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CACABUS — Graeco-Roman equivalent of Hebrew Kochav, or “Star.”

CADUCEUS — < Kerux, “herald” — a herald’s wand, kerukeion. Symbolic of the spinal column and of matter and spirit intertwining to produce the manifest world and create a channel for the sexless Sushumna power. Pingala and Ida, the serpents, are male and female. Ultimately the embodiment of Kundalini, the sexual, hence vital force or “healing power.” The doubled serpent is unconditional, absolute wisdom. A herald’s wand confers immunity in all regions — protection from attack (especially since the serpents are vipers).

Apart from being the emblem of the wandering healer, the caduceus also stands for the Qabalah as a whole. The staff itself is the middle pillar and the serpents are the two flanking pillars, representing the slippery extremes. A recently unearthed hieroglyph depicts Thoth with a staff surmounted by two cobras bearing, respectively, the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt (the conscious and unconscious mind). In medicine, the black and white serpents signify disease and health.

CANCER — The 4th sign of the Zodiac (June 22 - July 23). The Crab is the final resolution of material manifestation, symbolized by the depth of the sea or the lake between the mountains. It is the sign of the soul’s incarnation and the beginning of material life.

All the other creatures of the Zodiac move in a forward direction, but the Crab is able to move backwards and sideways as well. This indicates that Cancer is the sign of the time-traveller. (The Chariot is a time machine.) Colin Wilson believes that the Crab symbolizes the fact that when we have our skeletons on the outside we are undeveloped followers of the will of others and must learn to grow our skeletons on the inside so that we can become leaders.

For the Egyptians, Cancer, coinciding with the rising of Sirius, was the “Theme of the World,” the universal horoscope (what today we call the “mundane chart”) in which, according to Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, the planets, etc. were in the positions they occupied at the very beginning, long before the Age of Aries.

Famous Cancerians: Alexander the Great, John the Baptist, Count Von Zeppelin, Mary Baker Eddy, George Orwell, Helen Keller, P.T. Barnum, Jean Cocteau, Rousseau, Pirandello, Charles Laughton, Buckminster Fuller, Ingmar Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Colin Wilson, Hermann Hesse, Kafka, Tesla, Hawthorne, Proust, Thoreau, Rembrandt, Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, George McGovern, Marshall McLuhan, Rube Goldberg.

CAP OF MAINTENANCE — (Like that of St. Nicholas.) Worn before nobility as a show of respect — sometimes worn by nobility as well.

CAPRICORN — The Tenth sign of the Zodiac (Dec. 22 - Jan.20). The Fish-Goat is the culmination of all the signs, symbolized by the mountaintop. At this point, the spirit is about to begin its ascent into spirit. It is the sign of kings and messiahs who sacrifice themselves for the common people.

Famous Capricornians: Tycho Brahe, Carlos Castenada, Alan Watts, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Gurdjieff, Mao Tse-Tung, Matisse, Nostradamus, Paracelsus, Pasteur, Woodrow Wilson, Stalin, Loyola, Joan Baez, Nixon, Albert Schweitzer, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Benjamin Franklin, Poe.

CARPOCRATES — A 2nd Century Gnostic who advocated promiscuity and thereby earned the hatred of orthodox Xtianity, which in turn delighted in distorting his philosophy. What Carpocrates meant was that the flesh is of so little importance compared to the soul, that it can be used and abused for a higher purpose. Since the body was a prison, the idea was to experience the flesh and thereby transcend it, freeing oneself of all desire. Any human experience missed will simply cause reincarnation in another body. If we do not break all the divine laws we cannot be free to return to the Unbegotten. Carpocrates is credited with having said, “Nothing is evil by nature” and his ideas can be traced to Plato and Pythagoras. Another thing that made the Carpocratians unpopular with the orthodox Xtians was their idea of communal property, an early form of Communism.

CASSANDRA — This daughter of Hecuba who had inherited her mother’s gift of prophecy, rejected Apollo, who, in revenge, caused her predictions to be disbelieved by everyone. Just as no one rejects Apollo who expects popular success, so no one who cruelly paints the truth always in the harshest colors, will be heeded.

CASTANEDA, CARLOS — Author of many books on Mexican brujería, centering on the Yaquí sorceror, Don Juan Matus, a healthy championer of mescalito and peyote. Don Juan considered himself a “warrior” patiently awaiting the opportunity to use his will. He taught that we must learn how to see correctly. His three overcomings for the warrior are: Fear, Understanding and Old Age. We still ignore the lesson of the success of Xtianity which failed to historify Jesus yet prevailed all the same. Similarly, critics attempt to prove that Don Juan never existed, hoping thereby to discredit the teachings. Perhaps it’s time we admitted that fiction can take many forms, including philosophy and metaphysical initiation.

Don Juan is much like Jesus Christ: an entity of great mythic power who is only diminished by attempts to over-authenticate or historicize him.

CATECHUMEN — A pagan who has been chosen for Xtian brainwashing.

CATHARI — In 12th Century France, the Cathars were also known as the Albigensians, elsewhere sometimes equated only slightly less accurately with chiliastic Manichaeanism (the belief in a dualistic universe ruled by Good and Evil) and early Gnosticism. They held that the world was created by a blind demiurge and is under the dominion of Evil. The Albigenses (from the town of Albi), believed that Lucifer was God’s first son and Christ his second son, whose role was to bring spiritual order to Lucifer’s evil domain. Most historians persist in describing the Cathari as sexual “puritans”, when it was actually reproduction that they condemned. Their priests did not eat eggs or milk because they are the by-products of reproduction.

It is most curious that contemporary mention of this sect almost always ignores this most important aspect, viz. their insistence that human reproduction or procreation is the only unforgiveable sin. Since this world is hell, to foist existence on innocent beings is a crime. Hence, they were the first practitioners of compulsory birth control.

Some of the Cathari were quite ascetic — frequently fasting, always chaste -- and were called Parfaits or “Perfects,” hence the modern French dessert. Others believed that sodomy was a logical way of avoiding procreation. In Bulgaria, where Cathari were equated with the Bogomils, sodomy was practiced as an alternative to reproduction. Hence the origin of the word “bugger” from Bulgar.

The Cathari (and other Gnostics) understood what our postmodern world has forgotten. A society that puts all of its purpose, meaning, faith and future into its children, is a society that has lost touch with the present and with its sense of responsibility. Those least qualified to teach are always those who are most fertile. Those who grind out children like sausages cease to take an interest in the very things that their children value the most and those things with which that society most ought to be concerned and what it most needs to preserve. People who have had children no longer demand of themselves the time, energy, courage or inclination to attempt the rigorous, perilous and unpredictable experimentation essential to authentic personal, social and racial growth.

As The Catholic Church was considered by the Cathari to be strictly “the work of the Devil” and the Cross an affront to God, the Cathari were universally despised. The Church opposed this heresy vigorously to the death, so that by 1330 there were no more of them left to persecute.

CATHEXIS — Projection of psychic energy inappropriately onto some other unrelated person, thing or idea.

CETOGENIC — Of cetacean origin (as psi force, mass hallucination). According to Swigart, ufo’s are cetogenic, the last, desperate cry of the whales to man.

CHALDEAN — A synonym for “astrologer,” since it was the Chaldeans who were most advanced in this art. The following alphabet is one of 20 or 30 different Chaldean alphabets in Edmund Fry’s Pantographia (1799); it is called “celestial,” because it was believed to have been designed by ancient astrologers “from the figures of certain stars”: