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Pablo Picasso (/pɪˈkɑːsoʊ, -ˈkæsoʊ/; Spanish: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso]; 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a dramatic portrayal of the bombing of Guernica by the German and Italian airforces.Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. After 1906, the Fauvist work of the slightly older artist Henri Matisse motivated Picasso to explore more radical styles, beginning a fruitful rivalry between the two artists, who subsequently were often paired by critics as the leaders of modern art.Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901–1904), the Rose Period (1904–1906), the African-influenced Period (1907–1909), Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), also referred to as the Crystal period. Much of Picasso's work of the late 1910s and early 1920s is in a neoclassical style, and his work in the mid-1920s often has characteristics of Surrealism. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century art.Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso,[1] a series of names honouring various saints and relatives.[9] Ruiz y Picasso were included for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish law. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López.[10] His mother was of one quarter Italian descent, from the territory of Genoa.[11] Though baptized a Catholic, Picasso would later on become an atheist.[12] Picasso's family was of middle-class background. His father was a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz's ancestors were minor aristocrats.Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age. According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lápiz, the Spanish word for "pencil".[13] From the age of seven, Picasso received formal artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a traditional academic artist and instructor, who believed that proper training required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the detriment of his classwork.

The family moved to A Coruña in 1891, where his father became a professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, an apocryphal story relates, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and vowed to give up painting, though paintings by him exist from later years.In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, died of diphtheria.[15] After her death, the family moved to Barcelona, where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city, regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.[16] Ruiz persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but Picasso completed it in a week, and the jury admitted him, at just 13. The student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life. His father rented a small room for him close to home so he could work alone, yet he checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his drawings. The two argued frequently.Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid's Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the country's foremost art school.At age 16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he disliked formal instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrolment. Madrid held many other attractions. The Prado housed paintings by Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarán. Picasso especially admired the works of El Greco; elements such as his elongated limbs, arresting colours, and mystical visages are echoed in Picasso's later work.Picasso's training under his father began before 1890. His progress can be traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive records extant of any major artist's beginnings.[17] During 1893 the juvenile quality of his earliest work falls away, and by 1894 his career as a painter can be said to have begun.The academic realism apparent in the works of the mid-1890s is well displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his sister, Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a vigorous and dramatic portrait that Juan-Eduardo Cirlot has called "without a doubt one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."In 1897, his realism began to show a Symbolist influence, for example, in a series of landscape paintings rendered in non-naturalistic violet and green tones. What some call his Modernist period (1899–1900) followed. His exposure to the work of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his admiration for favourite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal version of modernism in his works of this period.Picasso made his first trip to Paris, then the art capital of Europe, in 1900. There, he met his first Parisian friend, journalist and poet Max Jacob, who helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Soon they shared an apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at night. These were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his work was burned to keep the small room warm. During the first five months of 1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de Asís Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five issues. Soler solicited articles and Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901, by which time the artist had started to sign his work Picasso; before he had signed Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.Picasso's Blue Period (1901–1904), characterized by sombre paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colours, began either in Spain in early 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year.[22] Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from the Blue Period, during which Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In his austere use of colour and sometimes doleful subject matter – prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects – Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901 he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the gloomy allegorical painting La Vie (1903), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art..Pablo Picasso, 1905, Au Lapin Agile (At the Lapin Agile) (Arlequin tenant un verre), oil on canvas, 99.1 × 100.3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast (1904),] which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated, seated at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso's works of this period, also represented in The Blindman's Meal (1903, the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina (1903). Other works include Portrait of Soler and Portrait of Suzanne Bloch.The Rose Period (1904–1906)[25] is characterized by a lighter tone and style utilizing orange and pink colours, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a bohemian artist who became his mistress, in Paris in 1904.[15] Olivier appears in many of his Rose Period paintings, many of which are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the 1899–1901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered a transition year between the two periods.Portrait of Gertrude Stein, 1906, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. When someone commented that Stein did not look like her portrait, Picasso replied, "She will".By 1905, Picasso became a favourite of American art collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein and her nephew Allan Stein. Gertrude Stein became Picasso's principal patron, acquiring his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon at her home in Paris. At one of her gatherings in 1905, he met Henri Matisse, who was to become a lifelong friend and rival. The Steins introduced him to Claribel Cone and her sister Etta who were American art collectors; they also began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved to Italy. Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude Stein continued to collect Picasso.In 1907 Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was a German art historian and art collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th century. He was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and the Cubism that they jointly developed. Kahnweiler promoted burgeoning artists such as André Derain, Kees van Dongen, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who had come from all over the globe to live and work in Montparnasse at the time.Picasso's African-influenced Period (1907–1909) begins with his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. Picasso painted this composition in a style inspired by Iberian sculpture, but repainted the faces of the two figures on the right after being powerfully impressed by African artefacts he saw in June 1907 in the ethnographic museum at Palais du Trocadéro.[30] When he displayed the painting to acquaintances in his studio later that year, the nearly universal reaction was shock and revulsion; Matisse angrily dismissed the work as a hoax.[31] Picasso did not exhibit Le Demoiselles publicly until 1916.Other works from this period include Nude with Raised Arms (1907) and Three Women (1908). Formal ideas developed during this period lead directly into the Cubist period that follows.Analytic cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colours. Both artists took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque's paintings at this time share many similarities.Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre of cubism, in which cut paper fragments – often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages – were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art. In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Alfred Jarry, and Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. Apollinaire pointed to his friend Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were later exonerated.Between 1915 and 1917, Picasso began a series of paintings depicting highly geometric and minimalist Cubist objects, consisting of either a pipe, a guitar or a glass, with an occasional element of collage. "Hard-edged square-cut diamonds", notes art historian John Richardson, "these gems do not always have upside or downside".[33][34] "We need a new name to designate them," wrote Picasso to Gertrude Stein: Maurice Raynal suggested "Crystal Cubism".[33][35] These "little gems" may have been produced by Picasso in response to critics who had claimed his defection from the movement, through his experimentation with classicism within the so-called return to order following the war.At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Picasso was living in Avignon. Braque and Derain were mobilized and Apollinaire joined the French artillery, while the Spaniard Juan Gris remained from the Cubist circle. During the war, Picasso was able to continue painting uninterrupted, unlike his French comrades. His paintings became more sombre and his life changed with dramatic consequences. Kahnweiler’s contract had terminated on his exile from France. At this point Picasso’s work would be taken on by the art dealer Léonce Rosenberg. After the loss of Eva Gouel, Picasso had an affair with Gaby Lespinasse. During the spring of 1916, Apollinaire returned from the front wounded. They renewed their friendship, but Picasso began to frequent new social circles.Towards the end of World War I, Picasso made a number of important relationships with figures associated with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Among his friends during this period were Jean Cocteau, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris, and others. In the summer of 1918, Picasso married Olga Khokhlova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Erik Satie's Parade, in Rome; they spent their honeymoon near Biarritz in the villa of glamorous Chilean art patron Eugenia Errázuriz.After returning from his honeymoon, and in desperate need of money, Picasso started his exclusive relationship with the French-Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg. As part of his first duties, Rosenberg agreed to rent the couple an apartment in Paris at his own expense, which was located next to his own house. This was the start of a deep brother-like friendship between two very different men, that would last until the outbreak of World War II.Khokhlova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant to the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo Picasso,.who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khokhlova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. During the same period that Picasso collaborated with Diaghilev's troupe, he and Igor Stravinsky collaborated on Pulcinella in 1920. Picasso took the opportunity to make several drawings of the composer.In 1927 Picasso met 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khokhlova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce, and Picasso did not want Khokhlova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khokhlova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter and fathered a daughter with her, named Maya. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her, and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

 

