David the Gnome

The God Priapus has his modern incarnation as the trite-but-trusty garden gnome.  His red Phygrian cap and pointed booties betray his ancient ancestry.  This fertility god, often equivocated to the god Pan, is associated with territorial borders, generative energy, and thievery.

"This god [Priapos] is worshipped where goats and sheep pasture or there are swarms of bees; but by the people of Lampsakos he [Priapos] is more revered than any other god, being called by them a son of Dionysos and Aphrodite."Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2. 622 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) : -Source #3

I have discussed widely, in previous posts, the use of phallic posts as millarium or mile-markers of Roman and Greek eras.  It is easy to see the association between the male sex and borders, I am reminded daily of the fact that my two girl-dogs are the staked-out territory of a local boy-dog.  I’d be surprised if he were to ever poop anywhere else.

The thievery association comes from the myth that Priapus tried to steal love from a sleeping nude.  In any event, he didn’t get away with his surreptitious wooing, due to the bray of a donkey alerting his victim.

Here’s the lowdown on Priapus:
“Priapus is said, by some, to have been the son of Bacchus and Nais, or as others will have it, of Chiŏne; but the generality of authors agree, that he was son of Bacchus and Venus. He was born at Lampsăchus, a city of Mysia, at the mouth of the Hellespont, but in so deformed a state, that his mother, through shame, abandoned him. On his growing up to maturity, the inhabitants of the place banished him their territories, on account of his vicious habits; but being soon after visited with an epidemic disease, the Lampsacans consulted the oracle of Dodōna, and Priāpus was in consequence recalled. Temples were erected to him as the tutelar deity of vineyards and gardens, to defend them from thieves and from birds.

He is usually represented naked and obscene, with a stern countenance, matted hair, crowned with garden herbs, and holding a wooden sword, or scythe, whilst his body terminates in a shapeless trunk. His figures are generally erected in gardens and orchards to serve as scarecrows. Priāpus held a pruning-hook in his hands, when he had hands, for he was sometimes nothing more than a mere log of wood, as Martial somewhat humorously calls him. Indeed the Roman poets in general seem to have looked on him as a ridiculous god, and are all ready enough either to despise or abuse him.” -Source 1

So here you see Priapus associated with goats, such as the God Pan or Levi’s Baphomet. Priapus is Pan, who is also Baphomet, and on and on until you’ve named all such fertility gods.  But the bee reference may be more elusive.  It is likely that the bee association is related to the common domed shape of ancient “skep” or “basket” beehives, as the common depiction of Priapus is as a mound of stone or log.  But I think we can get a little deeper on the bee connection, and to do so we will have to explore the theories of Victor Schauberger and Rudolph Steiner.  Historically later, and along these same lines, Wilhelm Reich probably deserves a mention, due to his “orgone energy” theories.

I believe there is a deeper meaning behind the mythological association between bees and goats, or, to be more specific, goat horns. 

The Holy Horn:  The Shofar, an ancient Hebrew sacramental instrument, was made from a naturally spiraled ram or kudu horn.  According to Wikipedia, “the Elef Hamagan (586:5) delineates the order of preference: 1) curved ram; 2) curved other sheep; 3) curved other animal; 4) straight—ram or otherwise; 5) non-kosher animal; 6) cow. The first four categories are used with a bracha (blessing), the fifth without a bracha, and the last, not at all.”

It is the sound of the Shofar, modulated through the spiraling horn, which is said to be holy.  This sound is just one version of a modulation of energy which is the result of traveling in a precise pattern, this energy path, in its various forms is commonly known as the “golden mean.”  

There is a myth, common to the Mediterranean region, of a ritual called Bugonia, which is said to “spontaneously generate” honeybees.  Here is one version of the Bugonia rite, from Wikipedia: 

“Build a house, ten cubits high, with all the sides of equal dimensions, with one door, and four windows, one on each side; put an ox into it, thirty months old, very fat and fleshy; let a number of young men kill him by beating him violently with clubs, so as to mangle both flesh and bones, but taking care not to shed any blood; let all the orifices, mouth, eyes, nose etc. be stopped up with clean and fine linen, impregnated with pitch; let a quantity of thyme be strewed under the reclining animal, and then let windows and doors be closed and covered with a thick coating of clay, to prevent the access of air or wind. Three weeks latter let the house be opened, and let light and fresh air get access to it, except from the side from which the wind blows strongest. After eleven days you will find the house full of bees, hanging together in clusters, and nothing left of the ox but horns, bones and hair.”

I believe that the Bugonia myth is very comparable to Victor Schauberger’s theories.  It is commonly believed that Bugonia is a form of “spontaneous generation,” and as such is an easily disproven wives-tale.  The true nature of this myth is that it relates knowledge of a generative organic energy, that once understood, can be created, manipulated and harnessed for its pan-generative power.  

Source #5:  In the agriculture section of Callum Coats' book [Living Energies, which is about Victor Schaubergers theories], meanwhile, Rudolf Steiner's method for drawing subtle energies into the soil is discussed. Steiner's "biodynamic" farming uses the forces which Steiner called "heaven" and "earth." It does get earthy­ cow horns filled with cow dung are buried in autumn to allow a period of cold fermentation. (Viktor Schauberger wrote about this process and said it was important the materials be cold fermented and not hot fermented.) During the few months that the cow horns are buried, their contents are changed into a sweet smelling substance! Afterwards, part of this substance is mixed with water using a certain method of stirring. By stirring first one way and then reversing the motion, [energy] vortexes are created in one direction, broken and then created in another direction.

