Читать книгу The Magician's Dictionary - Edward E. Rehmus - Страница 11

ANKH-F-N-KHONSU — “His life is in Khonsu” (Moon God of Thebes), title of high priest in Temple of Amen-Ra, the sun god, 26th Dynasty. Crowley’s former incarnations. His stele in the Cairo museum of 1904 was numbered “666.”

ANKH (W)UDJA(T) SENEB — “May he live, be prosperous, be healthy” (Common Egyptian salutation appropriate for kings) - abbreviated to L. H. S. (Life, Health, Strength).

ANODOS — In the Mysteries, the “Ascent” to the upper chambers.

ANOMIE — Lack of purpose, identity or ethical values in a person or society; Disorganization; rootlessness.

ANSIBLES — Superluminal signaling devices based on FTL or telepathic particles. They contradict the theory of randomicity which latter suggests that non-local phenomena must remain inaccessible.

ANTHROPOPHUISM —The ascribing of human qualities to the Gods.

ANTHROPOSOPHY — A movement of illumination, split from Theosophy. Lit. “Knowledge of Man” as opposed to “Knowledge of Divinity.” Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is its originator, though the word itself was used in a different sense, anthroposophica theomagica, in the 17th Century, by the Rosicrucian, Thomas Vaughan. Steiner emphasizes the fact that man urgently needs to come into harmony with the world, himself and the universe through a spiritual science specifically tailored to his nature. Anthroposophy is an attempt to create such a science.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN STRATEGIES — “My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years,” said Abraham Lincoln a century and a half ago. “What are the fruits of Christianity? Bigotry, superstition and persecution,” said president James Madison nearly two centuries ago. “For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm,” said Voltaire 220-odd years ago. Quotations of this sort by the wisest leaders and shapers, extending as they do back through the millennia, should serve as a skull and crossbones over the door of the church.

Xtianity, obviously, is the worst of all worlds (with the possible exception of Islam). On the one hand, it exhorts its believers to live vicariously, to reach for nothing, inasmuch as Christ has done all the work of redemption for them. In this way it thoroughly discourages individualism, especially in its most creative aspects. On the other hand, it pledges salvation to the dregs of mankind — the lowest ranks of morality — to the mindless and the vicious. Thus it espouses egoism at the cheapest level.

Arrogant Xtians are fond of saying, “You can’t have it both ways.” By that they mean that you can’t accept the interconnectedness of everything and at the same time believe in the separation of the individual. But Xtianity, founded as it is on the veneration of stupidity, has always confused paradox with inconsistency.

The wise man leans neither on belief nor on non-belief. The whole issue of God/Not-God is unnecessarily dichotomous, as is our analysis of morality/immorality. The Either-Or world is dangerous. Indeed, it is so dangerous, that even to proceed in a line midway between this Scylla and Charybdis is to hem oneself in by unwanted limitations. “God” is a word that has yet to be defined and even the question of divine singularity vs. plurality is debatable. It is a common conceit that Monotheism is a step forward from Polytheism and one which some serious metaphysicians are finally beginning to deplore. The Initiate may declare that there is but one “God,” but he means that in a quite different sense from the common notion of exclusivity.

Monotheism (see MONOLATRY) always leads to monolithism. We are one another only by differing from one another. It is uniqueness that makes us “divine.” It is quite possible to deny the existence of “God” without elevating man (in his present condition) to apotheosis). There is, for example, the teaching of Pantheism, in which all plants, animals and, in fact, matter itself, are all equally God. This is also “one” God.

Anti-christians are admittedly defensive about “Salvation through Christ.” First of all, non-Christians insist, there can be no salvation without crucifixion (that is, one’s own sacrificial death, not that of some 2000 year old personage of legend) and second, Christ is a type of supraconsciousness already potential, but undeveloped, in all men and women. It must not be confused with the crazed folk hero invented by manic evangelism nor with the self-pitying figures depicted in stained glass windows. The Christ level of consciousness is, in fact, certainly not available to the average, plastic-coated, postmodern illiterate, whose vision scarcely extends beyond that of an insect and whose tenacity is no firmer than a worm’s pull. Therefore, to make salvation available to all men on a believe-as-you-go basis, is idiotic And finally, the Galilean-Mode is only one of many modes of consciousness — most of which are a lot more interesting. (See 666.)