Crystal Cubism (French: Cubisme cristal or Cubisme de cristal) is a distilled form of Cubism consistent with a shift, between 1915 and 1916, towards a strong emphasis on flat surface activity and large overlapping geometric planes. The primacy of the underlying geometric structure, rooted in the abstract, controls practically all of the elements of the artwork.This range of styles of painting and sculpture, especially significant between 1917 and 1920 (also referred to as the Crystal Period, classical Cubism, pure Cubism, advanced Cubism, late Cubism, synthetic Cubism, or the second phase of Cubism), was practiced in varying degrees by a multitude of artists; particularly those under contract with the art dealer and collector Léonce Rosenberg—Henri Laurens, Jean Metzinger, Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz most noticeably of all. The tightening of the compositions, the clarity and sense of order reflected in these works, led to its being referred to by the French poet and art critic Maurice Raynal as 'crystal' Cubism.Considerations manifested by Cubists prior to the outset of World War I—such as the fourth dimension, dynamism of modern life, the occult, and Henri Bergson's concept of duration—had now been vacated, replaced by a purely formal frame of reference that proceeded from a cohesive stance toward art and life.As post-war reconstruction began, so too did a series of exhibitions at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie de L'Effort Moderne: order and the allegiance to the aesthetically pure remained the prevailing tendency. The collective phenomenon of Cubism once again—now in its advanced revisionist form—became part of a widely discussed development in French culture. Crystal Cubism was the culmination of a continuous narrowing of scope in the name of a return to order; based upon the observation of the artists relation to nature, rather than on the nature of reality itself.Crystal Cubism, and its associative rappel à l’ordre, has been linked with an inclination—by those who served the armed forces and by those who remained in the civilian sector—to escape the realities of the Great War, both during and directly following the conflict. The purifying of Cubism from 1914 through the mid-1920s, with its cohesive unity and voluntary constraints, has been linked to a much broader ideological transformation towards conservatism in both French society and French culture. In terms of the separation of culture and life, the Crystal Cubist period emerges as the most important in the history of Modernism.Cubism, from its inception, stems from the dissatisfaction with the idea of form that had been in practiced since the Renaissance. This dissatisfaction had already been seen in the works of the Romanticist Eugene Delacroix, in the Realism of Gustave Courbet, in passing through the Symbolists, Les Nabis, the Impressionists and the Neo-Impressionists. Paul Cézanne was instrumental, as his work marked a shift from a more representational art form to one that was increasingly abstract, with a strong emphasis on the simplification of geometric structure. In a letter addressed to Émile Bernard dated 15 April 1904, Cézanne writes: "Interpret nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone; put everything in perspective, so that each side of an object, of a plane, recedes toward a central point."Cézanne was preoccupied by the means of rendering volume and space, surface variations (or modulations) with overlapped shifting planes. Increasingly in his later works, Cézanne achieves a greater freedom. His work became bolder, more arbitrary, more dynamic and increasingly nonrepresentational. As his color planes acquired greater formal independence, defined objects and structures began to lose their identity.'Walpurgis Night, and The Angel that other master Alfred Kubin the Western Window (whose hero is the esoteric scholar John Dee). Picasso was also a member of this Order And it seems the same is true about Picasso, if we can trust the word of Marijo Ariens-Volker, who in her article "Alchemical, Kabbalistic, and Occult Symbolism in the Work of His Contemporaries (discussed in chapter 4), brings up several disturbing arguments. According to this researcher, Picasso, at the beginning of his stay in Paris, lived with his friend Ricardo Vines, who frequented the Librairie du Merveilleux, the general headquarters of the "independent group of esoteric studies" created by Papus. Among those closest to the painter at this time, we find André Salmon, who makes reference to Papus, the Martinists, and the Masons in several of his texts There were also Juan Gris an extremely assiduous Mason 38 Max Jacob, who considered kabbalah as his "life philosophy" and will be, before being expelled by Breton for impenitent Catholicism, frequently published in Littérature, and Guillaume Apollinaire who often spoke of Hermes Tres megistus and whose library held many books by Papus and other Martinists, as well as the official journals of the Order and even a document from the 1908 Spiritualist Congress. According to his grandson, Olivier Widmaier, Picasso was extremely well versed in the kabbalah, read the Zohar, and was a spiritualist his conversations with Brassai, Picasso admitted he had been a "member of an Order during his cubist period," probably the Martinist Order: some of the collages he made at this ime even bear signs that Ariens-Volker analyzes as allusions to the Martinist grade of unknown superior 40 210 Papus (whose "confused mysticism" would be denounced by Gérard Legrand in Médium in November 1953) claimed he had received Martinist initiation from the son of a close friend of Saint-Martin, but he also spent time with the "famous" theoretician of modern occultism, the "priest" (and Mason) Alphonse Louis Constant, alias Eliphas Levi 211 (Osiris is a black god," Breton writes in Arcanum 1 and was part of Helena Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott's Theosophical Society. He wanted to make the Martinist order which was connected with Christian illuminism-a mystical society, "a school of moral chivalry that would strive to develop the spirituality of its members by the study of the invisible world and its laws through the exercise of devotion and intellectual assistance, and by the creation in each spirit of a faith that would be more solid by being based on by Papus's son Phillipe d'Encausse.

 

"Deriving directly from Christian Illuminism, Martinism had to adopt the principles [...]

The Order as a whole is above all a school of moral chivalry, striving to develop the spirituality of its members by studying the invisible world and its laws, by exercising devotion and intellectual assistance and by the creation in each spirit of a faith all the more solid as it is based on observation and on science.

Martinists do not do magic, either white or black. They study, they pray, and they forgive the insults as best they can.

Accused of being devils by some, clerics by others, and black magicians or insane by the gallery, we will simply remain fervent knights of Christ, enemies of violence and revenge, resolute synarchists, opposed to any anarchy from above or from below, in a word from the Martinists. ”

Papus, The Initiation, November 1906

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Cubism

 

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Other components of Picasso’s references: esotericism, the Rosicrucian movement and opium.

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The magico-religious aspect of the Gosolan ceremonies, as well as their pagan and esoteric roots, must have attracted Picasso, who was superstitious and had been initiated into the occult by two masters, his close friends Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire68. In Gósol, the painter had the opportunity to enrich his training with in situ practices.

 

The Gosolan rites highlighted the continuity between the pagan world and the Christian one. This continuity was maintained by the Neoplatonists and, once the Inquisition was abolished, secret circles that had preserved the “living” tradition resurfaced, such as the Rosicrucians led by Sâr Péladan. The Grand Master sought, among other things, to merge the Rosicrucian movement with Christianity. Their ideas influenced Picasso’s entourage69 and Picasso’s Gosolan work reflects this union between pagan and Christian symbols.

 

Furthermore, opium, which Picasso and his circle appreciated, was linked to ancient mystery religions, in particular the cult of wheat presided over by Demeter and Persephone (fig.16). Opium facilitated access to knowledge, immortality of the soul and states of revelation. The flower from which opium is extracted, the poppy, is one of the emblems of the goddess Persephone. It is the flower that Picasso drew in his Gosolan notebook, his Carnet Catalan. Opium pipes are also represented in this notebook where the word “opium” is written, as well as a prescription for laudanum.

Opium, as Jean Cocteau, Sir Harold Acton, or Fernande71 explain, provides the opium smoker with the ability to constantly metamorphose, the sensation of being able to get anywhere he wants without the slightest effort, and an out-of-body experience that allows one to contemplate everything, oneself and the world, with impartiality72. Cocteau called opium “the flying carpet” and Picasso considered the scent of opium to be “the most intelligent of odors.”73

 

Opium placed these artists on the level of the ancient initiates, and the capacity for metamorphosis that it gave them allowed them to feel and see like them. The theatrical stagings of the ancient initiatory Mysteries in Parisian esoteric circles74 found some of their last real vestiges in Gósol.

 

Notes

 

68. RICHARDSON, JOHN, op. cit., Vol. I (1881-1906), pp. 207, 216, 331 and 334.

 

69. See the number of publications by Papus and Sâr Péladan, among other occultists, in the Apollinaire library: BOUDAR, GILBERT and DÉ-CAUDIN, MICHEL The library of Guillaume Apollinaire. Paris, Éditions du Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1983. See also M. FREIXA, op. cit., pp. 435-439; Gabriela di Milia, “Picasso and Canudo, a Couple of Transplants” in AA.VV. Picasso: the Italian journey 1917-1924, under the direction of Jean Clair, London, Thames and Hudson, 1998, pp. 75-77 and RICHARDSON, JOHN, op cit., Vol. I (1881-1906), p. 340.

 

70. According to Fernande Olivier, Picasso stopped smoking opium in 1908 following the suicide of a friend due to multiple intoxication. In Gósol, they were still smoking opium. The couple took refuge in the small village of Rue-des-Bois, in the suburbs of Paris, in 1908 to put an end to their opium addiction. OLIVIER, FERNANDE, op. cit., p. 183.

 

71. OLIVIER, FERNANDE Recuerdos íntimos. Escritos para Picasso. Barcelona. Ed. Parsifal. 1990 (1st ed. Souvenirs intimes: écrits pour Picasso, Calmann-Lévy, 1988), pp. 149 and 150 and OLIVIER, FERNANDE Picasso y sus amigos. Madrid. Taurus Ediciones. 1964 (Picasso and his friends, Stock, Paris, 1933), pp. 45 and p. 46.

 

72. COCTEAU, JEAN Opio. Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, 2002 and ACTON, HAROLD Memorias de un esteta (originally Memoirs of an Aesthete), Valencia, Ed. Pre Textos, 2010, pp. 522 and 523.

 

73. RICHARDSON, JOHN El aprendiz de brujo. Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 2001. (1st edition The sorcerer’s Apprentice, 1991), pp. 313 and 314.

 

74. Sâr Péladan had organized theatrical performances of the ancient Mysteries. Reference consulted on May 9, 2011 on fratreslucis.netfirms.com/Peladan01.html

 

www.picasso.fr/details/ojo-les-archives-mars-2013-ojo-21-...

 

ANDRÉ BRETON AND HERMETICISM. FROM << MAGNETIC FIELDS >>> TO << THE KEY TO THE FIELDS >>>

 

Communication by Mrs. A. BALAKIAN (New York)

 

at the XIVth Congress of the Association, July 26, 1962.

 

In one of his most recent essays, "Before the Curtain," André Breton accused academic criticism of having made no formal effort to establish the esoteric schemes of art and poetry: "By abstaining until now from taking them into account, academic criticism has devoted itself purely and simply to inanity... thus the great emotional movements that still agitate us, the sensitive charter that governs us, would they proceed, whether we like it or not, from a tradition completely different from that which is taught: on this tradition the most unworthy, the most vindictive silence is kept (1)." Would not our investigation, "Hermeticism and Poetry," be a denial of this reproach?