Coats compares this mixing process with the Japanese art of sword making, in the sense that you create first order and then chaos and then order again. The sword is first put into the fire ­ the chaotic stage  and then is beaten, putting structure back into the metal. Then it is put back into the fire again, folded over, and bent. Every time the process is repeated, the state of disorder gets lower and lower and the state of order gets higher and higher. The end result is a very highly structured product, which compares to biodynamics' end result of a very energetic product.

The energized material is then spread lightly over the farmers' fields. Since the fields receive an energy dose in which the material quantity is very small but the energetic quantity is very high, it is what could be called a homeopathic dose. "It apparently has a reaction out of all proportion to what is placed there," Callum Coats said on a 1996 radio interview with Laura Lee.

During his research, Coats learned that Viktor Schauberger went further than Steiner and developed soil building systems in which cow horns are not needed. "You don't need to have any animal input at all, in order to create what (Schauberger) called a 'virgin hymen' over the surface of the earth...that very fertile, fecund energy matrix through which plants would germinate much more simply and thrive more vigorously and produce much higher quality product."

The Bugonia ritual, of "creating bees" alludes to the creation of qualitatively dense, "orgone" type energy.  This generation myth is based on the slow, natural processes of subtle energy, and suggests that ancient people had an intuitive understanding of Schauberger-type energies.  The modern man looks at these myths and says "well, they clearly didn’t understand how nature works."  In reality it is the other way around!

Schauberger famously spurned institutional education, claiming instead; (and proudly) "nature was my teacher."  Will we ever move past the modern anachronism that an education must be bought and paid for, like another pair of shoes?  What a heavy, pricey, and undeserved crown is modern education.

Schauberger believed centripetal (vortex) energy was qualitatively superior to mechanized, centrifugal (explosive) energy.  He believed that nature uses centripetal, slow-form energy to draw subtle energies out of the ether, and that this influx causes natural processes to be of zero-loss energetically. 

Priapus is just another name for the archetypal Phallus Deity, pan-generator, and master of organic energy, trailing off of a long ancestry of similarly mythologized gods.  Who is this two-faced Janus, this God of change? 

Gods don't change to reflect our changing natures; they change to reflect reality, which is a medium of change in-itself.  To say there is an Eternal Recurrence is an incomplete philosophy, the more truthful statement is this:  We are experiencing an "Eternal recurrence of the same as different" 

Or, as C.S. Lewis put it, more simply:   "Things never happen the same way twice." 

But back to Priapus, for the Egyptian counterpart of Priapus is the God Min:

“Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 6. 1. (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.) :  We shall at this point discuss Priapos and the myths related about him . . . The Aigyptians (Egyptians) in their myths about Priapos say that in ancient times the Titanes formed a conspiracy against Osiris [Dionysos Sabazios] and slew him, and then, taking his body and dividing it into equal parts among themselves, the slipped them secretly out of the house, but this organ alone they threw into the river, since no one of them was willing to take it with him. But Isis tracked down the murder of her husband, and after slaying the Titanes and fashioning the several pieces of his body into the shape of a human figure, she gave them to the priests with orders that they pay Osiris the honours of a god, but since the only member she was unable to recover was the organ of sex she commanded them to pay to it the honours of a god and set it up in their temples in an erect position. Now this is the myth about the birth of Priapos [who the author identifies with the Egyptian god Min] and the honours paid to him, as it is given by the ancient Aigyptians."  -Source #3

Priapus, as associated with organic generative bounty, is sometimes depicted holding a “horn of plenty.”  This horn of plenty depiction is probably just a watered down “politically correct” iteration.  Ancient Romans were less prudish: Priapus is more commonly depicted as an ugly dwarfish man, with an absurdly large, comically sized penis.    

Could there be more to the myth of Priapus’s guardianship of borderlands than meets the eye?  Gnomes, and fairies (while we’re at it), are associated with a very different border than that of the physical. 

I’ve been brooding about the connections between different fertility gods and what this all could mean.  I had a dream, during all this research, which I could barely extract to the waking state.  All I remember is that I found a fairy ring, in my dream, and I was extremely excited.

Priapus, Border Guard of the Fairy Rings

This border, less terrestrial and more arcane, is that which exists between waking and sleep, between reality and fantasy.  This is the borderland between reality and surreality; the hypnogogic meditative state.  This is the domain of Priapus.

Christopher Knowles, on The Secret Sun Blog, has been discussing marshes and their connection with the theme of borderlands, in a series of posts titled “Wizards and Walk-ins.”

Interestingly, I once asked a good friend if he had ever seen a “UFO.”  This retired Army Major proceeded to recall a story from his youth: He was out hunting deer in rural New Jersey, when he came upon a “UFO” hovering over a swamp.  What happened next?  He claims he shot at the UFO with his 8mm Mauser rifle and it flew away!

Whether or not he was pulling my leg with this story, I find it interesting that the marsh/swamp component was present in the telling.

Marshes, or rivers which travel below ground (or just caves, themselves) are symbolic of entering a “wood between the worlds,” as CS Lewis called this arena.  In the prequel novel to the Narnia series of books, The Magicians Nephew, CS Lewis describes an in-between realm where different worlds or realities can be entered through little puddles.  In Lewis’ rough draft of The Magicians Nephew, called the Lefay Fragment, the protagonists leave their world by means of a raft, upon an underground flowing stream.

