placed at the head of representations of the crucified Jesus, often said to stand for Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus the savior of men) or In hoc signo (in this sign), with reference to the alleged vision of a cross of the Emperor Constantine. Jesus is a form of a worldwide mystery-name, whose importance was its meaning, usually given as a three-letter monogram, analogous to the Sanskrit Aum. We find it in the Greek Gnostic Iao and variants are common in ancient Greece, such as Iasios, Iasion, Iason, Iasos; and initiates were known as Iasides or sons of Iaso.

See also AVATARA

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

Seven The fundamental number of manifestation, frequently found in the different cosmogonies as well as in many religious dogmas and observances of the different ancient peoples.

Although ten was called one of the perfect numbers by the Pythagoreans, seven was unique in their series of numbers because it has all the "perfection of the Unit -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it" (SD 2:582). Seven is the number of the manifested universe, while ten or twelve is the number of the unmanifested universe.

Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that "on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: 'Father-Mother-Son'; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane" (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.

There are innumerable instances of sevening -- the seven days of the week, the seven colors of the spectrum, the seven notes of the musical scale -- while special emphasis is placed upon the seven human and cosmic principles; the seven senses (five senses now in manifestation and two more to be attained in the future through evolutionary unfolding); the seven cosmic elements; the seven root-races and seven subraces; the seven kingdoms, human and below; the seven rounds; the seven lokas and talas; the seven manifested globes of the planetary chain; the seven sacred planets; the seven racial buddhas; the seven dhyani-bodhisattvas and -buddhas; the seven Logoi; etc.

Man as well as nature is called saptaparna (seven-leaved plant), symbolized by the triangle above the square {illust}. While the senary was applied to man in all ranges from the physical to the spiritual, when completed by the atman, thus making the septenary, the latter signified the entire range of the constitution, whether of man or nature, crowned by the immortal spirit.

In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo -- the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, etc.

Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: "if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?" (SD 2:623n).

Seven is indeed the sacred number of life, and with the circle and the cross it forms a triad of primordial symbols of the ancient wisdom.

(See also: Seven , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Music of the Spheres An extremely archaic teaching repeated by Pythagoras, and therefore in the West commonly associated with his doctrine, for he taught that the world had been called forth out of Chaos by sound or harmony, and that the universe is constructed on harmonic proportions.

He further taught that the planets were arranged in relation to each other and to the Sun in the progression of a musical scale; thus the distance of the Moon from the Earth was called a tone, from Moon to Mercury half a tone, Mercury to Venus half a tone, Venus to Sun one and a half tones, Sun to Mars a tone, Mars to Jupiter half a tone, Jupiter to Saturn half a tone, Saturn to the zodiac a tone -- thus completing the seven tones of the scale or the diapason-harmony, as it is reported that Pythagoras reckoned -- although the actual addition of the half-tones and tones includes only 6 1/2 tones. As Censorinus (De die natali 13) expressed it, "the intervals correspond to musical diastemes, rendering various sounds, so perfectly consonant, that they produce the sweetest melody, which is inaudible to us, only by reason of the greatness of the sound, which our ears are incapable of receiving" (SD 1:433).

Theosophy teaches that every body, indeed every monad or life-atom, is in constant motion, and as it moves emits a sound, its own keynote, and that this sound is in musical harmony with nature's all-inclusive harmonic symphonies.

Furthermore, every particle of matter, every physical atom even, in its incessant movements produces a sound which is indeed a song, so that had we the power of spiritual hearing (genuine clairaudience), we would be able to hear this unimaginably grand symphony of sounds: we would hear the grass growing -- as the ancient Welsh mystic has it; and the opening of a flower would itself be a marvelous natural orchestral performance.

(See also: Music of the Spheres , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Daiviprakriti :

Daiviprakriti

(Sanskrit) A compound signifying "divine" or "original evolver," or "original source," of the universe or of any self-contained or hierarchical portion of such universe, such as a solar system. Briefly, therefore, daiviprakriti may be called "divine matter," matter here being used in its original sense of "divine mother-evolver" or "divine original substance."