 

It is true that hermeticism in all its forms has served as a cult for surrealism since Les Champs Magnétiques, the first surrealist document, until André Breton's last collection of essays, published under the cryptographic title of La Clé des Champs, which sums up the definitive position he reached after having searched for more than a quarter of a century for the occult foundations of the human pyramid. Already in he First Manifesto of the Magician Shepherd of the Magnetic Fields had proclaimed that Rimbaud's Alchemy of the Word should be taken literally. In the article, "Why I am Taking the Direction of the Surrealist Revolution", which dates from 1925, he had considered the surrealists as an army of adventurers who act under the orders of the marvelous. On many occasions he has traced the underground framework that, according to him, unites poetic minds since what he calls "the admirable fourteenth century" when Flamel mysteriously received the manuscript of the book of Abraham Juif, through the work of the alchemists of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, passing through the work of Martinès, Saint-Martin, Fabre d'Olivet, Abbé Contant, through that of the enlightened ones of the nineteenth century: Hugo, Lautréamont, Rimbaud, to a certain degree Mallarmé, and more recently up to the work of Jarry, Apollinaire, and Raymond Roussel; Breton thus marks the parallel between the occultists and the poets. The philosopher's stone does not simply transform metals but takes on a symbolic meaning; according to Breton it unleashes the human imagination, a word to which he attributes a very special meaning. It is not a deceptive faculty but a liberating one. Without it we are forced to live under the empire of rationalism, that is to say on the surface of things and according to the evident current of phenomena. According to Breton, imagination alone would be capable of delivering us from this condition. Indeed, he attributes to imagination this special characteristic of the human being that Hermes Trismegistus would have defined as "the intimate union of sensation and thought" . This faculty, not inert but latent, "domesticated" (the word is Breton's) for centuries, could find its repressed impulses to make us envisage an unexpected and dynamic rather than organized order of the world. The hermetic tradition that is perpetuated in an underground way at all times and under any form of culture, does not constitute a conscious influence; it is rather a kind of transfusion that at each new mystical crisis of humanity strengthens those

 

(1) La Clé des Champs, Sagittaire, 1953, p. 93.

 

www.persee.fr/doc/caief_0571-5865_1963_num_15_1_2248

Esoteric

 

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explaination of some of the symbology of the buddhist mandala

The exhibition "Picasso 1932. Erotic Year" at the Musée Picasso Paris examines the link between the artist's personal life and his creation. Pablo Picasso's creative process and daily life are followed day after day through more than one hundred and ten paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures and a hundred archival documents..? The title of the exhibition, "Picasso 1932. Erotic Year" underlines the significance of sensual works in this year's production process. The exhibition "Picasso 1932. Erotic Year" at the Musée Picasso Paris focuses on a particularly dense year of the artist's creation through paintings, drawings, engravings and sculptures, including some major pieces from his career, and documents that place them in their biographical context. He misses the essential in the comments on his genesis but disregards the true sources of inspiration in an interpretation very much focused on the libido and often very superficial, too bad that the analyses are so simplistic ? Her quest soon took Arieans to France, the centre of the art world at the time. Via Cocteau she automatically arrived at Picasso, a central figure in the Parisian artistic environment. In order to gain more insight into the occult movements that turned out to be literally 'in fashion' in the Parisian artistic world at the beginning of the last century, she consulted a variety of connoisseurs for advice: the French centrepiece of research into the esoteric Antoine Faivre, the religious scientist Jean Pierre Laurant, who mapped out the circles of the Eglise Gnostique, and the occultism connoisseur Robert Amadou. In The Hague she went into the Alchemist’s library and joined a research group of philosophers, philosophers and art historians at the University of Amsterdam.

A 'wildly interesting' research, as she calls it, that because of its interdisciplinary approach does not confine itself to a fragment - the interpretation of one painting - but colours an entire image of a time artistically and philosophically. Arian provides detailed information about the occult currents and orders that were active in Paris around 1900 and about the magazines, such as L'Initiation, that brought esoteric ideas to the attention of a wide audience.

Of great importance was the the philosophically inspired by Order Martinist, founded in 1884 by Gérard Encausse, nicknamed Papus, one of the most influential occultists of the fin-de siècle. Because of the "chaine de silence", the chain of silence that the members of the order never break through, it is not possible to establish with certainty, but it was probably this order that Picasso was a member of during his Cubist period.

The martinists, just like the Alchemists, knew three degrees of initiation: the 'pupil', 'companion' and 'master' of the alchemists were called 'member', 'initiated' and 'initiator' among the martinists, or Superior, Inconnu, who was abbreviated to SI. These letters can be found in some of Picasso's paintings and especially in Picasso's collages,'' Ariens discovered. And there is more: some of the canvases depict black eye masks as they are worn in the martinist lodges; here and there martinist signs roam around, on the canvas La cuisine even a whole kitchen floor full. The square, the symbol of the freemasons, is also a recurring theme. One collage even shows cow letters OR MA -OR(dre) MA(rtiniste) - which prompted one of Picasso's friends to comment that the painter 'advertised order'. In addition to the martyrs, the 'Ordre kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix', which entered into organic cooperation with the martyrdom order, and the Gnostic Church, which is related to martinism, were also influential. The later recruited many of her bishops from the Order Martinist. Inspired by the circle around Picasso, Arian's roles mention the names of famous artists over each other; one appears to be even better introduced into the secrets and symbolism of occultism than the other. According to her, Picasso's main inspirators are the writer Alfred Jarry and the painters Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne, and his contemporaries and friends, the writers Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon. In more than the ones picture it’s Skull and Bones that was founded in 1832 at Yale University. The order is also known as "Bones", and members are called "Bonesmen" who are some of the world's most powerful elites.

How many bones did Picasso paint in this work? Probably Picasso could be readed with two modes, one is written in the official catalog, and one other live in gnostic, probably forgotten in the blockchain of silencing? In French the word Songe give Song in English ( Songe is like visionary's dream and Song is a note of dream) The "Songe" of Ezekiel could be the roots of this painting?

In chapter 37 of Ezekiel, we have a classic metaphysical outline upon which very exciting sermons can be built. Very much the same as the David and Goliath thing. When you read that chapter of the valley of the dry bones and you're aware of metaphysical Bible interpretation, you can almost see how the author is winding it all up for you. Here's the valley, here's the dry bones, they're all dry, very disconnected, then comes the Lord and instructions and then this Ezekiel's blewing this to obey them, he obeys them and these things begin happening to the bones. It gets so far and no farther. All the connections are made, all of the shapes and forms are made, but there's one thing lacking, there's no what? There's no life, they are there in form potential, but they haven't become living actualities yet. So Ezekiel says, now what do I do? He says, "Prophesy now, not to the bones, but prophesy now to the four winds, to the all four winds and prophesy now to the winds to tell the bones to live and the bones became a living army." The prophet Ezekiel saw a vision of vast numbers of people resurrected to live again as physical human beings. What is the meaning of this mystifying vision, and what does it teach us about God's plan? The remains of human bones in a dirt grave. 123RF

Much of God’s revelation to Ezekiel revolved around the distant decendants of Israel and crucial, end-time events centuries in the future. From early youth Ezekiel had been educated and trained to be a priest in the kingdom of Judah. But his hopes and dreams had been dashed by King Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion, taking him and other young Jews captive to Babylon. Now far separated from the temple in Jerusalem, how could his education and training be of any real value? There was no need to worry. God was looking after His own. The Creator had called Ezekiel to be a great prophet, ranked alongside Isaiah and Jeremiah. Christian writer Christopher Wright put it this way: “So while we can value all the positive contributions that Ezekiel’s education and training as a priest brought to his prophetic ministry, we must also appreciate the immense personal, professional and theological shock it must have been to him … [Yet] God would use all that He had built into Ezekiel’s life during his years of preparation” ( The Message of Ezekiel, 2001, p. 27). Most in mainstream Christendom erroneously believe that today is the only day of salvation. But this belief simply is not found in the Bible. When he was 30 years old, Ezekiel began to experience astonishing visions from Almighty God. Perhaps in a personal diary, he recorded the exact date on which the first vision occurred: “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God” (Ezekiel 1:1, emphasis added throughout). The invisible barriers between heaven and earth were supernaturally parted for Ezekiel. But what did this prophet actually see in vision? Moving beyond the introductory revelation of the awesome angelic realm, we fast-forward to verses 26 and 28. “On the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it… This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.”There's a beautiful ready-made outline for a metaphysical interpretation. The valley always stands for a low point in your current pathway of life. A downsy, and everybody hits them, in his pathway of life. And when you're in a downsy, and you look around you, what do you usually see all about you? Discouraging, hopeless-looking details - dry bones. Everything is wrong down there. This is a dry bone, meaning a discouraging appearance or a hopeless looking state of affairs. That's what you see in these depressions, these valley periods of your journey of life. But then, you hear the voice of the Lord, "Prophesy unto these bones, say unto them, Oh, ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord". Now, what does Unity call the word of the Lord - affirmations of Truth, declarations of Truth right in the face of the discouraging, negative, hopeless looking conditions or situations. And, as he does this, as we affirm right into the teeth - bones, get it? - of discouraging looking appearances, things begin to happen.

It says, first the bones begin to shake, and then move, and then they began to connect bone to bone. In other words, new connections are formed right in the midst of discouraging or contradictory outer appearances. In the realm of the invisible, every affirmation of Truth results in new connections for future good. This is an occult law of metaphysics. It is absolutely true, in the invisible realm, every affirmation of truth results in new connections of factors for future good. From one point of view, these factors are dry bones, but from another point of view, these factors will become living good, a living army of good, and so, he prophesies and these bones all become connected. Then everything stops ... So then, there has to be a change of the type of prophecies or affirming ... To prophesy, to declare the Truth in every possible direction, that is, let God activity enter into this as He wills, from any direction His spirit choose. Ezekiel initially reacted just like the prophet Daniel and the apostles Paul and John did later. “So when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of One [God] speaking. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you’…And He said to me; ‘Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel’ ” (Ezekiel 1:28; Ezekiel 2:1-3). God gave Ezekiel a great mission to accomplish. He had important announcements to make. These were intended to reach people far beyond his own time to people down through the ages. And one important vision would serve to encourage all who have ever lived in facing the same remorseless enemy—the seemingly hopeless ending of life in death. The prophet did have a comparatively small personal audience in Babylon of fellow captives from Judah (Ezekiel 3:11). But the real import of his message was not primarily for these deported, displaced prisoners who could do little about their circumstance.It’s important to understand that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had separated after King Solomon’s death and that the people of the kingdom of Israel had already gone into captivity at the hands of the Assyrians during the latter part of the eighth century B.C.—well over a century before Ezekiel prophesied. And by the time his prophecies began, some of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah were likewise already in captivity, first by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, with most of the rest soon to follow as a result of later Babylonian invasions. Careful reading of Ezekiel’s prophetic message will reveal that it was aimed mainly at the distant future, primarily directed to the end-time descendants of Israel. Much of God’s revelation to him revolved around crucial, end-time events—both positive and negative—that would take place centuries in the future. In the prophecy Jesus Christ gave on the Mount of Olives the week He died, He plainly stated regarding the end-time, “For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written [in the Old Testament prophets, including Ezekiel] may be fulfilled” (Luke 21:22). But cataclysmic occurrences at the close of man’s age are just one aspect of this overall prophetic scenario. Notice the apostle Peter’s words to the crowd gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost seven weeks after Jesus’ death and resurrection: “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets [again including Ezekiel] since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21). This insightful passage depicts a future golden age brought to a suffering humanity by the returning Jesus Christ, lasting 1,000 years (see Revelation 20:1-6). Israel’s prophets aptly describe this long period of peace, prosperity and well-being. One of God’s annual festivals, the Feast of Tabernacles, corresponds directly to Christ’s coming millennial reign.

