Читать книгу The Magician's Dictionary - Edward E. Rehmus - Страница 12

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, most of us 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. Amongst Hindus a Yuga (q.v.) is an “age” and rather than living in the world, Hindus tend to think of themselves as living in an “age” — at present, the age is the evil Kali Yuga (quite similar, in fact, to our own “apocalyptic era” and not necessarily longer). The Chinese also live in an older world. As of this writing (1988), this is year 4686 for them. And for the Jews it’s 5748. But the Mayans (q.v.) live 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 dwell in 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 République Française, 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 beinning 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 “Thelemite” calendar. In that system, 1990, C. E. would be AN 86.

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 1985 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 is the beginning of yet another 20-year Battle of Armageddon. On January 6, 1999, Julian Day 2,451, 195, the world will end by Nostradamus’s calculation. Few will notice, perhaps, since 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 incarnation will be as Saoshyant, The Redeemer. Thus 2000 A.D. marks 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. One doesn’t necessarily visit every town on the map. We can choose to live out our alloted 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 civilization.

APOCATASTASIS — A closed reincarnational loop wherein the same lifetime is re-experienced over and over again with no alteration of details. Says Nicoll, in Living Time: ...“it is in life that we have to ‘perfect’ ourselves. If we limit ‘this life’ to one single journey between birth and death there is not enough time. People give up trying just because of this appearance of things. They do not bend the life round in a circle, but leave the whole matter to the ‘hereafter.’ We cannot grasp that beyond the ‘end’ lies the beginning. Natural understanding will not conceive this. It can only conceive that beyond the end lies either nothing-ness or something entirely new. Beyond our life we meet — our life. We cannot turn in any other direction!” Plato did not believe that the dimension of time in which life occurred was absolutely apocatastatic or needed to be “traversed endlessly without change.” But to continue, ...“if the same time recurs and one reenters the same moment and changes something belonging to one’s former experience of that moment, must it not follow that one changes what has been done in the former experience of that moment, because the time is the same?”

Thus it is always the same life that we repeat, but it can be an eternal, self-polishing jewel or self-perfecting work of art. On the other hand, if we so choose, it can be no more than a dreary and monotonously unvarying routine.

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA — Greek philosopher and magician, credited with healing miracles, feats of bilocalism, raising of the dead, &c. An actual historical personage, who was the contemporary and rival of the merely legendary Jesus Christ. He is said to have observed, “Common men see the present, sages, that which is about to happen, the theoi see the future.”

APOPHIS — (“The Destroyer.”) Ancient “left-hand” adversary, Set. KG says he is Set in his “Ophidian” (serpent) form. A huge Nilotic serpent that attempted to devour Ra, he figures strongly in the left-hand path. Also “Apepi.”

APOPSI — Anti-psi power. Word invented by Bonewitz.

APORIA — The state of not knowing which way to turn. Philosophical doubt or confusion arising from the difficulty of reconciling contradictions or incomplete ideas. From Gk. aporos, “impassible, perplexing.”

APOTHEOSIS — Becoming a god, in the historical sense. Usually it referred to Roman emperors or Egyptian kings being given divine attributes, after they had died. In the superstitious or drugged mind, Ascension necessarily accompanies Apotheosis. That is, the spirit of the dead person, having been made into a god, is seen to rise literally into heaven. Initiates think of apotheosis as everyone’s task, while still alive: to achieve the literal transmogrification of the human condition.

APOTROPAIC — Lit. “turning away,” descriptive of any protective device, such as garlic worn around the neck to fend off vampires. More particularly, it applies to the “Eye of Horus,” which is a wooden phallus used to avert the “evil eye.” However, all apotropaics are defenses against some sort of “eye” and the purpose of the object is to engage the attention of said eye and detour its malevolence. Hence the more startling or unusual the device, the better.

AQUARIUS — The llth Sign, the number of wizardry — electronic as well as esoteric. The sign of astronomy, no less than astrology, and above all, the sign of Independence and service to the world. The new precessional beginning of the zodiac, heading the New Age. It is the emblem and inspiration of “Man”: “Henceforth the Son of Man Appeareth in the Heavens.”

In 1929 Jung wrote that we would enter the first star of Aquarius in 1940, adding, “That would be the turning point. We may look for a new development about that time.” Famous Aquarians: Lincoln, Thomas Paine, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Edison, Lindbergh, Dickens, Jules Verne.