Now, as original substance manifests itself in the kosmic spaces as primordial kosmic light  - light in occult esoteric theosophical philosophy being a form of original matter or substance  - many mystics have referred to daiviprakriti under the phrase "the Light of the Logos." Daiviprakriti is, in fact, the first veil or sheath or ethereal body surrounding the Logos, as pradhana or prakriti surrounds Purusha or Brahman in the Sankhya philosophy, and as, on a scale incomparably more vast, mulaprakriti surrounds parabrahman. As daiviprakriti, therefore, is elemental matter, or matter in its sixth and seventh stages counting from physical matter upwards or, what comes to the same thing, matter in its first and second stages of its evolution from above, we may accurately enough speak of those filmy ethereal wisps of light seen in the midnight skies as a physical manifestation of daiviprakriti, because when they are not actually resolvable nebulae, they are worlds, or rather systems of worlds, in the making.

When daiviprakriti has reached a certain state or condition of evolutionary manifestation, we may properly speak of it under the term fohat. Fohat, in H. P. Blavatsky's words, is

"The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daivi-prakriti, primordial light: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant."  - Theosophical Glossary, p. 121

All this is extremely well put, but it must be remembered that although fohat is the energizing power working in and upon manifested daiviprakriti, or primordial substance, as the rider rides the steed, it is the kosmic intelligence, or kosmic monad as Pythagoras would say, working through both daiviprakriti and its differentiated energy called fohat, which is the guiding and controlling principle, not only in the kosmos but in every one of the subordinate elements and beings of the hosts of multitudes of them infilling the kosmos. The heart or essence of the sun is daiviprakriti working as itself, and also in its manifestation called fohat, but through the daiviprakriti and the fohatic aspect of it runs the all-permeant and directive intelligence of the solar divinity. The student should never make the mistake, however, of divorcing this guiding solar intelligence from its veils or vehicles, one of the highest of which is daiviprakriti-fohat.

See also: Daiviprakriti , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Shechinah (Hebrew) [from the verbal root shachan to settle down or around, dwell]

An emanation, a dwelling; referring both to the primordial emanation and to the dwelling or kingdom containing the Sephiroth, collectively considered the cosmic Tree of Life. In Jewish religious and mystical thought, the cloud of glory, or veil, surrounding a spiritual or divine manifestation. In the Qabbalah, used in a cosmic sense -- termed the superior Shechinah -- as the first splendor, or divine or spiritual substance, emanating from 'eyn soph and enveloping it as a veil, from which proceeded the hierarchy of the Sephiroth. This thought corresponds to the Hindu parabrahman and its splendorous veil mulaprakriti, from which proceed the hierarchies of the manifested universe. The inferior Shechinah is associated with the tenth or lowest Sephirah, Malchuth (kingdom or dwelling), which is equivalent to the material or physical universe, as the vehicle or carrier of all the preceding hierarchies of Sephiroth.

Whatever the stage of manifestation, there may always be said to be a radiance or splendor enveloping that stage; just as in ancient Hindu philosophy, pradhana is considered the veil or emanation of Brahman. The Jews also spoke of the cloud of glory enveloping the tabernacle, and its sanctum sactorum, the holy of holies. Carrying the idea still farther, we might speak of the Shechinah which envelops the human being, his vital aura, which is the carrier of all his higher principles.

Shechinah is equivalent to Devamatri or Aditi -- mother of the gods; to Vach; the music of the spheres of Pythagoras; and the Holy Ghost in the Christian Trinity. Shechinah is always regarded as feminine in the Qabbalah, "And so it is considered in the exoteric Puranas, for Shekinah is no more than Sakti -- the female double or lining of any god, in such case. And so it was with the early Christians whose Holy Spirit, was feminine, as Sophia was with the Gnostics. But in the transcendental Chaldean Kabala or 'Book of Numbers,' 'Shekinah' is sexless, and the purest abstraction, a State, like Nirvana, not subject or object or anything except an absolute Presence.

"Thus it is only in the anthromorphised systems (such as the Kabala has now greatly become) that Shekinah-Sakti is feminine. As such she becomes the Duad of Pythagoras, the two straight lines of the symbol that can never meet, which therefore form no geometrical figure and are the symbol of matter. Out of the Duad, when united in one basic line of the triangle on the lower plane (the upper Triangle of the Sephirothal Tree), emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic Nature, with the true Kabalists, the lowest designation, translated in the Bible 'God'" (SD 1:618-9).