 

A rebellious analysts lost forever?

God continued to instruct Ezekiel: “Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them’ ” (Ezekiel 3:4). Our Creator speaks to a rebellious people who have rarely been inclined to take His warning messages seriously. Their descendants down through time have most often chosen to remain in the depths of idolatry and Sabbath-breaking, two sins against God that Ezekiel emphasized (Ezekiel 14:1-6; Ezekiel 20:12-13; Ezekiel 20:16-17; Ezekiel 20:24; Ezekiel 22:3; Ezekiel 22:8). Tragically, these two trends continue unabated today. But who truly represents the “Israel” today to whom these prophecies are intended? The present tiny state of Israel consists mostly of Jews descended from those of the kingdom of Judah, so the name Israel is a misnomer. History and Bible prophecy show that the modern descendants of the other tribes of Israel stand clearly identified as the Americans, British Commonwealth and peoples of northwestern Europe. For the biblical and historical evidence, request or download our free booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy . You cannot truly grasp God’s prophetic message to humankind apart from the essential knowledge disclosed in this eye-opening publication. The modern descendants of Israel have been likewise rebellious against God. And all share in the same fate—national punishment and, for each individual, the ultimate penalty of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23). The prophecies of future national blessings are encouraging, but what good are they to those who have died? After the Exodus from Egypt, a whole generation of disobedient Israelites perished in the wilderness. Later, many died at the hands of ruthless Assyrian invaders. Much later, about 40 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, many died tragically as a result of the Roman invasion of Judea and the capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Of course, the same fate is shared by those who never had the opportunity to choose a way of life to follow. Consider all those little babies Herod cruelly killed in a failed effort to murder the Christ child. Their parents were devastated with unrelieved grief. “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18). Are these children, then, now lost? Now, instead of affirming about things or prophesying to the bones, now he's told prophesy to and about what? The winds, all four winds. What is wind often a symbol for in the Bible? The Holy Spirit, the activity of God, the movement of God as the Holy Spirit. Now, why would he designate all four winds? Well, you're talking about the movement of God to bring changes and good into your life. To prophesy, to declare the Truth in every possible direction, that is, let God activity enter into this as He wills, from any direction His spirit chooses. North, east, south or west. Not from where I insist it's got to come from - south by southeast only! Don't we often do this? We don't realize it, but we say, all directions of the wind, wherever God chooses, in God's way, let this fulfillment come. So many people among the Israelites have died as victims of evil and injustice. Today we remember the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were callously murdered in Central and Eastern Europe. How should we try to understand all of these tragic occurrences? Is there no hope for even innocent children who died in infancy without ever knowing why? Of course, these questions beset people of every nation—not just Israel. But God has given a special message through Ezekiel to Israel in this regard—one that holds significance for all people. The French martyrs, Rosicrucians and Gnostics of the beginning of the last century treated alchemy, kabbalah and tarot as analogous systems, which they brought together under one heading. According to art historians, this mixture of symbolism from the Kabbalah, Tarot and Alchemy, which inspired Picasso in his cubist work, is the key to the painter's true intentions in his famous painting 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'. André Breton, pope and surrealist ideologist, persuaded art dealer Doucet to buy the canvas. He wrote, "If this canvas escapes us, most of our mysteries will go along. But the art historians left that sentence out''.

The final part of Ariean's research, a case study in which she removes the veil of mystery, differs slightly, to put it mildly, from the reception of the canvas so far. Seen through the occult spectacles which she - with an abundance of material - shows that Picasso also had them on at the time, the canvas points Aryan in a very different way from the 'philosophical brothel' for which it was long regarded. Supported by her study of the hundreds of sketches and preliminary studies, she discovers neither 'African art' nor 'syphilis sufferers' in the painting. No 'naked bodies', but 'naked facts': signs and numbers. The order was incorporated in 1856 by General William Huntington Russell, and Alphonso Taft who became Secretary of War under President Grant in 1876. The numerical value of this year is 1+8+7+6 = 22, and the numerical motto for Skull and Bones is 322, or 3 x's 22 which you will see below is not a coincidence. 22 bones are represented in Picasso’s engraving.... In numerology, the number 22 is often called the Master Builder. The Phoenician-Hebrews possess 22 books and their alphabet is made up of 22 letters, which was created to compose the Word of God. The Kabbalah teaches us that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are the building blocks of universe. The underlying occult scientific significance of the number 22 in science would represent the bones of the skull, of which there are twenty-two. 8 form the cranium, or braincase, and 14 are associated with the face.

Our brains are what we use to think, reason and come to know the divine or God. The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet created to compose the Word of God is our 22 boned skull, and the place where we receive the light to become illuminated, or enlightened beings. Hence, to be like Saint John and have our own Revelation.

Portrait by Picasso of the great resurrection

Ezekiel continued to have visions throughout his prophetic ministry. The one in the 37th chapter speaks directly to the desperate plight of Israel down through the ages. Its intriguing description of the valley of dry bones was the subject of a popular song, “Dry Bones,” during the mid-1950s. No matter how many times one rereads it, this account remains both arresting and suspenseful to the converted mind. But even more important is the profound meaning for us—and for our departed loved ones, who may never have been called of God or spiritually converted during this age. This remarkable, comforting vision assures us that we will see them again! The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones . . . and He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ So I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know’ ” (Ezekiel 37:1-3). Then, what happens to those potential bones, those skeletons become a living army. In other words, the potential good which you have declared and affirmed come to your life from any direction God chooses. The static good becomes living good, which means a part of their life, a part of the goodness of their life. A living army, an army of blessings come into manifestation through prophesying according to the direction or the guidance of the Lord. God must not be underestimated. He asked the patriarch Abraham, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14). Centuries later He posed the same question to the prophet Jeremiah: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). Remember that one of the meanings of prophesying simply means affirming. Affirming the Truth regardless of circumstances. Weren't the prophets constantly talking about future events? So often the prophets have been interpreted as sort of fortune-tellers, or clairvoyants in all this. Well, metaphysically, this is not so. What it really means on the metaphysical level is declaring the Truth which will insure a future good outcome. Of course, the prophets also prophesy in what other manner - negative, too. Therein lies part of the problem.

Ezekiel’s vision continues: “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live’ . . . Also He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live’ ”’” (Ezekiel 37:5; Ezekiel 37:9). Physical human beings cannot live without drawing breath—the essence of our fleshly life. Even excellent swimmers, experts at holding their breath, cannot survive long without breathing air. So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived , and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army” (Ezekiel 37:10).. Then He said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel’ ” (Ezekiel 37:11). God then summarizes what He had just described in detail. “Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:12-13). Most pictured here never really knew God during their previous human lives. The closing verse of this vision reveals why God, who never does anything without purpose, has just resurrected all these people: “I will put My [Holy] Spirit in you, and you shall live” (Ezekiel 37:14). At that time all of these people will have an opportunity to be converted—that is, to repent of their sins, be forgiven and baptized, and receive God’s Holy Spirit by which they can truly be converted and receive God’s gift of eternal life. The indication of this preceding verse is that the majority of this great multitude of people will obtain everlasting life in God’s Kingdom.The New Testament also speaks to this incredible, miraculous phenomenon. The apostle Paul wrote: “And so all Israel will be saved , as it is written: ‘The Deliverer [Jesus Christ] will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob [whose name was changed to Israel ]; For this is My covenant with them [i.e., the New Covenant], when I take away their sins’ ” (Romans 11:26-27). By no stretch of the imagination is all of Israel being saved now during this present age of man. But God promises that the whole of Israel will have their opportunity for salvation in the future. Relatively few are being called now to join with the firstfruits of God’s salvation. These called-out ones, true Christians, will be resurrected to receive everlasting life when Christ returns (1 Corinthians 15:50-54; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Philippians 3:20-21). Is this great resurrection exclusively for Israel? Or will other peoples and nations also be included? Remember that our loving Creator remains “the God of all flesh” (Jeremiah 32:27). Several passages in the Gospel accounts show that non-Israelite rulers and peoples are to be resurrected as well. The queen of the South (Sheba), the peoples of Tyre, Sidon and Nineveh (ancient nations and city-states that long predated Jesus’ human lifetime), and even the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah will be resurrected to physical life alongside Christ’s generation of Israelites (see Matthew 11:20-24; Matthew 12:41-42; Luke 10:12-14). Jesus plainly stated: “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live . . . Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice” (John 5:25; John 5:28). Later Christ revealed to this same apostle John that “the rest of the dead”—referring to those not raised to life in this resurrection —”did not live again until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 1:1; 20:5). This tells us that the timing of this resurrection is after the thousand-year period known as the Millennium. This verse also clearly shows that there is more than one resurrection.

