Читать книгу The Magician's Dictionary - Edward E. Rehmus - Страница 9

ABYSS — The gulf between the individual mind and Cosmic Consciousness, between manifestation and non-manfestation, or between life and death. The plane that the magician must cross on his own, without any assistance whatever.

ACCIDIE — Heedlessness, torpor, sloth. In the 14th-15th Centuries it was a malady generally ascribed to hermits and monks who fasted too much and fell into mental prostration. Later it gradually came to mean simply the common sin of sloth.

ACELDAMA —The name of the land that was purchased with Judas’s thirty pieces of silver. Means “field of blood.”

ACTEON — A hunter who chanced to see the chaste goddess, Diana, nude in her midnight bath. Diana, being also the bright light of the Full Moon and its nearly hallucinative brilliance, he was immediately struck by anamnesis and “remembered” the naked omnipresence of pantheistic Divinity in all creatures, including himself — so that, in this amazing illumination, he literally became one with everything, including the stag he had been chasing, whereupon his own dogs (not being in on the revelation) tore him apart.

’AD — Mythical giants of Arabian pre-Islamic history.

ADONAI — (Greek, Adonis.) Hebrew for “Lord,” but in Thelemic practice it can stand for the HGA, the Augoeides or “Higher Self.”

ADYTUM — A temple, oracular shrine or holy of holies which only priests may enter.

AEON — The personification of an age. New Aeons are referred to as “Equinoxes of the Gods.” Power exradiating from Divinity, sharing in the creation & government of the universe. Most founders of religions or fully initiated magicians attempt to inaugurate their own personal aeons or “ages.” (See AGE OF AQUARIUS.)

AETHYRS — (Or Aires.) Each of us stands at the center of the Universe, within a four-part series of tablets, cornered by the elemental Watchtowers. Beyond lie the aethyric dimensions of the Astral, the mental circle, the Abyss, the spiritual circle and the divine. The Aethyrs themselves are Dr. Dee’s thirty otherworldly dimensions of consciousness, which he describes as “angelic” (or Enochian). They can be reached, however, only through the 19 “Keyes” or “Calls,” the first 18 of which summon the Angels of the magic squares. The 19th call lifts the magician’s mind to the Aethyrs and can be used to summon any one of the Aires. Actually there are 49 Calls (Zero being the first), but only the latter 30 are the Aethyrs themselves. There are, also, 92 Governors, whose names can be found in the Watchtowers. At least 3 Governors are assigned to each Aethyr. There are also 24 Seniors, 4 Kings, 192 Angels and 128 Demons in the 4 Watchtowers.

It is in his writings about the Aethyrs (The Vision and the Voice) that Crowley hides the most important of his teachings. From my own meditations it occurs to me that had Dee received tablets from different angels, such as from the fiery, watery or material universes, he might have had real power and not merely airy or “mental” power. (Not to disparage the power accruing to Knowledge, it being the strongest known to man!) He’d have had, in addition to knowledge: Will, Daring and Silence. Just so, of Water, we cannot speak, and of Fire we have not prepared. But of earth, who has endured his preparation and initiation, can venture a call for materialization of a universe. Such possibilities should cause the magus to feel a strong shudder of fear, for, according to Babylon, to create a world is to destroy a God.

Thus for “materialization” we’d need new vocabularies to correspond to the hooks (vavs) of the Aethyrs. The build-up would be similar, but the “Aires” would now be “Earthes.” For instance, PAZ (in Enochian, “Be as they”), might be PAGZ (“Be NOT as they”). Since the Aires are all 3-lettered, presumably Earthes would be 4-lettered, Waters 2-lettered and Fyres 1-lettered. However, if the Ayres all have 3-lettered names, there is a reason for that. The other elementals might have different numbered names only if we think of them as separate and perhaps the 4th is simply the “understood” rest of the quaternity. At any rate, now we see why there are only Aires. We’d better learn their meanings before we attempt any materializations.

AFFECTLESS — Making no pretense of feeling or reaction to anything.

AGE OF AQUARIUS — The (approximately) 2000 year cycle of the Precession of Equinoxes and the end of the Piscean or Christian Aeon. Characterized by Humanism as opposed to religious dogma. Its beginning is sometime in the 19th-21st Centuries. In the year 1995, Uranus, the ruler of Aquarius, after entering that sign for the first time since 1920, must remain there well into the 21st Century. According to some authorities, however, the Piscean Age did not begin until 80 A.D. and so we cannot observe effects of the New Aeon prior to 2068. Such a view ignores common sense, because macroscopic celestial events cannot be earth-synchronized precisely and all ages overlap considerably. Moreover, the signs of the zodiac do not correspond to the constellations and if we force astrology to conform to the positions of the constellations we jam it into an unbecoming strait jacket. The signs were never intended to correspond to the positions of the constellations and are of uniform length to accomodate the sol/lunar mansions within 360°. As in determining degrees and aspects in a horoscope, so the Grand Horoscope of the Universe must be interpreted with wisdom as well as with mathematical exactitude.