(See also: Shechinah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

APO PANTAS KAKODAIMONES!

False banishing mantram ("Away all evil demons!")

APOCALYPSE

We are aware that the muslims insist that there can be no Universal Eschatonic Implosion until the world has endured "40 years of rain." We would remind them that we have endured *more* than forty years of the "rain" of nuclear radiation and pollution. Aztec prophesies place the end of the world in the 20th Century (who can doubt it?). The Great Pyramid is said to contain, in its mystical measurements, similar predictions in stone of which the last is Sept. 17, 2001 A.D. Two thousand is commonly believed by western civilization to be the year of the Eschaton. The date given by Nostradamus, on the other hand, is slightly pre-millennial: 1999. This is just 13 years prior to the end of the great 160,000-year Mayan Cycle and Terence McKenna's Timescape Zero (based on Ancient Chinese cycles), both at 2012 C.E. And although many others cite 2020, there are interesting reasons for seizing on 1999.

First of all, there is a scientific reason. As meteorologists have noted, the 11-year sunspot cycles which serve to heat the earth, have not only been increasing in severity, they have progressively exacerbated the greenhouse effect. This resulted, during the drought of 1988, in the first of the summer-long record-breaking temperatures that continue to plague us. In '99 the sunspot activity could well have a cataclysmic effect.

Metaphysically, however, there are more compelling reasons. Since the exact interface betweeen the end of the Christian Aeon of Pisces and the beginning of the Humanist Aeon of Aquarius is impossible to pipoint, we are thrown back on sheer numerology. 1+9+9+9 = 28 = 2+8 = 10; numerologically and Pythagoras-wise ten is the number of perfect completion. In other words 1999 is the natural culmination of the Aeon, whereas 2000 is simply a thousandfold manifestation of the Duality: Two - that epitome of evil amongst numbers (from the cosmic point of view, the end of the world isn't necessarily evil). The date, January 16, 1999 adds up to 9. That date is also Julian Day number 2,451,195, which adds up to 9 as well. Ironically enough, most computer projections of disaster, based on current ecological trends, ozone depletion, demographic patterns, etc. predict the peak somewhere between January, 1999 and September, 2013 - by which time the population of the earth will be nine billion and the "end" of the human yardstick on this planet will have come.

And although the Bible stipulates that "no man knoweth the day or the hour" of the last day, I do not hesitate to name the 9th second of the 9th minute of the 9th hour of January 16, 1999 as the eschaton (or the 9th day of the 9th month September).

As one of the Archons of the Ending Aeon, however, I have chosen 999 as my personal sigil, not 1999, because I want to ally myself with the spirit of the ending process, rather than with the End itself. Moreover, from an opitimistic point of view, 999 is qabalistically virginal - it has nothing written on it. Yet I see no reason to dispute '99 as the Climax of the Apocalypse, and I take that most useful point of the Eschaton as the date of my own eschaton-count. My Newtime (13 month) calendar begins approximately on the winter solstice of 2000 (Newtime Year Zero), displacing Gregorian time forever. Hence I count forward from 1999, calling 1997 "Year Minus 3", etc.

It should be noted that "end of the world" predictions are always cropping up. For instance, there was Rev. Whisenant's eschatonic prediction that September 13, 1988 would be the Great Day. Newspapers were gleeful in reporting that the date came and went. What they failed to realize was that 1988, in fact, the beginning of the end - since it was in that year that the greenhouse effect was finally accepted by the planetary powers and acknowledged as the harbinger of the end. If nothing else, 1988 was the year in which the Shroud of Turin was finally pronounced an error by the Vatican. At any rate, the good Rev's numerology may have been naive and the particular fate he chose may have had little synchronistic sparkle, but his prediction wasn't entirely off the wall. Isn't it always the 11th hour? At least sub specie aeternitatis?

But with the 20th Century we leave eternity behind and enter the dimensional worlds. The date Whisenant gave has another meaning. As you know, we stand in the slough of time and at the perimeters of various magico/religious aeons - including the multitudinous segments of the Galilean era - all of which end at different points. The prophecies are fulfilled at different velocities in different ways. The world "ends" perennially because "World" derives from Anglo-Saxon wer-µld ("Man's Era" or "human time.")

Part of our confusion has to do with the fact that we tend to use "the world" and "the earth" as though they were synonyms. The earth is merely one of the stages on which the drama of the world is enacted. From the Olympian point of view, the end of a world isn't a tragedy. Everything has its ?ld. Even the gods have their time. Even the dinosaurs had an "Age" so the toymakers tell us. The word for "world", in every language, is invariably linked to the notion of time. Arabic duniya, "the present (world)", Hebrew olam "eternity", Latin mundus, originally a division into sections (of time), like the Greek kosmos. Religion is always, sooner or later, part of that chronometry.

It amazes me that people, especially gullible Xtians, can be so blind as to expect everything to go on as it has done for millions of years when the end has, in fact, arrived. By now it should be clear even to rotting elephants and establishment flakes that the fulfillment of the prophesies is at hand. Even technocratic corporationism concedes that any time between now and the early 21st Century pollution, population, drought, disease and famine will have hit their strides (the "four horsemen" as the four elements: polluted air, sewage-laden water, barren earth, radiocative fire). Therefore 2000 also marks the beginning of the Age of Aquarius and the official end of the Piscean "Age of Jesus". After that date the Christians (all of whom by then will have been swept up into the arms of their Redeemer) will find themselves, or so asserts self-styled Neo-Xtian, Constance Cumbey, "preserved in their own bubble of spiritual sterility on the dimensional shelf of an alternate reality," where they may eternally contemplate the wonder of their salvation. Meanwhile, mankind's post-holocaustic, enlightened remnant (should such a remnant, by any miracle, remain) will be free to move ahead...to? Incidentally, by the word "holocaust" I do not refer to war but to the destruction of the biosphere by the ravages of unchecked human growth.

For remarks on the return of Christ or "Second Coming" (see PAROUSIA). Meanwhile, the elect, who are still being sacrificed, already inhabit the New Jerusalem. The safe and sound remainder are not saved at all, despite their belief. They call themselves Xtians, but they are Philistines. The zealous guardians of the faith are precisely those about whom Matthew was shouting: "Not everyone who saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!", and of whom Mark said, "But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days." Those who remain are increasingly damned to the hell that earth is henceforth becoming. September 13, 1988 was the last day before it would be too late to begin the task of repairing the biosphere and reversing daily descent to terracide. So the jubilant laughter of Whisenant's scoffers begins to sound increasingly hollow, doesn't it?

 Obviously, there are many of us who, though raised in the Xtian tradition, can view the Apocalyptic experience which the world is undergoing even now, without falling gibbering to our knees in a final paroxysm of millennial conversion. . . No matter what happens henceforth, will retain our Neo-Gnostic and Neo-Pagan allegiances and avoid the horror of "Salvation."

Other cultures are more confrontational. Coinciding with the Xtian Apocalypse is the Hopi ending of the "Fourth World". In their system, evolution produces new strengths but also creates new bad habits which must periodically be burned away. Those who have not been corrupted will become the seed people of the next world. Hindus and Yogis (q.v.) rather than living in the world, tend to think of themselves as living in an "age" - at present, that age is the evil "Kali Yuga" (quite similar, in fact, to our own "apocalyptic era" and not necessarily lengthier). The Chinese also live in an older world. As of this writing (1988), this is the year 4686 for them. And for the Jews it's 5748. But the Mayans (q.v.) dwell in almost inconceivably vast ages, called baktuns and the current one ends in 2012, our time. The "Harmonic Convergence" of July, 1987, marked the entry, for the Mayans, into the final lustrum of the penultimate 20-year period, before the "hotting up" time of 1992, which is the beginning of the final 20 years of a 160,000 year cycle!