ARACHNE —The Spider. 13th Month of the proposed “Newtime” calendar to begin at the winter solstice of 2000 A.D. From a possible corruption of the early Pagan or Druidic 13th zodiacal sign Auriga, The Charioteer. That there were originally 13 signs in the zodiac goes back, probably, to Osiris’ body being dismembered into 13 parts. Reference should be made to James Vogh’s Arachne Rising, wherein he points out that Auriga (or Arachne), lying as it does between Taurus and Gemini, is the logical placement for the 13th sign and appears to have been so designated by the Druids.

There are others who cite Ophiuchus, The Serpent Holder, as the more logical 13th month. Ophiuchus (between Scorpio and Sagittarius) is even cited by some as the Age we are now inhabiting, rather than Pisces or Aquarius, and that it began in the early 1940’s.

ARCHANGELS — Guardians of the ten Sephiroth of the Qabalah: Metatron, Ratziel, Tzaphkiel, Tzadkiel, Chamael, Raphael, Haniel, Michael, Gabriel, Sandalphon. It is useful to know their names in order to work gematria, temurah and notariqons which will yield further information about the Sephiroth.

ARCHON — On the mundane plane, a temporal ruler. Each magician has his own dimension over which he is its Archon. In Gnosticism, the Archons were planetary rulers, the planets representing as they did, spiritual worlds through which the soul, as in Ancient Egypt, passed after death. In order to pass from one sphere to the next, the soul had to be able to recite the proper password, or give the name of the corresponding Archon. This is the “sacred knowledge” that Gnosticism (or “Knowing”) was concerned with. Archons, however, are rulers of the earth and universe, which are the evil, inferior realms composed of souls imprisoned in matter — that’s why special or privileged knowlege is necessary to get past them.

ARIES — The Ram, first sign of the zodiac and all beginnings. The Great Beginner. Sign of spring, freedom, leadership and the emblem of the initiator in all things. The ram’s horn or shofar is still the rallying call of Judaism, which began at the beginning of the Arietian Age over 4000 years ago. The Ram is the unifying Emperor because he is the head of the world, the mansion of the exaltation of the Sun. And the most powerful number is One, the Ace that tops the multitudes.

Aries, being the individual, represents the uniqueness of all monads. Famous Arietians: Charlemagne, Bismarck, Jefferson, Cesar Chavez, Raphael, Swinburne, Wilhelm Reich, Dane Rudhyar, Houdini, Hans Christian Andersen, Rachmaninoff, Descartes, Joseph Campbell.

ARITHMOSOPHY — Numerology, but specifically Bertiaux’s breaking down of words into numbers for one of his alternate universes.

ARMAGEDDON — The Plain of Meggido, a site of traditional battles in ancient Canaan. According to the bible this is where the last mighty battle in the War between the armies of Light and Darkness will culminate and climax in the Day of Judgment. It should be understood that this is not an ordinary war between nations, but a spiritual conflict occurring within the human collective unconscious. Meggido is the symbol of the world and it is in the world that the Great War is now being waged. Its effects are felt when Megiddo is known as a place of mourning where great kings of Judah were slain and it seems therefore that error has taken the place of ideals.

ARMANISM — Ancient Teutonic pagan priesthood exterminated by the Christians. One of the streams that was diverted by the Nazis to feed directly into their metaphysics.

ARRA — (Or “Ur.”) Star-stone of the covenant of the Elder Gods — as in the Necronomicon’s Chaldean oath, “They who gave it to us will not forget us. They have sworn: Spirit of the Skies, Remember!”

Also known, HPL says, as the “Elder Sign,” the five-pointed sigil “carven of gray stone from ancient Mnar,” the glyph of the Elder Gods whose sway over the Great Old Ones remains incontestable. The star-stone spells and incantations are only stand-ins for the Elder Gods themselves. They may not therefore be strong enough, in the end, to resist the Great Old Ones, but who holds the Arra can control any lesser creature. And such also are legion.

AS IF — In Eckankar chelas are taught that the senses contain all manifestation. Imagination, in the field of Maya, if exercised properly will create an effect by the chela who acts “as if” it has already happened. We have only to recognize that we have already reached God-Consciousness.