 

Is today the only day of salvation for Picasso’s explanations?

Most in mainstream Christendom erroneously believe that today is the only day of salvation. But this belief simply is not found in the Bible. In fact the vast majority of mankind will receive their opportunity for salvation during the great resurrection to judgment that we have been reading about in Ezekiel 37:1-14. The apostle John also refers to this resurrection to temporary physical life in Revelation 20:11-13: “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it…And I saw the dead, small and great [now resurrected], standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books [plural, the books of the Bible].” The “great white throne” judgment occurs not in an instant as people are raised from the dead, but instead over a considerable period of time. God will judge them over time, just as those called to salvation today are judged over time during this present age by this very same standard, the books of the Bible (1 Peter 4:17; 2 Timothy 3:15-17). Many Bible readers misunderstand the nature and meaning of judgment, nearly always associating the term with sentencing to condemnation—not realizing that God is a merciful judge who patiently evaluates human existence with righteous discernment. He earnestly desires to see the blood of His Son Jesus blot out the sins of as many as possible. Christ Himself firmly stated, “ And I, if I am lifted up from the earth [by crucifixion], will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32). Paul writes of “God our Saviour, whose will it is that all should find salvation and come to know the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4, Revised English Bible). And in Ezekiel 18:32 we read, “ ‘For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord God. ‘Therefore turn [to righteousness] and live!’” This coming time of judgment will give those who never really knew God during their previous lifetime a just and fair opportunity for salvation— not a second chance. The special meaning of the biblical eighth-day festival As mentioned earlier, the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as the Feast of Ingathering, pictures Christ’s millennial reign. But immediately following this seven-day Feast is a separate one-day celebration referred to simply as “the eighth day” (Leviticus 23:34-36; Numbers 29:35; 2 Chronicles 7:9; Nehemiah 8:18). The real meaning of this celebration is rarely understood in modern theological circles. Yet it represents an essential missing piece to the puzzle of salvation. This special Holy Day directly corresponds to the Great White Throne Judgment period, during which God will give all those who have ever lived but never really understood the truth their first real opportunity for salvation. Because few people are aware of the God-ordained festivals spelled out in the Bible, few understand God’s step-by-step plan of salvation revealed through these celebrations. The meaning of the eighth day corresponds to Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, referring to a time when lost family members will be joyously joined together again to learn God’s ways while living under utopian conditions of mutual love, peace and prosperity. This Holy Day reminds us that God’s plan promises to offer every human being the opportunity to truly repent of sin and receive a permanent place in His everlasting family, the Kingdom of God. Q. Going back to the four winds idea, if we were praying for healing, instead of concentrating on the liver, for instance, we would pray for perfect and whole health. A. Right, the healing idea, the health principle, the perfect life idea and then add the extra mile to it - and however it shall come - I am completely open and willing in all four directions of the Holy Spirit. Let it come anyway that it is proper according to God's will, in this situation. You will find that when you are faithful on the metaphysical realm of thinking and believing it will become chemicalized on the physiological level, and verifiable on that level. However, there will often be a big time lapse, nevertheless, it will occur, and science is catching up. I'm very smart on this subject, aren't I, because I have John Salunek as a progress counselee.

 

www.trouw.nl/home/picasso-putte-uit-occulte-bron~a4692077/

In the Hebrew bible of the Old Testament and in the New Testament, the Holy of Holies (Kodesh Hakodashim) sits behindHoly of holies the two pillars and refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle where God was believed to be present. It is further described as an inner shrine housing the Ark of the Covenant guarded by two-winged golden cherubim, and an outer chamber (Holy Place) with a golden lampstand, table for showbread, and altar of incense. The meaning of tabernacle(Hebrew: מִשְׁכַּן‎, mishkan), is “a dwelling place or to take up temporary residence; especially: to inhabit a physical body.” This allegorical description above of the Holy of Holies as an inner shrine and a temporary residence to inhabit a physical body, tells us esoterically where this tabernacle is located.

It is not only a man-made building or structure, but also part of the human body, and that in science we can simply call the tabernacle our skull which holds the chalice for our brains, with the winged golden cherubim guarding our thoughts being our hippocampus or ammon’s horn; a subject I have written about many times. This is the beginning explanation of the hidden esoteric meanings behind some of these gnostic biblical stories that were meant to teach initiates to know thyself and to reach a state of true gnosis. This wonderful gnostic story is further explained by Manly P. Hall who had written about this in the Initiates of the Flame: “In the brain of man, between the wings of the kneeling cherubim, is the mercy-seat, and there man speaks with his God as the priest of the tabernacle spoke to the spirit of the Lord hovering between the wings of the Angels. Man is again the Ark, and within him are the three principles, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the tablets of the law, the pot of manna, and the rod that budded. But as in the case of the ancient Israelites, when they became crystallized the pot of manna and the rod that budded were removed from the Ark, and all that was left were the tablets or the letters of the law. When the individual crystallizes and excludes various sidelights from his mind, he excludes the life force which was flowing to him. In shutting out strangers, he shuts out his own life, and all that he has left are the tablets of the law, the material reasons from which the spiritual life has gone.” This is obviously a story about finding gnosis; which it has long been documented by historians that almost all gnostics throughout history were persecuted, branded as heretics by the church, and often killed en mass for simply practicing an ancient art of knowledge of thyself and thyworld. What happened to this secret gnosis and teachings is represented in the biblical story of the crucifixion of Christ at Golgotha, which I will explain briefly below and have done in another article titled, Christ (Reason) Crucified (Killed) on the Cross (Logos) in Golgotha (Place of the Skull or Our Brain).

In the bible, the word for skull is called Golgotha, which is Latin for place of the skull. This is the exact location where Jesus was crucified on the cross (logos), and where the blood of Jesus fell onto Adam’s skull, restoring Adam back to life. This is another allegorical story about the secret gnosis that occurs alchemically through our brains and especially within our hippocampus; which has been proven in science controls our memories, and that I believe also pertain to past life memories as well.

The story also relates to our blood, with that of Jesus’ that fell onto Adam’s skull. The ancients and many philosophers have long DNA Brainknown that the blood is our mind, where we obtain our conscious, and also the seat of our soul. It has been said that he who controls the blood, controls the mind. It is these esoteric teachings encoded into these biblical stories that many people fail to recognize. This is confirmed by great gnostic philosophers such as Carl Jung who said, “Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books, but lives in our very blood?” I have written about this science before in articles such as DNA Gnosis and Our DNA Computers. Please notice this image below of a painting of Jesus crucified on the cross (logos) at Golgotha, and see if you can see the secret skull towards the bottom with the red veil; hidden and encoded within the painting. This image is related to the secret gnosis of the biblical story of Golgotha and how the blood drops on the skull, and what we can say today flows through the brain to restore someone to life, or what we can simply say makes them fully conscious and illuminated. I already stated above that Golgotha is the place of the skull. Jesus was ‘crucified’, that which is derived from the word crucifix; a cross with the corpus (Body of Christ). The modern Christian cross is a sign of warfare and which is a latter version of the original ancient true cross known as the Tau of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Druids which is a symbol to represent the logos. The meaning of logos is “Reason, or word of God” which then can be easily connected to what we know as gnosis. In philosophy, Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC) had said the Logos was “a principle of order and knowledge.” According to Aristotle, logos relates to “the speech itself, in so far as it proves or seems to prove.” One of the reasons for the confusion or misinterpretations of these biblical teachings are because they were forbidden by law, and this one bible verse written in Deuteronomy 4:16-18 stating that the Israelites are forbidden making any likeness, form, or figure of a human or beast for worship. This is when they had encoded their secret teachings of gnosis into allegories, biblical stories, and actual structures and buildings where these secrets would now be encoded. Hidden gnostic allegories that would forever be hidden in plain view into their world-wide temple plans.

gnosticwarrior.com/holy-of-holies.html

In my last article on the Tabernacle, I explained that the cherubim were the sacred guardians in the Holy of Holies, and it is Cherubim and maryhere where we find the two golden cherubim. Cherubim first appear in the Bible in the Garden of Eden, to guard the way to the Tree of life. Cherubim are mentioned throughout the Old Testament, and once in the New Testament in reference to the mercy-seat of the Ark of the Covenant and as the golden guardians of the Holy of Holies.

In Genesis 3:24, the cherubim are placed by God, after the expulsion of Adam from the garden of Eden, at the east thereof, together with the flaming sword “to keep the way of the tree of life.” In their function as guardians of Paradise. In the image to the above right, you can clearly see the shape of a skull, and the two cherubim on both the left and right that in exoteric science represents the hippocampus or ammon’s horn who guard the way to the Tree of life which would be our DNA. Brain firing 2The Garden of Eden is known as the primeval abode of man, and is the dwelling-place of God. This is further explained by by 33rd degree Alchemic philosopher, Manly P. Hall who had written in the Initiates of the Flame; “In the brain of man, between the wings of the kneeling cherubim, is the mercy-seat, and there man speaks with his God as the priest of the tabernacle spoke to the spirit of the Lord hovering between the wings of the Angels. Man is again the Ark, and within him are the three principles, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the tablets of the law, the pot of manna, and the rod that budded.” Please notice how the image to the left shows the brain as if it is at top of a rod and has budded like a rose, flower or tree. This picture aligns perfectly with Manly P. Hall’s explanation above, and will also make more sense to you as I explain more below. The flaming sword in Genesis, and double-edged sword of the Revelation of Saint John represents the mouth and the word of God that comes from the dwelling-place of God which is in our blood and brains. The allegory of the sword connected to the word of God, rather than an actual sword used for killing people is further explained in bible passages such as Hebrews. iv. 12: ” The word of God is quick and powerful (or living and energetic), sharper than any two-edged sword.” And in Hosea vi. 5, the word of God is said to destroy all his enemies; “Therefore have I hewn them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth; And my judgments have been as the light when it goeth forth.” There are many more bible passages, the above two are just a small sample to prove my point. The cherubim are the bearers and movers of the Divine throne as explained in the vision of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1, with which compare Ezekiel 10). In chapter 1, the prophet designates them as “living creatures” (chayyoth); but upon hearing God’s words addressed to the “man clothed in linen” (Ezekiel 10:2) he perceives that the living creatures which he saw in the first vision were cherubim (Ezekiel 10:20); and in Ezekiel 9:3 the chariot or throne, from which the glory of God went up, is spoken of as a cherub. The man clothed in linen has another hidden meaning that related to the human blood and word of God which is further described in Revelation 19:13: “He is dressed in clothing dipped in blood, and he is called the Word of God.” The man clothed in linen is a direct reference to how human blood holds are conscious. This is the reason that within 10 seconds of blood cut off to the brain, you lose complete consciousness, and when someones begins to bleed to death, their essential life force is drained from their bodies and they lose consciousness and die. The blood is our life force and the seat of our soul. The brain is our central computer processing unites that we use to think, reason and speak to God.

Back to the description of the cherubim… The Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius says: “The cherubim are winged creatures, but the form of them does not resemble that of any living creature seen by man.” All these various references that I mention above and to the cherubim indicate, their the nearness of God, or a sacred and secret spot out of the view of man, but within man. Holy of holiesThis is further explained as I mentioned above by Manly P. Hall who had written; “In the brain of man, between the wings of the kneeling cherubim, is the mercy-seat, and there man speaks with his God as the priest of the tabernacle spoke to the spirit of the Lord hovering between the wings of the Angels.” This esoteric view above by Hall describing the human body (solomon’s temple), blood, brain, and the two golden cherubim is described in the bible as acting as the chariot of the LORD in Ezekiel’s visions, the Books of Samuel, the parallel passages in the later Book of Chronicles, and passages in the early Psalms: “and he rode upon a cherub and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind”. The four living creatures that support the throne of God displayed to Ezekiel a fourfold aspect; they had each the face of a man, the face of a lion, and the face of an ox; they also had the face of an eagle. They had each four wings; they had the hands of a man under their wings. “Two wings of every one were joined one to the other, and two covered their bodies.” They were accompanied by wheels which “went upon their four sides, and they turned not when they went”; “and their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and their wheels were full of eyes”; and the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.” This esoteric explanation we can witness today in modern science, with the wheels of our DNA, firing in the brain, and the memory powerhouse known as the hippocampus which I will briefly explain for you below.

And their wheels were full of eyes – DNA is often associated with spirals of energy as in “wheels (circles),” and what is known as rolling circle DNA replication and DNA supercoiling. This DNA process of unidirectional nucleic acid replication that can rapidly synthesize multiple copies of circular molecules of DNA or RNA, such as plasmids, the genomes of bacteriophages, and the circular RNA genome of viroids. Some eukaryotic viruses also replicate their DNA via a rolling circle mechanism. DNA supercoiling is important for DNA packaging within all cells, and reduces the space and allows for much more DNA to be packaged.(Wikipedia)DNA_circle This explanation of DNA I have found, perfectly matches the description in Ezekiel of the cherubim accompanied by wheels. DNA is based purely upon mathematical principles. The mathematical equations and wheels in our DNA turns it into a biological supercomputer that feeds into the winged cherubim being our hippocampus.

DNA supercoil The brain is the organ of the mind, which each portion of the brain has its own function to perform. The golden cherubim guarding the temple with the four wings would be our hippocampus which is considered the brain’s memory center. This image below shows the color of the hippocampus being somewhat of a yellow or golden color being compared to the Hippocampus kuda, also known as the common seahorse.

The ancient Greeks and Romans had attributed the seahorse with the sea god Poseidon/Neptune, and was considered a symbol of strength and power. The ancient Europeans believed that the seahorse carried the souls of the deceased into the underworld in order to give them safe passage and protection until they met their soul’s destination. These stories from the biblical explanation of the two golden cherubim, the seahorse as a symbol of strength and power, and the relation to the seahorse being the carrier of souls for safe passage and protection all relate to one another. Hippocampus and seahorse. The cherubim were at each end of the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the original stones on which God had engraven the ten commandments given to Moses and the children of Israel on Mount Horeb. Now that we know the cherubim allegorically represents our hippocampus, the original stones might also have a similar hidden esoteric meaning which I believe to also be the case in relating to a similar story being that of the philosopher’s stone. This is further explained in Hebrews VIII where it was foretold by Jeremiah: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah: not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.” The passage above makes it clear that saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts. This is a direct reference to our minds and hearts which would further validate that this is a story about gnosis, and the alchemical science of our blood, brain and hippocampus. In Ezekiel, it is mentioned that there was an appearance of a flash of lightning which we can compare to science by comparing our brains to this description where we find the firing rates of neurons in the hippocampal regions relating to past memories. A type of internal lightening blasts that forms vibrations in our bodies for us to recognize past memories or past life recall, which an in tune human can use to tap into in order further evolve by his seventh sense, and his or her soul. Scientists are now finding out that the firing in the brain can arise from intrinsic hippocampal dynamic processing of previous inputs. In simple terms, that this firing action is a type of built-in intuitive and memory center to help animals “remember.” The image below is of a real brain with the appearance of flashes of lightning. In a previous article I explained how the Hebrew alphabet is made up of 22 letters, which was created to compose the Word of God. The word of God is called a lamp (Psalms 119:105, Proverbs 6:22), and the light by which we are to live. This we can compare to the fire. The word light is found 264 times in Scripture. When 264 is divided by 12 (divine authority) we have twenty-two, which represents light. In the gospel of John, the word light is repeated 22 times, and on 22nd time, John quotes Jesus: “I have come as a light into the world . . .” (John 12:46). The number 22 would represent the stone structures that describe the bones of the skull, of which there are twenty-two. This is where we receive the light and are illuminated, or enlightened beings. In the rear compartment of our skulls, or Holy of Holies is called “the oracle.” This is our brain which transmits our blood and DNA through our organs. Beneath this skull and brain are the aqueducts, passages, and tanks once used for the proper drainage and use of the Temple. The Temple being our bodies with the aqueducts, passages, and tanks consisting of our blood, veins and organs. The esoteric biblical explanation relates to the science above, when it was said that upon completion of the dedication of the Tabernacle, the Voice of God spoke to Moses “from between the Cherubim”. (Numbers 7:89). This symbolizes the gnosis we receive within our minds and into the firing of our brains through our hippocampus which is referred to above as the Voice of God spoke to Moses “from between the Cherubim.”

Secrets of the Pyramid Hippocampus Drawing www.macalester.edu

Moe

Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. A website dedicated to both the ancient and modern teachings of Gnosticism.

 

The hippocampus is divine in its on right. The place of memory (I AM).. Agreed! The pineal gland though, is the third eye, since it has every component of an actual eye. It also has tiny crystal fibers within it, which hence the thousand petal lotus or christ consciousness, also being Christ as the alchemical Crystal. Even in Genesis 32:30 Jacob called the place peniel because he seen God face to face. Also in the new testament it is stated that the greatest in the Kingdom is the smallest (like a mustard seed)…. The pineal gland is small. Jesus told Peter he will build his church on a rock, that is the pineal gland that became harden like stone (philosophers stone).. When the sandy substance around the pineal gland hardens, that is Jesus liken someone to a wise man, who built his house on a rock. When a storm comes and try to beat it to and fro it doesn;t budge. The mind has light! When the eye be single the whole body will be filled with light (photons).

gnosticwarrior.com/two-golden-cherubim.html

      

www.youtube.com/watch?v=praOUuW4wDE

Om Namah Shivaya (Shiva Sahasranama Mantra) www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iRdzHQqrC4&feature=related

 

Mahamrityunjaya Mantra www.youtube.com/watch?v=btrI3X2HwkA&feature=related

 

Om Namah Shivaya ! Shivaya Namah Om ! www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gEx3ldOUBs&feature=related

 

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva

 

Shiva (Sanskrit, शिव,Tamil,சிவன், m., Śiva, wörtl.: „Der Gütige“, [ɕɪvʌ]) ist eine der wichtigsten Formen des Göttlichen im Hinduismus. Im Shivaismus gilt er den Gläubigen als die wichtigste Manifestation des Höchsten. Häufige Beinamen sind Shankar, Mahadeva (Sanskrit: „Großer Gott“) und Natraj (Hindi: „König der Tänzer“). In den Veden erscheint der Name „Shiva“ noch nicht, möglicherweise ist aber der vedische Gott Rudra der spätere Shiva.

 

Die Übersetzung des Wortes „Shiva“ aus dem Sanskrit lautet „der Gütige“, „der Gnädige“ oder auch „der Freund“. Als Bestandteil der „hinduistischen Trinität“ (Trimurti) mit den drei Aspekten des Göttlichen als Brahma, der als Schöpfer gilt, und Vishnu, dem Bewahrer, verkörpert Shiva das Prinzip der Zerstörung. Außerhalb der Trinität verkörpert er aber alles, Schöpfung und Neubeginn ebenso wie Erhaltung und Zerstörung. Durch seinen Tanz symbolisiert er den Kreislauf der Zeiten oder den rasenden Tanz der Zerstörung und der Schöpfung. Shiva ist dadurch auch der Gott oder das Prinzip der Ekstase. Er besitzt 108 weitere Namen.