The "world" is, in a very real sense, however, the creation of those who inhabit it. Thus, when our forefathers created the United States, they quite deliberately and correctly referred to this as a "new world" and gave the Great Seal the designation NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM ("New Order of the Ages"), which you can still read on every dollar bill. But every maker of a "new" world, whether secular or religious, brings in his own "Age." The makers of the R_publique Fran_aise, after the Revolution of 1789, even came up with a brand new calendar to mark their "new age," complete with new names for the months. Anton LaVey, high priest of the "San Francisco Church of Satan", proclaimed 1966 as the beginning of the "New Satanic Age". Jesus Christ, arriving at the beginning of the Piscean Age, brought with him an automatic 2000-year non-renewable lease on time, which runs out in this century, the beginning of the Aquarian Age. Magicians also fabricate their own elaborate times - Aleister Crowley, for instance, began his "Age of Horus" in 1904. Moreover, although it might be expected to have ended at his death in 1947, his followers, seeing him as an immortal, still maintain Crowley's "Thelemic" calendar in that system, 1996 C.E. would be AN 72.

Crowley's aeon was itself superseded in 1947 (the year of the saucers) when the doorway to the Hell of Universe B was opened by Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard, whence the "Forgotten Ones" are now penetrating this world.

In 1980 Mickey Mouse and Jesus joined forces to end personal liberty in the United States (the end of the Democratic Party forever). In 1983 the Hopis announced the end of the 5th World - henceforth man would be obliged to boost his own stock, somehow. In July of 1987, the world entered the final lustrum of the penultimate katun of the Mayan aeon - another time of tribulation. 1992 was the beginning of yet another 20-year battle of armageddon. On January 6, 1999 Julian Day 2,415,195, the world will end by Nostradamus's calculation. Few will notice, perhaps, sind the "end" refers merely to the official passing of the Galilean Age and the world will be so desperately struggling to survive that there will be little time for outmoded messiahs.

Zoroaster, who died in 1000 B.C., will be reborn and complete the end of futility and Ahriman's rule. His seed at the bottom of a lake, it was prophesied, would thrice conceive maidens at three millennial points. The final chapter in the Zoroastrian cycle and yet another eschaton in our time.

Finally, it should be noted, in 2012, Terence McKenna's Timescape reaches Absolute Zero, the point of infinite novelty (See AUTOPOETIC LAPIS). And, interestingly, Jung also predicted the outer limit as occurring approximately fifty years after his death, which was in 1961.

You will understand that these 'end of the world' dates constitute a map of reality, but are obviously not Reality itself (apart from the fact that there is no "reality", as such). One doesn't necessarily visit every town on the map. We can choose to live out our allotted span to 1999 or 2012, and perhaps save the world, after all, or we can commit mass suicide beforehand in any of a hundred different ways, thus escaping the horror that is building up. The date of the Apocalypse isn't important. What matters is its immediacy. We have to understand that we've reached the outer limit of our dimension - THERE IS NO FUTURE - or at least very little. Like the amoeba in his drop of water it's time to turn away from the edge and move back to the center.

At any rate, by now it should be clear that we're moving quickly, not only metaphysically and synchronistically, but literally into the charged nexus of all the "ending aeons", into a kind of central transformer which is approaching its limit like an overworked fuse. The task of the archons of the ending aeons is to guide the confused through the wreckage of our disintegrating society.

(See also: APO PANTAS KAKODAIMONES! , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Tetraktys (Greek) The number four or a group of four, a tetrad or quaternary. The Tetraktys of Pythagoras, as an emblem, consisted of a triangle formed by ten dots, of which he says: "In what you conceive as four there are ten; then, a perfect triangle and the tetraktys [four] make seven." and Proclus says: "the Father of the golden verses [Pythagoras] celebrates the Tetraktys as the fountain of perennial nature" (On the Timaeus 3).

Some Qabbalists made their Tetraktys upon the Tetragrammaton in the following manner:

Pythagorean = Qabbalistic

1 . = 10

2 . . = 15

3 . . . = 21

4 . . . . = 26

10 = 72

This represents four stages of evolution: a monad, a dual creative force or duad, the world of forms, and the world of complete and concrete manifestation. This arrangement of dots enables one to deduce any of the numbers from 1 to 10. It was held in such high esteem by the Pythagoreans that their most binding oath was made upon the Tetraktys. "it has a very mystic and varied signification . . . First of all it is Unity, or the 'One' under four different aspects; then it is the fundamental number Four, the Tetrad containing the Decad, or Ten, the number of perfection; finally it signifies the primeval Triad (or Triangle) merged in the divine Monad. . . . The mystic Decad, the resultant of the Tetraktys, or the 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, is a way of expressing this idea. The One is the impersonal principle 'God'; the Two, matter; the Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire Kosmos" (TG 326).