"Lampsacus whose dwellers no triennial festival of Bacchus nor Phrygian madness bids gather in secret caverns, but their own god [Priapos] hales them to Venus [Aphrodite]. High over the city they see his altars and the carvings of his towering shrine."  -Source #3

Significantly, in CS Lewis’ final draft, he chose a ring as the mode of transportation to another world. 

A fairy ring, as depicted above, is a naturally occurring circle of mushrooms.  Is Priapus the guardian spirit of the fairy ring?

So we see this ring motif occurring in the works of JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Ring novels. 
Richard Wagner, nevertheless, is still the original ring lord, with his first opera, Die Fein (The Fairies) and his Der Ring des Nibelungen, his epic Ring Cycle.  Remember, it was Wagner’s music which appears in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece: 2001, A Space Odyssey.

(And how easily I get sidetracked, the curse of the generalist, reel it in, reel it in!) 

There are diverse opinions of the folkloric meaning of fairy rings, often they are seen as very lucky or very unlucky, sometimes dangerous, or even beneficial.  While the word is out on the portent of finding such a ring, the result of entering one is fairly well agreed upon.  Entering a ring might make you sleepy, and when you try to get out, the fairies won’t let you! 

If you do escape, that may be the least of your problems.  Often, upon returning from fairy land, the traveler realizes that either no time has passed or hundreds of years.  Time dilation or compression is a common facet of a voyage into “fairyland.”  C. S. Lewis’s fairyland was Narnia, and in his “The Lion Witch and Wardrobe” novel, the children live in Narnia 27 years, and yet still make it home for dinner, because hardly any time has passed!

One last quote will do me in on this post.  There are still connections here which I haven’t entirely fleshed out.  Perhaps folklore can still shine some light on the Priapus Myth:

 Ovid, Fasti 6. 319 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
"Should I omit or recount your shame, red Priapus? It is a very playful, tiny tale. Coroneted Cybele [Rhea], with her crow of turrets, invites the eternal gods to her feast. She invites, too, Satyri and Nymphae, Rural-Spirits; Silenus is present, uninvited. It's not allowed and too long to narrate the gods' banquet: night was consumed with much wine. Some blindly stroll shadowy Ida's dells, or lie down and rest their bodies in the soft grass. Others play or are clasped by sleep; or link their arms and thump the green earth in triple quick step. Vesta [Hestia] lies down and takes a quiet, carefree nap, just as she was, her head pillowed by turf. But the red saviour of gardens [Priapos] prowls for Nymphai and goddesses, and wanders back and forth.  He spots Vesta [Hestia]. It's unclear if he thought she was a Nympha or knew it was Vesta. He claims ignorance. He conceives a vile hope and tires to steal upon her, walking on tiptoe, as his heart flutters. By chance old Silenus had left the donkey he came on by a gently burbling stream. The long Hellespont's god was getting started, when it bellowed an untimely bray. The goddess starts up, frightened by the noise. The whole crowd fly to her; the god flees through hostile hands. Lampsacus slays this beast [the donkey] for Priapus, chanting : `We rightly give flames the informant's guts.' You remember, goddess, and necklace it with bread. Work ceases; the idle mills are silent."  -Source #3

 

Sources:

1.  Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology; For Classical Schools, By Charles K Dillaway:http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20734/20734-h/20734-h.htm

2.  Hermae, Termini, Pillars and Groves
 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/ipi/ipi06.htm

3.  The Theoi Project, encyclopedia entry for Priapus: http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Priapos.html

4.  Fairy Rings Invade Ohio:  http://cowgarage.com/2011/10/05/fairy-rings-invade-ohio/

5.  Living Energies, by Callum Coates, a review (which I quoted)  can be found at:  http://www.earthpulse.com/src/subcategory.asp?catid=2&subcatid=5

6.  The Shofar  http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/shofar.htm

7.  Wikipedia Bugonia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugonia

The Mouth of the Sandworm is the Wrath of God

I have been discussing on this blog the many hermetic associations of the phallus, and frankly, would be glad to be off this specific topic.  Nevertheless, I have a few more connections to make before I move on to other ideas.  It’s not time, not yet, to send one-eyed-jack down the river.

The Tower Tarot Card, which I identify with concepts from Frank Herbert’s novel Dune is no mere fleeting reference.  I would be oversimplifying a much (much) larger concept by focusing on the aspects of a singular Sephira, Path or Card, but I am starting to realize that these blog posts are just too big already.  Therefore, in an attempt to make this blog palatable, today's morsel of myth is: a kernel of Kabbalah!

The study of Tarot and the study of Kaballah are essentially the same thing.  Jungian Archetypes and Freudian Psychoanalysis are also based on Kaballah.  

Crowley's The Tower card has some non-traditional imagery which illuminates several major symbolic attributes of the card.  In my previous post, I explained how Jung had a vision of a ritual phallus which he identified with light, or the God's-eye.  The triangle or pyramid-with-eye is a common esoteric symbol for God.  The eye reference is a beginning for those who are making an attempt to discover why Crowley associated this card with “sex magick.”  But where does the Sandworm come in? 

Ah!  The beauty of the Kaballah!

There is a Tarot card equivalent for all 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.  The 17^th Hebrew letter, associated with The Tower is Pey or Phe, which means mouth.  The Egyptian Hieroglyph equivalent for the Hebrew Pey is the hieroglyphic letter Viper, specifically named for the horned desert viper, Cerastes cersaste; a sand snake.   The Viper is depicted in Hieroglyphics as fully extended, in profile with horns, as if in motion.  The Heiroglyph Viper is associated with the English F sound or Hebrew Ph.  The Horned Viper is also known as the asp, as depicted on royal Egyptian crowns.  I always wondered why Frank Herbert had called his God a worm, and not a snake.  The circular maw of crystalline teeth is a sure giveaway that the “old man of the desert” was more snake than worm. 