ANTIMATICS — Fanciful science invented by Lem, with propositions such as: “No number is equal to itself” and “There is no such thing as ‘Nothing’.”

ANTI-OCCULT STRATEGIES — Because of Hitler’s occult interests, anti-occultists have tried time and again to establish that all those from whom he adapted his twisted ideas were themselves fascist and racist. Similarly, in the 1930’s everyone was tagged with either the Communist or Fascist label, whether deservedly or not. Attempts to link Hitler to the sympathies of Aleister Crowley, HPB, Jung and the rest are constantly being forced upon gullible and confused people. The fact is, the Nazis used anyone and anything they could to gain power, as do all villains. Accusations against the occult, however, invariably come down not to anti-semitic practices, but, on the contrary, to a tendency to question Christian authority. Even Nietzsche, the 3rd Reich’s most esteemed philosopher, though a strong enemy, it turns out, of the Catholic Church, was deeply opposed to Anti-Semitism.

Jung’s essay in 1936 on Wotan is often cited in which he simply stated that the God of the German people was not Jesus, but Wotan. That the Nazis could take inspiration from that is hardly Jung’s fault as he merely pointed out the obvious. Evil imagination can take what it needs from any source and we might with far more Justification have accused the Vatican of Pro-Fascist tendencies. The charge against Mme. Blavatsky is equally irresponsible. A careful scrutiny of her writings will reveal a deep and abiding affection for the Jews, along with an equally strong antipathy for Xtianity. Attempts to link Blavatsky to “Master Race” ideas would seem to fare somewhat better, until we learn that she considered the Aryan, Semitic and Turanian branches to have derived from a common pre-Abrahamic source. And when she speaks of races, she really refers to the reincarnated human race itself. It is true that Gurdjieff spent the war in Paris and survived the German occupation, but he did not survive through collaboration and he undoubtedly put himself in great danger by devoting his time caring for elderly, impoverished refugees. As for Crowley, the fact that Mussolini shut down his Cefalu Lodge and that the German Gestapo put his Golden Dawn Society on the “Enemies of the Reich” list speaks for itself.

ANUBIS — The dog or jackal-headed Egyptian God who served as guide to the underworld and weigher of the dead man’s heart for its truthfulness.

APO PANTOS KAKODAIMONOS — Greek banishing mantram (“Depart from me 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 prophecies place the end of the world in the 20th Century. The Great Pyramid is said to contain, in its mystical measurements, similar predictions in stone of which the last is Sept. 17, 2001 AD. 2000 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-millennnial, 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. In ’99 the sunspot activity could well have a cataclysmic effect.

Metaphysically, however, there are more compelling reasons. Since the exact interface between the end of the Christan Aeon of Pisces and the beginning of the Humanist Aeon of Aquarius is impossible to pinpoint, 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 completion 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 levels, demographic patterns, etc., predict the peak somewhere between January, 1999 and September, 2013 — by which time the populaton 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 Aeons, I have chosen 999 as my personal sigil, however, and not 1999, because I want to ally myself with the spirit of the ending process, rather than with the End itself. Moreover, from an optimistic point of view, 999 is cabalistically virginal — it has nothing written on it. However, I see no reason to dispute ’99 as the Climax of the Apocalpyse, and I use that most useful point of the Eschaton as the date in 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 1989 Year Minus 10, 1990 Year Minus 10, etc.

It should be pointed out 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 end of the world. Newspapers were gleeful in reporting that the date came and went. What they failed to realize is that 1988 was in fact the beginning of the end, since it was the year when the greenhouse effect was, for the very first time, widely 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 date he chose may have had little synchronistic sparkle to it, but his prediction wasn’t entirely off the wall. Isn’t it always the eleventh hour? At least sub specie aeterni tatis?

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 religio/magical aeons — including the multitudinous segments of the Galilean era — all of which end at different points. And the prophecies are fulfilled at different velocities in different ways. The world “ends” perennially because “World” derives from Anglo-Saxon wer-aeld (“Man-Age” 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 necessarily evil. Everything has its aeld. 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. And 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 dear even to rotting elephants and establishment flakes that the fulfillment of the prophecies is at hand. Even technocratic capitalism 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, radioactive fire). Therefore 2000 also marks the beginning of the Age of Aquarius and the offical 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 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 the daily descent to terracide. So the jubilant laughter of Whisenant’s scoffers begins to sound increasingly hollow, doesn’t it?