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

Deus Emnim et Circulus Est (Latin) "For God is indeed a circle"; a Hermetic axiom ascribed to Pherecydes, a Greek philosopher of the 6th century B.C., said to be the teacher of Pythagoras. The circle is a symbol of the Boundless and also of repetitive cycles; and circular motions and attitudes were prescribed in rituals by Pythagoras, Numa, and many others as being symbolic of divine and celestial concerns.

(See also: Deus Emnim et Circulus Est , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Alogon (Greek) Used by Pythagoras and Plato for the irrational soul in man, divided into the thymichon and epithymichon; the rational soul was called logos. (BCW 7:229)

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

NUMEROLOGY - science of numbers, associated with Pythagoras, the Kabbalah and witchcraft. (NAD)

(See also: NUMEROLOGY , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Timaeus (Greek) A dialogue of Plato in which the Pythagorean philosopher Timaeus gives an account of aspects of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis. Timaeus himself is stated to have written what was regarded by Pythagoras as a book of great worth entitled Peri Psyche Kosmou Kai Physeos (On the Soul of the World and of Nature).

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

Pythagorian numerology: System of numerology originated by the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras; the Western form of numerology.

(See also: Pythagorian numerology , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Akousmatikoi (Greek) Hearers, listeners; probationers in the school of Pythagoras (Wind of the Spirit 309, 111).

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

Epithumia (Greek) In Greek metaphysics, equivalent in the human constitution to kama or the desire principle. Psyche or soul was a union of bios (physical vitality, prana), epithumia, and phren or mens (mind, manas). (BCW 1:292, 365) "Pythagoras and Plato both divided soul into two representative parts, independent of each other -- the one, the rational soul, or ((logos)), the other irrational, ((alogos))-- the latter being again subdivided into two parts or aspects the ((thymichon)) and the ((epithymichon)), which, with the divine soul and its spirit and the body, make the seven principles of Theosophy" (BCW 7:229).

See also PRINCIPLES

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

Voice The concrete expression of an abstract thought; a creative power that has quality besides energy, given as a septenate of logoi represented by seven mysterious vowels, uttered vocally, as in the Gnostic Pistis Sophia and the Christian Revelation. Abstract thought and concrete voice together make the Word (SD 1:99).

The Qabbalistic Sepher Yetsirah says that the Holy Spirit is Voice-Spirit-Word. The gandharvas in India are (physically) the noumenal causes of sound and the voices of nature (SD 1:523), i.e., the seven tones of Pythagoras and his music of the spheres. In Simon Magus' teachings the six radicals are given as mind, intelligence, voice, name, reason, thought -- all emanating from the seventh or highest, spiritual fire. Synonymous are Vach in India and Kwan-yin in China.

At a certain stage of initiation a voice speaks audibly to the candidate, as discussed in The Voice of the Silence. The Bath Qol (daughter of the voice) of the Qabbalah is a spiritual communication of somewhat the same kind; and Deity often communicates in a voice in the Old Testament. Voice is one way in which a divine presence manifests itself to a mind, as when, according to the Bible, the Lord manifested himself to Elijah in a still small voice.

The Army of the Voice of The Secret Doctrine is the prototype of the Host of the Logos, or the logoi, the sevenfold expression of divine thought.

See also LOGOS; VACH; VERBUM

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

Angelology A hierarchical system of angels, messengers, celestial powers or emanations, especially those of the Jews and Christians. The Jewish system is Qabbalistic; the Christian system, chiefly due to the Celestial Hierarchy and to the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of Dionysius the pseudo-Aeropagite, was adopted from the 5th or 6th centuries and had an immense influence on later Christian theology. It was divided into a tenfold plan after the manner of Pythagoras and the Neoplatonists, the summit of this Christian hierarchy being the divine, termed God. The hierarchy includes: 1) Expanse of the Divine Presence; 2) Seraphim; 3) Cherubim; 4) Thrones; 5) Dominations or Dominions; 6) Virtues; 7) Powers; 8) Principalities; 9) Archangels; and 10) Angels.

The word may also mean a treatise on the subject, or a body of doctrine on it.

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