The mouth of the Sandworm is the wrath of God, as depicted on Crowley's Thoth Tarot and made myth in Frank Herbert's Dune.    In the imagery invented by Crowley, and drawn by Lady Frieda Harris, the mouth of god destroys the tower, which is a reference to the phallus.

The traditional The Tower card depicts a tower, (go figure) which is referred to as The House of God.  This tower is commonly depicted being struck by lightning from the heavens.  The lightning flash design is familiar to kabbalists as the image made when the Tree of Life is connected via numerically connecting the ten Sephiroth from the top to the bottom. 

According to Lon Milo DuQuette, the original design of the Tower tarot card is “A tower struck by forked lightning.  Human figures thrown thence to suggest the letter Ayin by their attitude” Ayin is the previous 16^th Hebrew letter, coming just before Peh, the 17th. 

So, we are talking about two tarot cards here, the sixteenth which is associated with the ritual phallus and the seventeenth with the destruction of the phallus. 

There are, strangely enough, many modern religious archetype-symbols contained in the pictographic form of ancient languages.  To keep it short, we can focus clearly on one important symbol: the Vesica Piscis.  As anyone who has experimented with sacred Geometry will know, the Vesica Piscis is the origin of all other sacred Geometry forms: they enter through it; it is the vagina, entry point of the womb.  Modern inane opera entertainment has made a mockery of the “womb with teeth” as “man's greatest fear.”  Perhaps it is, sexually.  But this toothed-Vesica may actually be the high-initiate symbol of God's wrath.    

The Vesica Piscis appears twice on The Tower card, first on the bottom as the toothed mouth which breathes destructive fire, and second as the shape of the eye which casts its lightning bolt from above.

Crowley’s version of the 16^th Hebrew letter, The Devil card, represents the Hebrew letter Ayin.  Ayin translates to eye.  On this card is depicted the same symbolism which occurred in Jung’s mithraeum vision, the ityphallically displayed Khaire Phalle.  Crowley’s The Devil contains imagery with a symbolic Horus reference, a third-eye reference, and a well endowed goat.

Therefore, upon study of these two cards, we see that they also reference each other.  The Tower, according to Lon Milo DuQuette, references Ayin by the shape of the tower with “figures thrown.”  The 16^th letter, ayin/eye makes an appearance as the eye atop the 17^th card!

A similar “mouth of God” can be seen in the movie Dark City, where the alien creatures The Strangers, (which inhabit the bodies of the dead) take a similar “wrathful” true form.

“The house of God appears to me as a vortex not a mouth” -Crowley

This vortex reference brings us full circle, synchromystically, back to our original vortex victim Philip K Dick.  Dick experienced the Vesica in many of its's forms.  The Itchthys, which began PKD's mystical vision, is simply an extended Vesica.  DNA, God's Map of Light, is a further extended Vesica with teeth! 

Ecstatic Visions of euphoric knowing, such as Philip K Dick’s, in which an aspirant is blessed with visions of the meaning of life, are often inconvertible into language.   Language as we know it is an aspect of the rational and linear side of the brain.  We shall, nevertheless, have deep lineage and noble precursors in the attempt to marry the knowledge of experience with the meaning of myth!

Is the Sandworm representative of the Linga; the male sexual symbol?  Or is it a symbol of the Yoni; the Vesica Piscis, the womb of creation?  If you have trouble reconciling the two symbols, perhaps it’s the concept “either-or” biting you in the butt!  The more sublime concept is “either and.”  The Shiva Deity represents this union of Yoni and Linga, or Ardhanarishwara.  DuQuette thinks the eye on top of The Tower Card is none other than the eye of Shiva.  Go figure!

According to Crowley: “The Serpent is portrayed as the Lion-Serpent Xnoubis or Abraxas.  These represent the two forms of desire; what Schopenhauer would have called the Will to Live and the Will to Die.  They represent the feminine and masculine impulses; the nobility of the latter is possibly based upon recognition of the futility of the former.  This is perhaps why the renunciation of love in all the ordinary senses of the word has been so constantly announced as the first step to initiation.  This is an unnecessarily rigid view.  This card is not the only Trump in the Pack, nor are the “will to live” and the “will to die” incompatible.” 

So, here we have the Abraxis serpent, what Crowley doesn’t come out and say is that this serpent, crowned with a halo of light, depicted at the top right of The Tower card, is truly known as the Serapis, who is also Mithra, the Sun god.

Let me say again:  The Lion Serpent is the sacred Apis, the lion-headed snake of Egyptian's symbolic-drowning myth.  Thank you Aleister, for spelling it out so clearly.

(Above Left, Crowley’s Thoth Tarot The Devil versus on right, a more traditional design.)

I have one more point, which will lead into my next post.  The figure of Pan or Priapus, According to Crowley, makes the original design of this card.  “Levi’s Baphomet is sound commentary on this Mystery, but should not be found in the text.” -Crowley

So, if you are following my train of thought, Baphomet, which is a post figuration of Mithra is the meaning of The Devil card.

As an apology to Thelemites out there, I affirm again that my connections and interpretations are my own and unaffiliated as of yet with any Thelemic order or Lodge.  I have reread my own previous posts, and aspects of them seem stale and unenlightened.  At best, my ideas represent my own logical view of religion which is at best understood as a living movement of rite and ritual.