ASPECT — One of the forms or faces of a god (Father: Son: Holy Ghost or Brahma/Vishnu/ Shiva). A human being’s aspect can be considered one of his traditional roles, as an actor has certain well-known “character parts.”

ASTRAL LIGHT — (HPB calls it “astral fluid.”) In Hinduism this is an invisible aura surrounding the earth and is the life-energy of the cosmos itself. It acts as a storehouse for all the energies of the cosmos and contains (eternal?) “holograms” of everything that transpires (or has transpired?) on the physical or astral planes.

Others refer to it as the “cosmic switchboard” or the “collective unconscious” that connects all individual minds to Mind, or Omniscience. The magician operates within it always inside a consecrated bubble so as not to be influenced or harmed by its infinite cross-currents.

It is so fluid and tenuous that the slightest act of the will or imagination can cause it to bend in the magician’s desired direction.

ASTRAL PLANE — A mental world shared by dreamers, OOBE travelers, perichoretic visitants, newly dead, beings/spirits from other worlds who have lived lives on other planets and so on. Here are also the formidable, native “Kamadevas” and finally the lower devic orders, including the elementals and those who provide us with the spirit of a place (genius loci). Alchemical “elementals” also exist here, as do all the undespatched, artificial creations of magicians (Tibetan magi, for instance, are adept at creating thought-creatures tulpas). Many of the astral creations become powerful symbols or Jungian archetypes — collectively created.

We already exist on the A. P., as we exist on the physical plane. We have but to experience it consciously. Marc Edmund Jones says that it is the level of experience for simple individuality or is our “first transcendency of physical cause and effect.” The Astral Plane is constructed by the mental imagery of those who travel there. (Xtians think themselves in heaven, others imagine they are wherever their fancy takes them.) Astral is the first type of matter, much more subtle than our present version. As far as we’re concerned, on the astral plane, there is no “material” reality, even though everything vaguely resembles our world. Things behave like the material world, except that the character of things is worn on the outside, rather than hidden inside as on earth. This is because the Astral lies midway between material earth and the spirit worlds, qabalistically on the Yesodic level. Classically, it is characterized (for the newly dead) by a central courtyard or “receiving” field receding into “the hills beyond” — beyond which lies the capital city. This “courtyard,” plaza, precinct, garden or whatever is generally considered to be merely a way-station or transfer point.

Most authorities are agreed that the first experience after death is total and absolute darkness. Finally, appears a light as the world left behind begins to remember itself. One now enters the “desire world,” or Kamaloka. It is in Kamaloka that the spirit creates the idealized world described above. Sooner or later we realize that eating, drinking, sleeping, making love are merely phantom acts because we have no physical body. At this moment comes a second surrender and we recapitulate our lives backward from death to birth, suffering or enjoying the effects of our actions while we lived in the world. So we experience, for ourselves, the harm we have done and recognize where we must compensate for it. Animals, of course, never get this far, but quickly lose their individuality, such as it is. Family pets may last a bit longer because they have been so strongly individualized.

At any rate, we are now ready to present this refined and reformed earth-life personality to our higher self (Atma-Buddha-Manas). A separation of “I” and astral body, is the Second Death. The self, rid of ego and earth-impedimenta, now can ascend to the spirit world, as Osiris. The lower self is cast to the serpent, Urekh, to be consumed, while the spirit enters the clear sky of Sekten. The cast-off, ego-shorn astral husk, still contaminated by desire may hang around the borderland where it masquerades as some famous spirit or makes itself available to mediums.

Devachan is a mental plane in a world considerably higher than the astral, where the “I” then proceeds after its “second death.”

At the apogee from earth the soul fills with desire (Trisha) for a personality. So we plummet down again through the seven levels. The Dhyan-Choans decide where the wheel of reincarnation will stop — but thereafter it’s up to the individual. Gradually, as one falls into materialization, one forgets his old experiences and focusses on the life to come. At this point we call in karma voluntarilty to help us redress past imbalances. Passing over into the conditional sphere of Space/Time (Samsara), we reincarnate over and over (Samtana) until ultimate deliverance (Moksha). Life is thus a system of checks and balances between Activity (Pravritti) and Renunciation (Nivritti).

There is a parallel Battle of Armageddon now taking place on the A. P. that is experienced only in shadow on earth — resulting in our breakdown of civilization and planetwide pollution. Eventually, as the war breeches the spirit membrane separating our world from the Astral, the celestial war will break out on earth as well.