The Ages are derived from the fact that the Great Year, or Platonic Year, is 26,000 years long, which divides roughly into twelve periods, twelve being conveniently (though inaccurately) the number of zodiacal signs. A more accurate division, of course, would be 13. (See NEWTIME.)

AGE OF HORUS — Another 2000-year cycle beginning in 1904 when Crowley received The Book of the Law from Aiwass (some say the age began with the birth of Crowley’s son). Stands for constant progress. Horus grows from a helpless infant to the highest seat of the gods, whence integrating with Ra. Horus, as the impulse to manifest, is the constant enemy of his brother, Seth, who represents the inexorable dragging down of negation and nothingness.

AGE OF ISIS — Precedes Age of Osiris. The Wife-Mother of Osiris seeks his bones throughout the universe, finding all but the phallus. All this cosmic travelling suggests that Isis must be identified with Sirius, the Dog Star.

AGE OF MAAT — Supersedes Age of Horus (via Frater Achad) in 1948.

AGE OF OSIRIS — Equivalent to the dying Age of Pisces. God of vegetation and cycles, Osiris is very earthy (compare the Capricorn birth of X). Osiris is also a Christ-figure, who, though murdered by Typhon, cut to pieces and his bones scattered in the Nile, yet was reassembled and born again. Osiris, in short, is the Conquest of Death, whereas Horus, in a more subtle sense, is the understanding that Life and Death are equivalent.

AGE OF PISCES —The ending precessional Age, Pisces, was the sign of X, characterized by ignorance, slavery and materialism. According to Jung, the first fish is the first thousand years of Christ, however the 2nd millennium’s fish is under the rule of the Devil.

AGON — In the Mysteries this is the battle with the adversary.

AIDS (GENETIC WAR) — Since some of us still believe the virus is man-made, specifically designed to attack the most important alternative to reproduction (male homosexuality), we cannot see it as responding to psychic suggestions to change its habits. If it were a naturally occurring life-form, it would be automatically part of the evolutionary stream and quite attuned, even ready for “mental” implementation of punctuated morphogenesis. We’re beginning to see that this is indeed a “war” and learning at the same time that war at every level derives from a basic misunderstanding of human social interaction and hardly occurs at all within the biosphere itself.

Evolution is neither a battle for the survival of the fittest, nor is it the chaotic result of random mutations. We now know that the origin of species proceeds in cooperation with and as part of the conscious continuum of all life. Evolution, when the time is right, moves by quantum leaps to sudden new stages, as if by common consent. It’s only through human interference that some single, bizarre weed winds up choking everything else out. In the highly unnatural case of the AIDS virus, what we are seeing is a device specifically designed to pollute all the streams of human life at once (generation, nurture and maintenance). IT is a quite human-like biological “tyrant,” bent on specific genocide.

In studying Sheldrake’s “punctuated” evolution, we suddenly understand why our intuition has already told us that the HIV virus was man-made. As a naturally occurring genetic leap, the HIV virus is too fantastic to consider. Even if abrupt evolutionary leaps are the rule, not the exception, and even if revolution itself is part of the omni-conscious sphere of synchronous reality-alternation, it’s still too giant a biodic quantum leap for a virus suddenly to decide to take up residence within the human DNA factory merely in order to bypass the annoying “somatic individuation” phase. Viri don’t become that sophisticated that quickly. It’s the equivalent of the next generation of the human race suddenly being born with fully-functioning wings sprouting out of the shoulder blades.

The theory, of course, amongst bio-metaphysicians is that the body is merely a highly practical mechanism for the housing and passing on of the genetic code. One of the body’s more clever defenses is the brain, designed to repair itself, built to last at least twice as long as any other organ and encased in a hard, nearly impregnable shell (the skull). But the cerebrum isn’t just a defender of the body. It has, so to speak, a mind of its own and its own goals preempt the instincts. What’s more, the cerebral goals conflict with the goals of the genes. AIDS and the whole contemporary world of the 90’s — with its pollutions, rain forest depletions, baby boom, etc. — constitute the side-effects of a genetic war directed specifically against the cortex, occurring on a deeply subnatural level of the global collective unconscious.