In my previous posts, I made a reference to an aspect of the Horus God-form Harendotes, a term which signifies the vengeance or wrathful aspect of God.  Crowley's Thelema religion adopts the Isis myth as the middle pillar of significance.  Some helpful terminology:

Crowley's Names of Horus and his aspects:

Heru-ra-ha:  Horus sun-flesh composed of the two other forms:

Hoor-paar-kraat: Horus the Child

Ra-Hoor-Khuit: Horus on the Horizon

Traditional Egyptian Names of Horus (with Dune equivalent in parenthesis)

Harpocrates: Horus the Child (Paul)

Harsomtus: Horus who unites two lands, represents divine Kingship of Pharaoh (Usul, the base of the pillar)

Harendotes:  Horus avenging death of his father  (Maud'Dib)

Horus of Edfu: All encompassing form of Horus, God of Heaven  (Paul Maud'Dib who is known as Usul to his tribe, who sits on the Golden Lion Throne as ruler of the Universe)

Sources:

The Thoth Tarot (itself probably the greatest book ever drawn)

Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot by Lon Milo DuQuette

The Chicken Qabalah by Lon Milo DuQuette

Happy Summer Solstice!

 Isaac (Luria)

[Hebrew:]
Im ninalu daltey Nedivim
daltey Nedivim
Daltey Marom
[English translation:
[If doors of generous men are locked,
Doors of heaven]

Staring up into the heavens
In this hell that binds your hands
Will you sacrifice your comfort
Make your way in a foreign land

Wrestle with your darkness
Angels call your name
Can you hear what they are saying
Will you ever be the same

[Chorus]
Mmmm mmm mmm
Im Nin'alu, Im Nin'alu
Mmmm mmm mmm
Im Nin'alu, Im Nin'alu
[English translation: "If they are locked"]

Remember, remember
Never forget
All of your life has all been a test
You will find the gate that's open
Even though your spirit's broken

Open up my heart
Cause my lips to speak
Bring the heavens and the stars
Down to earth for me

Wrestle with your darkness
Angels call your name
Can you hear what they are saying
Will you ever be the same
 

The Golden Lion Throne of the Evil God

The spirits of men are the powdered bones of Saturn

The Axis Mundi of Daath

“Talkin bout the one eyed snake!”  -Cheech and Chong, Up in Smoke

In this post I will explain how the Egyptian Deity Horus ties into the Kabbalistic Sephirah Daath, as well as, symbolically, modern and ancient obelisks, Crowlean Magick, Mithra and Mithraeums.  C. G. Jung’s dream where he beholds the Khaire Phalle, the Gnostic All-Devourer and All-Destroyer in its true form, is detailed in this post and quoted in its entirety.  In Jung’s vision, the throne of the Evil God is contained inside an unholy Sanctuary described in all but word, as a Mithraeum.

The Tree Of Life (pictured), of the esoteric Kaballah, or Qabalah is said to contain ten Sephiroth, or energy nodes.  The combined intersections and relationships which form this metaphysical map are said to contain all the correspondences of life itself, reaching even beyond our sphere of comprehension.  There is, however, an eleventh, secret Sephirah; Daath, or Da’at.  According to Gareth Knight, “the early texts state most explicitly that there are ten Holy Sephiroth, not nine and not eleven, but ten.  However, modern research has led to sufficient evidence to justify its being regarded as a Sephirah in its own right, but in a rather especial way.  It is thus termed the “Invisible Sephirah” and Crowley suggested that it might be best considered another dimension to the other Sephiroth.”

Related to the etymology of the word Kaballah is the word kibla, which in religious parlance is defined as the direction which Muslims face in prayer.  All Muslim prayer is directed at the Kaaba, a holy cubic stone located in Mecca.  In Arabic, qiblah means “that which is placed opposite.” 

Many people are turned off from mainstream religion which force-feeds a subjective truth by masquerading it as an objective fact.  The Kabbalah is an ancient tool of correspondence which gives those who study it the ability to find their own subjective truth.  The Kabbalah is a tool for widening the net of perception, allowing for greater cognitive leaps by the creative and dynamic powers of the right brain.  Thelemites, the followers of Aleister Crowley’s channeled “revelation” and philosophical teachings, are also known as the OTO: Ordo Templi Orientis, practitioners of the religion Thelema.  “Love is the Law, Love under Will”, is a primary teaching of Thelema, and practitioners may devote their entire lives to the study of inner correspondences which make up their “true will.”  As an individual spiritual aspirant, I believe the tenets of a true religion should encourage freedom of thought and contain ecstatic living ritual.  Let your Christ be Risen in thought, word and deed, rather than static, patriarchal and greedy.   Paramount, above much else, is placement of the Sacred Feminine back into the Administration Branch, of the Celestial Corporation, so to speak. 

The Sephirah Daath is said to represent Knowledge, and often has a sexual connotation, as in “sexual knowledge.”  I believe there is a deeper knowing, a direct knowledge which comes with experience.  The sexual analogy represents the union that results in the birth of this deeper knowledge.  Horus is often represented as a winged red sun, and is considered the child of the Sacred Marriage in a Gnostic context.  The ability to “see” truth directly may be one of the “Sidhi,” or occult powers locked away inside the Daath nexus.  

One of my most memorable dreams predates all of my major research into mysticism.  As it starts, I am walking up a road which begins to become entirely vertical.  The road turns into a cliff, a perpendicular face which I am climbing.  The surface is a bookshelf, and I grab at it, swinging myself up over higher and higher peaks.  Finally I arrive at the top, to enjoy, on the horizon, a setting, or perhaps rising sun.  The sun appears in a deep red color.  It is an absolutely euphoric dream.

This dream is a pilgrimage.  It represents a desire to reach the peaks of Knowledge, what I am beginning to realize is a universal Archetype, what Gnostics might call a tree within a tree.  The Quabalistic “missing” Sephirah Daath is the key to understanding my dream, and quite a bit else in the Synchromystic realm as well.

Serpents guard the path to Daath, the secret Sephirah of the Tree of Life.  The most common symbol associated with Daath is the Caduceus.  The Caduceus is also related to Kundalini energy, which is believed to rise up the spine at the sequential activation of the body’s seven Chakras.  The Pineal gland, located in the center of the head, is artistically represented by a pine cone and is considered the “third eye” which is said to be activated by Kundalini energy.  A common esoteric interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, says the tempting snake represents the Kundalini force.  Of the two trees which grow in the garden, The Tree of Life is represented by the Kaballah and its ten Sephiroth.  Daath has been deemed by Gnostic thinkers as a “tree within a tree;” the Tree of Knowledge which is said to bring death.  

According to Gareth Knight, the symbols of the Sephirah Daath are: a grain of corn, a prism, Sirius the Dog Star, the “World Mountain” concept, and the Janus-face.  All of these symbols work together to define a distinct and definable schema, as well as a mysterious truth.  This is a rich thought-stream which has travelled below ground for many generations, but may still bubble to the surface when tapped.  Perhaps an even better analogy would be digging a well, and striking black oil.

Sirius symbolism is probably the most harped-on topic for synch-minded thinkers, and the connections between Sirius and Horus cannot be understated.  This is a horse that cannot be beaten to death; not in this Aeon.

There are many people who are trying to discover a rational reason why “whenever they look at a clock it says eleven-after.”  This eleven-after “time-prompt phenomena” is associated with the presence of the God Horus.  Looking at a clock and seeing 4:44 is also a common time-prompt.  Incidentally, the “stele of revealing,” the major Thelmite religious icon, measures 44 inches from top to bottom.  Clearly an Ancient Egyptian funerary inscriptionist prophesized the modern English inch and designed their stele accordingly.    

The ritual mating of the six-pointed star and the five-pointed star creates a mystical eleven pointed star.  The eleven pointed star is called the star of Qliphoth, the star of the dark side of the Tree of Life.  With the Daath-Horus-Knowledge connotations as they are, I interpret time prompts as perhaps the most basic form of direct knowing, a call from your Higher Soul.  The message: look to the books; seek knowledge.

As a brief divergence:  The Infinite Monkey theorem, in regards to sacred-star manufacture, states; “An infinite amount of Monkeys, given an infinite number of Spirographs, and an infinite amount of time, could create a star with an infinite amount of points.  Such a star would be all-powerful, as it would symbolize all the possible mystical connotations of the whole universe.”  For is the map not the territory in this holographic realm? 

The problem, of course, with my Monkey-Star theory is that a star with points doesn’t account for the symbolic relationships or paths between the actual Sephiroth.  And you thought we were actually talking about monkeys!  It has been said that all is metaphor, and it has been said that Knowledge is power.  The more complete statement would be:  Some Knowledge is more powerful than others, and some metaphors, known as Living Myth contain the very most power of all.

The Metaphor of the Caduceus:

“The so-called intertwined snakes of the caduceus. Originally the caduceus, which is still the symbol of medicine was the staff of- not Hermes-but-' Fat paused, his eyes bright. 'Of Asklepios. It has a very specific meaning, besides that of wisdom, which the snakes allude to; it shows that the bearer is a sacred person and not to be molested...which is why Hermes the messenger of the gods, carried it.” -Philip K Dick, Valis

The Living Myth of the Holy Grail:

“I can see Richard Wagner standing at the gates of heaven.  "You have to let me in," he says. "I wrote Parsifal. It has to do with the Grail, Christ, suffering, pity and healing. Right?" And they answer, "Well, we read it and it makes no sense." SLAM.”  -Philip K Dick, Valis

The Washington Monument, a pilgrimage site for many Americans, is still the tallest obelisk; the tallest stone structure in the world.  When it was completed, it stood as the tallest structure in the world.  The Washington Monument acts as a millarium or omthalmos, and as a holy pilgrimage site.  The four corners of an obelisk are representative of the four cardinal directions, which play a role in the symbolic meaning of any “world mountain.”  Four cardinal rivers are also said to flow from the world mountain.  For an artistic rendering of this concept, look no further than the Fountain of the Four Rivers, by Bernini.  This fountain is topped gracefully by the Obelisk of Domitian, and is located in Rome, Italy.  Often, Obelisks are topped with a ball, symbolizing the Pineal Gland.    

On the east side of the pinnacle of the Washington Monument is a blessing to God; there the sun rises.  The Deseret/Utah stone, (pictured below) is one of almost two hundred dedicated stones which lie inside the Washington Monument.  It shows a beehive on a pedestal with an eye looking down from above.  Compare this imagery with the Dune novel cover-art depiction of the tyrant, Leto II, and Jung's archetype of the “ritual phallus.”   

Ancient Pharaohs were believed to be the incarnation or Avatar of the God Horus.  The coronation of Horus as God-King, is artistically demonstrated with a complex two-part crown known as the Pschent Crown.  Separately worn, these two crowns are known as the Deshret, the red crown and the Hedjet, or white crown.  The bowling pin shaped phallic white crown can be inserted into the red crown to symbolize the mating of upper and lower kingdoms of Egypt.  The union of these crowns represents the merging of spiritual man with corporeal man.