A rather interesting analog of the Astral Plane is given by C. S. Lewis in his Pilgrim’s Regress. Another, more satisfying version, is recounted by Tolkien in his story, “Leaf by Niggle.” There are also Franz Werfel’s Star of the Unborn and Sacheverell Sitwell’s Journey to the Ends of Time. Finally, it must be pointed out that there are many planes, of which the astral is only the first. The magician “rises through the planes,” the astral, the magician’s plane, the alchemist’s plane, the Aethyrs, the God-Planes, to the highest and innermost dimensions. (See DEVACHAN.)

ASTRONOMY —The most advanced of modern sciences. (Oddly enough, astronomy was the most advanced of all the ancient sciences, as well.)

ASTROSOME — The astral, “healing” body that can leave the body when not busy and which destroys the body after death.

ASTROSOPHY — Astrology has frequently been criticized for offering proofs of its validity on single examples, as though it were some sort of faulty science. Astrology, however, does not rest upon cause and effect, but is merely a search for synchronicities and other simultaneous parallels. Mind is the link between the body and the Cosmos. Astrology is the recognition of this connection. When the psyche descends to the sensory world, its celestial planets are drawn inward, i.e. earthed, and they become cramped, distorted and negative reflections, faint echoes of what they were. So the planets become their own inversions. Saturn, for instance, is originally divine intelligence, but in man it now settles for putting ordinary “reason” on the throne of Transcendence. Since Saturn is the heaviest of the planets, its gravity pulls down all the others which in turn become inversions of themselves also. Hence confusion grows on what it feeds and since astrology fights a losing battle in its effort to keep the psyche’s Cosmic connection, it is subject to endless criticism.

With the dawn of the “Age of Reason,” we imagined that we had found the solution to our problem by rejecting the celestial link altogether and by exalting “Rationalism.” This was the opposite direction from the one we should have taken. Now, feeling the lack of the “Spiritual” we seek it where we can — and, to our regret, now find outside ourselves only “Irrationalism.” With that we now proceed to exclude the natural world as well as the transcendental, pathetically turning to the computer, the robot and artificial intelligence as our highest goals.

ASURAS —The “sunless ones” who inhabit dark, joyless realms.

ATHAME — Consecrated, black-handled knife, used for drawing circles to invoke spiritual entities. Implements for performing M/magic(k)al acts must, themselves, be M/magic(k)al. Ordinary tools do but ordinary jobs.

ATHEISM — Can be divided roughly into two phases — Sartrean Atheism and Post-Sartrean Atheism. For Sartre, raised in the Catholicism of the 19th and early 20th Century, God was the meaning of life and the world. Once God was proved not to exist, meaning also ceased to exist. The universe for Sartre was hence absurd and nauseating. We now recognize that meaning and purpose can be present even if Creation is self-created — either as the original cause of self-creation or as its ultimate result.

ATHTAR — One of the Arab Trinity, the male Venus, destroyed by Mohammed.

ATLANTIS — Plato’s legendary continent “West of the Pillars of Hercules” which achieved great technological heights of civilization and then sank beneath the sea. Whether or not we choose to lend credence to its historical reality is less important than what it symbolizes — the incessant rise and fall of civilizations in the past, as “scientifically advanced” as our own. Indeed, many of these are said to have been further advanced than our own by several leagues. Thus, Atlantis warns us to avoid unnecessary futility.

ATTENTIONALITY — The quality or degree of that which is capable of bringing other minds to attention. From a subjective point of view, anything to which we give our attention becomes interesting. When you begin to understand something, if you deliberately concentrate on the problem more deliberately, that will cause a feedback with subsequent intensification of the attention and understanding.

ATTRIBUTE —That which is assigned, ascribed or considered as belonging to, as a familiar is an attribute of a witch or the thunderbolt is an attribute of Jupiter. A person’s attribute can be anything traditionally associated with him, such as Don Quixote’s horse (Rosinante) or Hitler’s dog (Blondi), or even inanimate objects such as Thor’s hammer or Mercury’s caduceus.