As there are mental and spiritual planes, so there are various material planes. The “common consent” of the whole earth consciousness has been shattered in our time and the result is an insane interplanary (sic) war between the goals of the DNA and the goals of the human brain. Ideally, these goals should coincide, as with planned eugenics. Instead, we have mindless acquiescence to the genetic urge to procreate at any cost — regardless of overpopulation. Genetic consciousness knows only bodily success. It has no way of perceiving the larger context which is visible to the cortex: pollution, famine, despair, etc.

AIN — The Hebrew version of “the Void,” Nothingness (i.e., “The Other Universe” whence this one derives).

AIN SOF — The Infinite or Unlimited Absolute. Qabalistically, that which cannot be encompassed by understanding, but whose existence we readily acknowledge.

AIR — In physics, vacuum interference. In metaphysics, air is the element that pertains to dimensions and represents the tendency towards dispersion. Alice Bailey describes air as “the bridge between high and low.” (I would call all bridges “air.”) Commonly, air is the element attributed to the intelligence.

AIWASS/AIWAZ — Crowley’s alter ego. One of the 3 keywords of the Aeon of Horus (with Thelema and Agapé). Its number is 418. Aiwass has been attributed to Satan or Lucifer.

AKASHA — The fifth tattwa (Hindu element). The black egg of the spirit, i.e., the ether wherein everything is written down. In the Akashic records, found on every plane, no event, however insignificant, goes unmarked. If time be not a closed, self-repeating cycle, then the Akashic Records are of infinite length, having no beginning. The Guardians of the Akashic records have been equated with Thoth & Hermes as well as with Mnemosyne and the Muses. These were the guardians of the Well of Memory, from which the initiate must drink. In Norse mythology, the Guardian of the Well of Knowledge, beside the root of the world-tree, Yggdrasil, was Mimir (to whom Odin paid his eye).

HPB describes Akasha as “The Second Differentiation of evolving substance Chaos, Aether, Matter of the Monadic Plane ... often used where chaos or aether would be indicated.” Akasha is located in the sphere of Vibratory Sound, whence all auras derive.

AKHENATEN, AKHNATON or IKHNATON — (Means “Glorious Spirit of Aten.”) King Amenhotop IV — revered by many as the first Christ, the first monotheist, etc. (actually a maniac much hated by his people) — while still alive he incorporated himself as a God, along with Ra and Aten, forming a Trinity. All other Egyptian Gods were banished and removed from national monuments.

ALAYA — Universal soul or self of all things. Nyingpo amongst the Tibetans.

ALCHEMY — Chemistry isn’t the child of the Alchemists. It’s the legacy of “the puffers,” the charlatan imitators who tried to fake the production of real gold. Alchemy was called “The Hermetic Science” because it supposedly began with Hermes (or Thoth). Paracelsus saw it chiefly as a means of producing medicine. The classical goals of alchemy, however, have been to transmute lower metals into gold, to prolong life via an elixir, to search for the Mysterium Magnum, to create a humunculus and to find a universal solvent. This was to be accomplished via the manufacture or discovery of the Lapis Philosophorum, The Sophie Hydrolith, “Our Mercury” or “Philosopher’s Stone.” Other names for the “Stone” (achieved through the hieros gamos “marriage” of opposites) are: Virgin’s Milk, Cock’s Egg, Dry Water and similar contradictions. Generally, a cryptic vocabulary is used to disguise psychological and materialistic parallels, e.g. “red lion,” “nigredo,” etc. There are, supposedly seven stages of the alchemical Great Work, which are symbolical as well as chemical/metallurgical steps:

Calcination, Putrefaction, Solution, Distillation, Conjunction, Sublimation and Philosophic Congelation. There are also minor, intermediary steps, such as — Coloratio, Corrosio, Ceratio, Extractio, Separatio, etc.

We should bear in mind, however, that true alchemists consider the Great Work to be not merely aureofaction or the transmogrification of matter, but rather, as Alice Bailey points out, “to transfer consciousness to one of the higher vehicles ...” In other words, the integrity of the inner transformation is more important than any flashy theatrical effects.

According to some theories alchemy is the raising of vibrations. The vegetable kingdom resonates at the lowest level, the mineral kingdom at the highest vibrational level. In between vibrates the animal kingdom. It is for this reason that the extraction of plant essence is easy, while the extraction of mineral essence is extremely difficult. This is also why man, situated midway between the two kingdoms, can, by simultaneously distilling his own essence, assist the mineral.