Due to the overall impact to this essay, and interrelation of all these concepts, it becomes absolutely necessary to quote Jung's original enthroned phallus vision in its entirety: 

“...I had the earliest dream I can remember, a dream which was to preoccupy me all my life.  I was then between three and four years old.  The vicarage stood quite alone near Laufen castle, and there was a big meadow stretching back from the sexton’s farm.  In the dream I was in this meadow.  Suddenly I discovered a dark, rectangular, stone-lined hole in the ground.  I had never seen it before.  I ran forward curiously and peered down into it.  Then I saw a stone stairway leading down.  Hesitantly and fearfully, I descended.  At the bottom was a doorway with a round arch, closed off by a green curtain.  It was a big, heavy curtain of worked stuff like brocade, and it looked very sumptuous.  Curious to see what might be hidden behind, I pushed it aside.  I saw before me in the dim light a rectangular chamber about thirty feet long.  The ceiling was arched and of hewn stone.  The floor was laid with flagstones, and in the center a red carpet ran from the entrance to a low platform.  On this platform stood a wonderfully rich golden throne.  I am not certain, but perhaps a red cushion lay on the seat.  It was a magnificent throne, a real king's throne in a fairy tale.  Something was standing on it which I thought at first was a tree trunk twelve to fifteen feet high and about one and a half to two feet thick.  It was a huge thing, reaching almost to the ceiling.   But it was of a curious composition: it was made of skin and naked flesh, and on top there was something like a rounded head with no face and no hair.  On the very top of the head was a single eye, gazing motionlessly upward.  It was fairly light in the room, although there were no windows and no apparent source of light.  Above the head, however, was an aura of brightness.  The thing did not move, yet I had the feeling that it might at any moment crawl off the throne like a worm and creep toward me.  I was paralyzed with terror.  At that moment I heard from outside and above me my mother's voice.  She called out, “Yes, just look at him.  That is the man-eater!”  That intensified my terror still more, and I awoke sweating and scared to death.  For many nights afterward I was afraid to go to sleep, because I feared I might have another dream like that.  This dream haunted me for years.  Only much later did I realize that what I had seen was a phallus, and it was decades before I understood it was a ritual phallus.  I could never make out whether my mother meant, “that is the man-eater,” or “that is the man-eater.”  In the first case she would have meant that the lord Jesus or the Jesuit was the devourer of little children, but the phallus; in the second case that the “man-eater” in general was symbolized by the phallus, so the dark Lord Jesus, and the Jesuit, and the phallus were identical.  The abstract significance of the phallus is shown by the fact that it was enthroned by itself, “ityphallically” (“upright”).  The hole in the meadow probably represented a grave.  The grave itself was an underground temple whose green curtain symbolized the meadow, in other words the mystery of Earth with her covering of green vegetation.  The carpet was blood-red.  What about the vault?  Perhaps I had already been to the Munot, the citadel of Schaffhausen?  This is not likely, since no one would take a three-year-old child up there.  So it cannot be a memory-trace.  Equally, I do not know where the anatomically correct phallus can have come from.  The interpretation of the orificum urethrae as an eye, with the source of light apparently above it, points to the etymology of the word phallus (shining bright).  At all events, the phallus of this dream seems to be a subterranean God “not to be named,” and such it remained throughout my youth, reappearing whenever anyone spoke too emphatically about Lord Jesus.”

Jung experienced this dream contemporaneously with a real-world encounter with a “man dressed as a woman:” a Jesuit Priest which scared the hell out of him.

Jung’s mention of the man-eater and devourer of little children brings me back to my Saturn references; Chronos/Saturn is the Titan who ate his own offspring because he feared their power.  Is the mystery of Daath, simply stated, “I and the Father are one.”?

One Sephiroth to rule them all?  One Sephiroth to bind them? 

The Sephirot Daath plugs into the Tree of Life, like a light bulb to a socket.  It fits below Kether and above Tiphareth, the problem here is that most occultists show Daath as simply floating there.  Kabbalists understand that the correspondences of one Sephirah to another are just as significant, or perhaps more so, than the symbolic placement of the Sephirah themselves.  What are the paths to Daath?

Gurdjieff and Crowley may not have liked each other, but they may have both been master Kabbalists.   Gurdjieff’s “To know-To Understand-To Be” drawing, (pictured) shows some interesting Daath correspondences.  I was studying the symbolic import of this drawing recently when had the intuitive desire to overlay the Tree of Life over this Gurdjieff print. 

I printed out a copy of the Gurdjieff drawing and literally turned it over back into the printer and printed a Tree of Life over top.  Instantly, I had a Gurdjieff Tree of Life.  The most amazing synchronistic correspondence in this overlay was a perfect “throat Chakra” match for Daath.  The throat Chakra controls communication, creativity, and union of higher and lower.  The female angel on the left (in Gurdjieff’s drawing) matches the pillar of severity, and the devil on the right, the pillar of mercy.  A scale ends up being encircled by the Yesod Sephiroth, Malkuth encloses a trowel, tools representing the arts and sciences are littered across the floor.  The crossed branches at Kether, held by the angel and demon are visually similar to common depictions of The Alchemical Marriage.  Perhaps what Gurdjieff is telling us is that an Alchemical Marriage between the positive and negative pillars produces Horus, the Hawk-headed representation of the middile pillar; the pillar of equilibrium.  Below the Horus Avatar, we have a bull, dove and lion, all of which is then encircled by an Ouroboros, or snake eating his own tail. 