ATUM — (Sometimes identified with the Hebrew “Adam.”) Egyptian God often depicted as masturbating, since he is self-created and as he is also credited with pulling the whole of creation out of himself. He also represents the return of the Cosmos to its origins, as the serpent devouring its own tail. By masturbating in Heliopolis, his brother and sister Shu and Tefnut were produced by ejaculation. Sometimes, he was described as “spitting forth” life from his mouth, as though he is himself one entire penis.

ATUS — < French àtous (trumps) < Egypt. Aat, “mansion,” Aatu, “mansions.” Refers to the Tarot trumps.

AUGOEIDES — From Greek meaning “light vision” or “bright shape,” refers to the luminous nature of the higher self. The Causal or Egoic Body. First used by Iamblichus. In Crowley’s case this was the mysterious Aiwass. In Bulwer Lytton’s Zanoni it is rendered as the “Higher Ego.” The knowledge of the Augodeides is one of the major goals of the magician. (See HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL.).

AUM/OM — This is the holy word in its tripartite form, representing the Hindu Trinity. A = Vishnu (the self). U = Brahma (Not-Self). M = Shiva (location).

AUTISM — A mental state in which one fails to discern even the slightest meaning or purpose in other people, or indeed in anything outside the self. If there were such a thing as the opposite of a “magical” mind, such would be the autistic personality.

AUTOCTHON —That which has sprung from the earth itself.

AUTOPOETIC LAPIS —Terence McKenna’s psilocybic revelation from Magical Blend, April 1989: “The ‘autopoetic lapis’ is the ingression of novelty to concrescence, a ‘tightening gyre’. Everything flows together and coalesces in the alchemical stone at the end of time ... when the laws of physics are obviated, the universe disappears, and what is left is the tightly bound plenum, the monad, able to express itself, rather than only able to cast a shadow into physis as its reflection. In 2012 our species enters hyperspace, but it will appear to be the collapse of the state vector, the end of physical laws and the release of mind into itself.

“All these other images — the starship, the space colony, the lapis — these are precursory images. They follow naturally from the idea that history is the shock wave of eschatology. As one closes distance with the eschatological object, the reflections it is throwing off resemble more and more the thing itself. In the final moment The Unspeakable stands revealed. There are no more reflections of the Mystery. The Mystery in all its nakedness is seen, and nothing else exists. But what it is, decency can safely scarcely hint at; nevertheless, it is the crowning joy of futurism to seek anticipation of it.”

AUTOPROSSING — Using a word-processor for automatic writing. The first channeled entity (1988) was Thurmon of Xoros-Eridanus 14.

AVATAR — Incarnation; Descent of a deity into a visible form. Rama Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu. (See VISHNU.)

AVIDYA — Lit. “not knowing.” The ignorance of non-enlightenment. Normal intellectual state. Ignorance comes in two flavors: simple “non” knowing vs. the more complex “wrong” knowing. Both kinds obscure illumination.

AVOIDANCE FIXCATION — Habits and addictions are escape mechanisms for coping with deprivation, restriction and monotony.

AWAR — Son of Iblis, Arab demon of laziness.

AZATHOTH — Lovecraft’s ultimate blind chaos at the center of infinity.

AZAZEL — (“Strength of God.”) The Angel who refused to worship Adam, renamed “Iblis,” the Arab demon. Aaron paid equal tribute to Azazel and Jehovah.

AZOTH — The jewel of Paracelsus. Alchemist’s mercury. According to some, from Arabic Az-zaug, “the quicksilver.” According to others, the word comprises totality from A to Z, from Alpha to Omega, from Aleph to Tau. Salt, the passive principle, is joined to Sulphur, the active principle, by the catalyst Mercury. Azoth is thought to be the creative principle itself. It is usually symbolized by a cross or circle with the letters TARO at the 4 termini.

AZTEC ASTROLOGY — Based on the 52-year revolution of the Pleiades, the calendar is divided into four 13-year quarters. A religious year consisted of three concentric cycles: the Tonalpohualli of 260 days, the solar year of 365 days and the Venus cycle of 584 days. The earth has survived 4 “Suns” or eons, called Nahui, which destructions were characterized by earth, air, fire and water (Thus the most recent End of the World coincided with the biblical flood.)

The fifth Sun, Nahui Ollin or “Movement,” which we now inhabit, is the aeon of the calendar in question. It was divinely created in 13 Acatl at Teotihuacan and will end in 2011, with the beginning of the 6th Sun. Precisely how the current aeon will collapse is anyone’s guess.