From a psychological standpoint, any work, on the most general level, is the process of separating the important from the non-essential and the decision as to whether to continue further to distil that residue to any degree of perfection and finally the determination of when the whole is of a piece and completely finished. This process can apply to a work of art, to self-analysis, to the quest for the elixir of life or even, for that matter, to metallurgy — because all things are one.

It is no accident, for instance, that there is a correlation between the atomic numbers of modern physics and the ancient progression of metals in their metamorphosis into gold:

Lead ... 82

Thallium ... 81

Mercury ... 80

Gold ... 79

Platinum ... 78

The most important alchemical instruction is “Solve Et Coagula,” but an even more specific hint is “Flee contraction, seek dispersion.”

ALICORN — Unicorn horn. Another corpse in the bloody wake of Belief. Certain superstitious parts of the world already crowded to the point of asphyxiation (chiefly China, supplied by Islam) still insist that powdered rhinoceros horn will give them the one thing they crave above all else: reproductive fertility. Thus, to screw their propagating mania to the sticking point, vast nations will spare nothing to render this unique beast extinct, to turn the unhappy pachyderm into a fable.

ALLAH — The idol of Islam. “There is no Allah but Mohammed” — Al-Caphir.

ALLAT — Ancient tribal Bedouin goddess whom Muhammad drove out of the Ka’aba.

ALLITERATION — Beginning every word with the same letter. A means of generating poetic expression or magical cachets, e.g. Biceps, bestiaque blatimus bibiendi bibloi Beelzebubi (“By swallowing demonic books, we, the two-headed and the beasts, commence to babble.”)

ALMUCHEFI — Roger Bacon’s magic mirror — for reading the future — composed in accordance with the laws of perspective under the influence of a benign constellation and after “corpus modificabitur via alchemia.”

AL USSA — Another ancient, angelic goddess whom Mahomet drove out of the Ka’aba.

AMBROSIA — The Greeks confused nectar with ambrosia, exactly as we do. Originally it was thought that this “drink (not food!) of the gods” derived from some such word as ambrotos, that is, “immortal,” similar to Hindu amrita, “deathless.” We know now that the source is the Greek word for “blood” or “gore,” brotos (a cognate of our blood) referring to the blood sprinkled upon altars and idols in ancient times — as our word “to bless” derives from Anglo Saxon bletsian, “to sprinkle with blood.” This, combined with haima >AM-, formed the bloody “unguent” of religious ritual.

AMDO — Sino-Tibetan language of Eck.

AMENTA — In Grant’s reversed vision, Hell or the hidden (Amen) land (Ta). The hiding place of the midnight sun, Khephra, which is overseen by Set. In psychology this is the subconscious or dream (REM) state. Think of the Devil, however, i.e. the “Dual” or “Double,” as the antithesis of Being. Thus, the epitome of or the ultimate subconscious, is the True Will or “Hidden Sun,” the son (sic) behind the Sun. This is none other than Sothis or Sirius. To understand why this is so it is necessary to see that spheres of influence are infinite and as the planets of the solar system determine the course of our lives, so the Sirius complex governs our solar system in turn.

AMENTI — In Theosophy, the Realm of God. “Those only who know the names of the seven janitors will be admitted into Amenti forever, i.e. those who have passed through the seven races of each round — otherwise they will rest in the lower fields ... in Amenti one becomes pure spirit, for eternity; while in Aanroo the soul of the spirit or the defunct is devoured each time by Uraeus — the Serpent, Son of the Earth.” Soon the astral body ‘fades out’ and the soul quits the fields of Aanroo and goes on earth in any shape one likes to assume.” — HPB, The Secret Doctrine.

The Egyptian who entered Amenti was led by Anubis to Osiris’s court of 42 judges, whence he either passed on to Aaru or was thrown to the hippocrocodile, Ammit.

AMITABHA — The Buddha who protects the present era. In Japan he is the Buddha of Truth.

AMPRODIAS — The qliphotic guardian of the 11th Tunnel, sometimes connected to Nyarlathotep. He’s not the “opposite,” but a distortion of The Fool. Instead of being about to walk off the edge of a cliff, here he’s seated at the bottom of a crater, at the edge of a pit, whence issue inane bubbles of nothingness. Instead of his warning dog, here we see the idiot flute-playing demons seeking not to advise, but to distract and confuse. Worst of all, the Fool is beyond mere “Folly,” because as anyone can plainly see, he has no head at all.