An attempt to find more connections led me again to Aleister Crowley, speaker for the Aeon of Horus himself.  In Crowley’s ritual incantations within “Liber V Vel Reguli” we have the beginnings of what, I promise, is not another wild goose chase.  Also warranting further study is Crowley’s Gnostic Mass.

Liber V Vel Reguli, the “Ritual of the Mark of the Beast” begins with the “Oath of Enchantment, Which is called the eleven fold seal.”  This seal counts three marks up to Daath, exactly pointing out where this Sephirah appears on the Tree.  See (red) illustration at right:

Among other ritual commandments is: “Let him touch the Centre of his Forehead, his mouth, and his larynx, crying AIWAZ!”  This connects Aiwaz with the throat Chakra, Aiwaz is the communicator of Daath.  Crowley’s depiction of Aiwaz looks strikingly similar to a “grey alien.”

There is a phase of this ritual which has the practitioner act as if he is holding a baby to his left breast.  Christopher Knowles, at The Secret Sun Blog, has lately been discussing the archetype of the uncovered left breast in reference to historical art and pop-culture.  Knowles believes there is a connection between the exposed breast imagery and the child-god form of Horus.  The Secret Sun also has many illuminating articles on Crowley and Mithra/Mithraeums, as well as hundreds of other impressive, insightful blog entries.

I can’t claim, with my modest knowledge, to have complete intrepetation or understanding of Crowley’s symbols.  But I am willing to take a whack at it.

My entirely-preemptory and cursory conclusions of the meaning Crowley’s ritual is this:

Crowley’s Liber V Vel Reguli ritual is an instruction for “mounting” the Sephirah Daath upon the Tree of Life. I suspect, in fact, this whole ritual entails activation of Kundalini energy.  Crowley’s ritual goes on to mention Saturn, the phallus and many other things which I have been speaking about herein.  

Please do not try Crowley’s ritual unless you feel you are spiritually ready for it, as unprepared Kundalini activation can be injurious or even deadly.  According to Gareth Knight, “There is a dark side of Daath relating to what might be called the subconscious mind of God, and this could have strange results on the soul.  Contacts with the personal subconscious can be disturbing enough, so one can well imagine how much more explosive would be contacts with the Universal Subconscious, containing the whole past history and stresses of the Logos… …The safest way to work with Daath is through the Isis mythology.”

The pentagram is just another form of the Baphomet icon, as drawn by Israel Regardie.  The Baphomet, incidentally, is also often pictured similarly to the God Janus, with his head facing both left and right simultaneously. 

This goat-headed pentagram fits into the Tree of Life in the Daath “plug.”  The Baphomet has a flaming torch springing from its head which represents the Kether Sephirot.  The Goat ears point to Geburah and Chesed, while the horns point to Binah and Chokmah.  The snout points to Tiphareth. 

Aleister Crowley suggested that the term Baphomet was derived from “Father Mithras.”  Crowley stated that (my paraphrase)“Baphomet’s letter was ayin: the eye, so that he is light” If the God Mithras was a progenitor of Baphomet, that makes things very interesting indeed.  The arms of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet icon may represent the actions carried out in the Mithraic iconography by the torchbearers Cautes and Cautopates.  Perhaps what Jung really witnessed in his dream was an Archetype-Mithraeum.    Mithra, of course, is the God who emerged from a stone. 

References to Christopher Knowles or the OTO Order do not imply that these people endorse or agree with my work.  Draw your own conclusions.  Sources:

LIBER V VEL REGULI   http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib5.html

The Secret Sun Blog, by Christopher Knowles:  http://secretsun.blogspot.com/

Jung’s Autobiography Memories Dreams Reflections

A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, by Gareth Knight

The Kiblah, by by Tau Apiryon   http://hermetic.com/sabazius/kiblah.htm

Wikipedia Baphomet Article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet  Wikipedia Quotes Crowley:   “So far, the Wizard had shown great qualities! He had cleared up the etymological problem and shown why the Templars should have given the name Baphomet to their so-called idol. Baphomet was Father Mithras, the cubical stone which was the corner of the Temple.”

Bonus Footnote:  The Wizard of Oz is the communicator appearing behind a green curtain, just as in Jung’s dream of the Phallus.  (Not included in above text in order to avoid confusion with Aiwaz, my little alien buddy) 

Also:  Many websites discuss sacred geometry in the District of Colombia map.  Looking up the George Washington statue where he is depicted as Baphomet would also be a fun place to start.  The Statue of Liberty, as Isis, sits on top of an eleven pointed star dias platform!

*Leo the Lion and Horus are both astronomical/astrological figures as well.  The constellation Ophiuchus also deserves mention in regards to this mystery.

I am impressed by, as I study these topics further, the continuing ability of  Frank Herbert’s Dune Myth to “hang in there” and correlate with my findings. 

In Frank Harbert’s Dune Mythology, Maud’Dib becomes Harendotes: Horus in the avenging form, in vengeance of his fathers’ death.  Later, he sits on the Lion throne as emperor of the universe.  Maud’Dibs’ son, Leto II later sits on the same throne as God Emperor; The Tyrant.  As a youth, Paul Maud’Dib cherished his Orange Catholic Bible, later becoming a Prophet in his own right.  Kaaba imagery, which is rife in Crowley’s writings, goes hand-in hand with the Middle Eastern themes of Dune, and its Sufism philosophy.  (Topmost Picture: Saint Alia of the Knife, Sitting on the Golden Lion Throne)