Rovingian Council - Nomadic Monks - Spiritual Diplomacy Versus Commercial Esotericism by Daniel Arrhakis (2026)

  

Rovingian Council - Nomadic Monks - Spiritual Diplomacy Versus Commercial Esotericism - Principles and Limitations of Ritualistic Practices

 

The Rovingian Council establishes a clear boundary between diplomatic animistic spirituality and practices of divination or religious dogmatism. By focusing on biomimicry and resonance with the loci genial, the nomadic monk acts as a translator of the landscape, not as a prophet of destiny.

 

To complete your analysis of the fundamental limitations and principles, here are the final points governing this conduct:

 

- The denial of proselytism: It is forbidden to attempt to convert others or expand the order through active recruitment. The monk's path is a solitary and voluntary calling, respecting the spiritual sovereignty of each people visited.

 

- Prohibition of Divinatory Practices: The use of cartomancy, tarot, crystal balls, or any "future reading" tool is prohibited. The Rovingian focus is on the present and present negotiation with the ecosystem; Destiny is seen as a territory shaped by free will and ecology, not as something to be predicted.

 

General visions of the future or past are often attributed to spirits who have reincarnated in different time periods, or outer worlds, due to time not being linear but relativistic in the spiritual world.

The prophets of Ion designate these people as Centennials.

  

- Liturgical Neutrality: The prohibition of baptismal or initiatory rituals serves to ensure that the monk does not "mark" or "claim" the soul of another. Entering the nomadic path is a decision of personal and legal conscience (majority), without the need for rites of passage that imply classification or submission.

 

- Limitation of Substance Use: Although animism frequently uses plants that facilitate altered states of consciousness, the Council mandates that any botanical element used must be of local/temporal restriction and never serve recreational purposes, always prioritizing the diplomatic lucidity necessary for the balance between worlds.

 

- Painting as Diplomatic Camouflage: The preferred and ancestral choice of colors (black, white, and red) is not aesthetic, but functional. The colors black and white balance the duality (light/shadow) with the vital energy and ancestral connection (red) necessary to face the unknown, while simultaneously making the monk a diplomat between the physical and spiritual worlds.

 

However, the freedom in choosing ritualistic/facial patterns allows the monk to visually integrate into the geometry of the local nature without disrespecting the sacred symbols of the resident populations.

 

- Sovereignty of the Place: Healing or ritualistic intervention is never an imposition. If the energy of a place (its ecosystem and history) "refuses" the presence, the monk must withdraw. The effectiveness of the ritual depends on the permission of the land, not the will of the practitioner.

 

- Absence of dogmatic position: There are no "masters" who hold the absolute truth. Authority resides in the resonance that the monk manages to establish with the environment, with each practitioner responsible for the ethics of their own journey.

 

The Rovingian Council thus establishes a clear boundary between spiritual diplomacy and commercial or deterministic esotericism.

  

________________________________________________________________________________________________

  

Conselho Rovingiano - Monges Nómadas - Diplomacia Espiritual Versus Esoterismo Comercial - Princípios e Limitações das Práticas Ritualísticas

  

O Conselho Rovingiano estabelece uma fronteira clara entre a espiritualidade animista diplomática e as práticas de adivinhação ou dogmatismo religioso. Ao focar-se na biomimética e na ressonância com o genial loci, o monge nómada atua como um tradutor da paisagem, e não como um profeta do destino.

 

Para completar a sua análise sobre as limitações e princípios fundamentais, aqui ficam os pontos finais que regem esta conduta:

 

- A negação do proselitismo: É proibido tentar converter terceiros ou expandir a ordem através do recrutamento ativo. O caminho do monge é um chamamento solitário e voluntário, respeitando a soberania espiritual de cada povo visitado.

 

- Proibição de Práticas Divinatórias: É proibido o uso de cartomancia, tarot, bolas de cristal ou qualquer ferramenta de "leitura de futuro". O foco rovingiano é o agora e a negociação presente com o ecossistema; o destino é visto como um território moldado pelo livre-arbítrio e pela ecologia, e não como algo a prever.

 

Visões generalistas do futuro ou passado são atribuídas muitas vezes a espíritos que reencarnaram em diferentes períodos temporais, ou mundos exteriores, derivado ao tempo não ser linear mas relativista no mundo espiritual.

Os profetas de Ion, designam estas pessoas como centennials.

 

- Neutralidade Litúrgica: A proibição dos rituais batismais ou iniciáticos serve para garantir que o monge não "marca" ou "reivindica" a alma de outrem. A entrada na senda nómada é uma decisão do foro íntimo e legal (maioridade), sem necessidade de ritos de passagem que impliquem classificação ou submissão.

 

- Limitação do uso de substâncias: Embora o animismo utilize frequentemente plantas que facilitam estados alterados de consciência, o Conselho impõe que qualquer elemento botânico utilizado deve ser de restrição local /temporal e nunca servir para fins recreativos, priorizando sempre a lucidez diplomática necessária para o equilíbrio entre os mundos.

 

- Pintura como Camuflagem Diplomática: A escolha preferencial e ancestral das cores (preto, branco e vermelho) não é estética, mas sim funcional. A cor preta, branca que equilibra a dualidade (luz/sombra) com a energia vital e a ancestralidade (vermelha) necessária para enfrentar o desconhecido mas ao mesmo tempo fazer do monge um diplomata entre o mundo físico e espiritual.

 

No entanto, a liberdade na escolha dos padrões ritualísticos/faciais permite ao monge integrar-se visualmente na geometria da natureza local sem desrespeitar os símbolos sagrados das populações residentes.

 

- Soberania do Local: A cura ou intervenção ritualística nunca é uma imposição. Se a energia de um local (o seu ecossistema e história) "recusa" a presença, o monge deve retirar-se. A eficácia do ritual depende da permissão da terra, e não da vontade do praticante.

 

- Inexistência de posição dogmática: Não existem "mestres" que detenham a verdade absoluta. A autoridade reside na ressonância que o monge consegue estabelecer com o meio, sendo cada praticante responsável pela ética da sua própria viagem.

 

O Conselho Rovingiano estabelece assim uma fronteira clara entre a diplomacia espiritual e o esoterismo comercial ou determinista.

   

Introduction

 

The doctrine of the ‘Body of Light’ is replete throughout Western esoteric literature. Unfortunately, while many references are made to the concept, little information is supplied regarding its origin (or formation), stages of growth, and applications. The purpose of this document is to supply qabalistic and alchemical students with a workable esoteric theory, and practical technique, regarding this often obscure subject.

 

Theoretical and Historical Background

 

The origin of the “body of light” is seen in gnostic literature as early as the first century. However, extensive documentation and theory exist in Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Indian literature and practices of an earlier date. Under the general heading of chi kung, or Chinese internal alchemy, these practices are designed to create and mature a body of subtle astral and etheric energy that is capable of existence independent of material consciousness. This body is also thought to be capable of infusing the material body with sufficient energy to allow it to become more subtle and ‘etherial’. This ‘etherialization’ is said to make the physical body, under the direction of the adept, capable of de-materialization at the time of death. Enoch, Ezekiel, the ascension of Jesus, his mother Mary, and even Mohammed with his horse, are often given as examples of this form of dematerialization in Western spiritual literature.

 

Unfortunately, while Eastern systems have maintained a working technical tradition of the theory and its application needed to achieve this goal, little information remains in the West of a similar nature. The idea of the ‘simulacrum’ is the closest we have, and may very well be the starting point of such experimentation. It can be seen from the Eastern literature available, that the idea of the “Body of Light” often called the “Rainbow” or “Diamond Body” is the perfection of a vehicle for the exteriorization (projection), and continuation of consciousness beyond material reality. This paper will attempt to show how the development of this body can be achieved through existing qabalistic practices, and that the stages of its growth corresponds to total realization on the Lunar (Yetzirah), Solar (Briah), and Saturnian (Daath) planes of consciousness.

It is important to realize what is meant by these ‘planes’ however, as they can be confusing when first encountered as an esoteric teaching. When the Cosmic created the universe, humanity, or the ‘human seed’, that aspect of consciousness which was to grow into realization of godhood, descended from primal unity. This unity is symbolized by the Divine World of Atzilooth, and the Holy Upper Trinity in the Tree of Life.

 

When consciousness experiences increasing levels of density as matter is created, duality forms and continues to the material world. This first descent from unity to duality is the so-called “Fall” and to prevent a premature return to Unity, that is before all of creation could be encountered, a barrier was placed called in qabalistic literature, the Abyss. This is the “First Day of Creation” or appearance of time/space. As the descent continued, the human seed experienced progressive levels of sexual polarization as well as being further removed from its memory of Divine consciousness. After the level of Divine Harmony in creation, or Tiphareth, the center of humanity's sense of self, an additional barrier was created, the Veil, or Paroketh. This is the appearance of individuality free of the Divine spark. Finally, a third barrier of Veil is encountered, and that is what separates material creation from the psychic and spiritual worlds. Here, humanity has no memory of its Divine origin, and has complete free will to seek what it desires.

Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, states, “When working in this way [Pathworking] you are using the astral body, and you know already about your Magical Personality1) which has been quietly growing in strength with each month’s work. But there is another form used by some magicians, the Body of Light. Some think that it is the same as the astral body, but it is in fact quite different. The astral is an etheric form common to everyone, a Magical Personality is acquired through practice and concentration. The Body of Light is deliberately built for a purpose, another term for it is ‘cowan’. It is not easily formed, some people never manage it, or at least not fully, and once it is formed it can be troublesome, and requires firm handling.” P. 153, The Ritual Magic Workbook Ms. Ashcroft-Nowicki further states that the Body of Light can acquire a kind of ‘self consciousness’ after a period of development. This idea is also stated in Tibetan and Chinese literature. The small ‘child of light’ is often compared to a fetus in the astral womb of the practitioner’s aura and temple. It must be matured, fed, educated, and grown to proper strength so that is can be a help to the magician and not a hindrance, or even potential danger. However, like in all occult activity, dangers come more often from rushing through preliminary work instead of allowing it to proceed in a healthy and natural pace, than from the exercises themselves actually being psychically dangerous. She also goes on to say that few Western magicians have ever been able to master the technique fully, although no reasons are given. When we attempt esoteric exercises and a return to Primal Unity, we must pierce the first Veil, or that of the Gate of Life and Death. So called, because few people pierce it except during near-death-experiences (NDE’s), Out-of-Body experiences (OOBE’s), or physical death itself. The astral body has access to three levels of consciousness, and then must be shed, encountering the ‘Second Death” in order to penetrate the Veil, or Paroketh, to the next three levels. However, precautions must be undertaken to avoid the destruction of the astral body if the Second Death is to be avoided. If this is not done, then it must be reconstructed with a new birth. Above the Solar World, the Resurrection Body is established, and it is the ‘body’ or expression of consciousness used for Reintergration to Unity.2)

It is possible, as this paper will attempt to show, that just as there is confusion among some students regarding the Body of Light as being the astral body, there may also be confusion regarding its actual purpose — that of extended consciousness, or ‘surviving the Second Death’. When its function is clearly understood, then greater attempts can be made to realize its full potential. Mead and the Subtle Body: GRS Mead wrote a booklet around the turn of the century titled, The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in the Western Tradition. It very well may be one of the few books dedicated to this subject available, and while it is full of scholarly research regarding the theories and beliefs regarding the subtle body, it lacks any description of the techniques used to experience it. The material quoted is almost exclusively Gnostic-Christian in origin: Mead states that the doctrine of the subtle body achieved its highest expression in India, although he may have been unaware of other oriental teachings, and that notions of the subtle body develop along with those of alchemy and astrology. This is both true in East and West, and is seen in the techniques often suggested for use by the student. This astrology has nothing to do with “..vulgar horoscopy, philosophic astral theory set up a ladder of ascent from the earth to the light world.” (p.9) Mead also states: “But even as there was a deeper, more vital, side of astrology, a subtler phase intimately bound up with the highest themes of sidereal religion, so there was a supra-physical, vital and psychic side to alchemy — a scale of ascent leading finally to man’s perfection in spiritual reality.” (p.13)

Mead also states that Zosimus states catagorecally that the Rites of Mithras were identical in purpose to the practices of alchemy, and is the only complete ritual of the Mithrian cult that has survived to present time, and its theurgical practices are similar to Indian yoga. (p.30) The ritual also states clearly that it is the method whereby spiritual perfection and birth of the subtle body are attained. As in the Sepher Yetzirah and the Golem, the body of Light is often suggested.

 

Three Levels of Light: The three basic ideas around the subtle body are that it progresses though the levels of the spheres, increases in power and purity, and is made of light and/or fire. It is described as : the spirit-body, the radiant body, and the resurrection body, depending on its degree of purity. Mead points out that there is the possibility of extreme confusion when reading the ancient literature and the vocabulary used to describe the spiritual body. Despite appearances to the contrary, Mead asserts that the spiritual body is essentially one, and that the sidereal body, has nothing to do with today’s (1919) astral body. The Spirit-Body, orsoma pheumatikon, is the force closely aligned to the physical body. Similar to the nephesch, or vegetative-animal soul, in Jewish Qabalah. The Radiant Body, allows us to experience the Vision of Beauty Triumphant as referred to in modern qabalistic schools: “Tiphareth translates to Beauty. It is located on the Pillar of Balance which is the Pillar of consciousness and corresponds, we are told, to the highest state in which a man incarnate on this earth can live, that is, a man “of flesh and blood.” This does not mean that he cannot receive the influences of the higher sepheroth (higher according to the Tree), perceive or live something of their nature and mode of action. This means that a man capable of remaining in Tiphareth has “spiritualized” his matter, has formed his glorious body and has obtained the power to go beyond incarnation.” “There was a time when we they could behold Beauty in all its brilliance, when, together with the rest of the Blessed Company — we [philosophers] in the train of Zeus, and other [ranks of souls] in the train of the Gods — they both beheld the beatific spectacle and [divine] vision, and where initiated into that mystery, which may be called the holiest of all, in which we joyed in mystic ecstasy.” (p. 58) Proclus states,

“Moreover, the radiant vehicle (augoeides ochema) [corresponds] with heaven, and this mortal [frame] with the sublunary [region]”. While the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh was hotly contested during its developmental stages, with the ‘flesh lovers as they were called, winning out over those believing in a purely spiritual resurrection. Mead points out that the belief in physical resurrection was not universally accepted by the Jews of Jesus’ day, yet, there was a strong Biblical and midrashic tradition of increasing in grades of purity of the individual allowing for ascension and resurrection to take place. The descriptions of these accounts, Elijah and Jesus, suggest that the bodies they inhabited were the same, and yet not the same. They were tangible, yet could overcome material limitations, such as Jesus’ passing through the locked door. Elijah, unlike Jesus however, did not die, but was taken into heaven bodily in a chariot of fire. These ‘bodies’ in fact, are not really separate bodies, but increasingly purified expressions of the personality, the individual and unique expression of God we all carry within us. As one ‘body’ or expression is purified and ‘dies’ another takes its place. What makes the resurrection body different is that while it can and does exist within the material world, it is free from material constraints. This perfect body was, or is, essentially a quintessence. It is differentiated into subtle and simple elements, where as the physical body is contaminated by the grosser elements. The Mithraic initiation states:“O Primal Origin of my origination; Thou Primal Substance of my substance; First Breath of breath, the breath that is in me; First Fire, God-given for the Blending of the blendings in me; First Fire of fire in me; First Water of my water, the water in me; Primal Earth-essence of the earthly essence in me; Thou Perfect Body of me!..” (p. 102, and A Mithraic Ritual, London 1907)

 

The technique suggested by Ashcroft-Nowicki is the simplest and most direct. However, while no specific rituals are employed, as in A.S. method, it is suggested that the ritual be performed in a consecrated temple to prevent the simulacrum from wondering. She also states that when the B.O.L. is sufficiently developed to begin to desire acting on its own, that it should be given firm disciplining.“With the constant implanting of consciousness, even the tiny amount used here, the cowan [Body of Light] will eventually gain a half conscious mind of its own. You will in fact have partially ensouled it. At this point, it will almost certainly make a bid for freedom. Something you cannot allow for it has no protection against the darker forces who will take it over and use it against you and even against those with whom you are involved. They will think it is you and trust the appearance. Therefore the moment you feel as if the cowan is getting above itself, give it a good psychic shake, and in no uncertain terms remind it who is boss.” She then suggests withdrawing all contact with the cowan for a lunar month, and to feel no sympathy for this self-created and projected aspect of ourselves. To do otherwise, she warns, is to court disaster. This would in fact, be tantamount to “the Fall” in our own personal microcosm. Yet despite these warnings, and problems, the creation of the BOL, even partially, can be a very rewarding psychic and spiritual experience. It offers many avenues for psychological cleansing, as we shall see, and psychic enhancement. These four directives: going slow, performing in a sacred space or enclosure, preventing it from wondering, and reminding the BOL who is boss, are common to Eastern and Western methods of creating the BOL. What is missing in the modern accounts, but clearly stated in the Oriental ones, is that the BOL is a superior being to physical world, and can be directed to have effects on the physical body, if they are desired. It is these effects which allow for the etherialization of the physical body, increased health, longevity, and possibly even a kind of ‘psychic mutation’ that allows for increased psychic activity along family lines. The Western schools are silent about what the implications of the Hermetic axiom, “The subtle rules the dense” and how it might apply here. Despite the projective imagery, the genuine sense of the simulacrum being ‘other’, and unconscious, often violent imagery that can be dredged up from a nephesch (subconscious) that doesn’t want to be integrated into the workings of the ruach (Mental-Spiritual functions), the BOL is still a part of us. By disciplining it, giving it function and purpose, and guiding it with a firm hand, we are in reality giving those things to our self. The simulacrum however, shows us in no uncertain terms, that these forces and ideas within us, left unregenerated and when given the opportunity, will seek to manifest, and to take on self-consciousness. In magical work we see this clearly in the creation of the BOL; in psychology in neurotic and schizophrenic behavior; and even in severe forms of psychosis. Esoteric work allows us to address these diverse aspects of our being, to integrate them, and in doing so, to prevent psychic ruptures that might otherwise manifest in modern terms as mental illness. The following method can be performed by anyone regardless of their level of experience. Ideally however, it would be best if it is done during the third or fourth year of qabalistic study. The reasons for this are simple: the more experience you have in psychic and occult matters, the easier it will be to achieve noticeable success. In addition, the required skills of concentration, visualization, and creating a strong working environment for psychic activity will have become second nature. In relation to what has been said previously, by the third or fourth year of study, the aspiring qabalistic magician will hopefully have worked through some of their more obvious psychological issues, as seen and experienced through the multi-colored glasses of the Lesser Pentagram and Hexagram Rituals. Previous experience with planetary invocations will make some of the following instructions easier. Within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the first 3-3 ½ years is spent learning very basic magical procedures, coupled with the memorization and intellectual comprehension of a vast amount of qabalistic, alchemical, and astrological knowledge. The techniques given by Regardie in The Golden Dawn, such as the Supreme Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram, and the Rose+Cross Ritual, are not generally taught until the 5=5 Grade, or Adeptus Minor. On occasion, they may be given in the preliminary section, known as the Portal Grade. All magical tools are also constructed after being received into the Second Order, or Adeptus Minor grade. Only after this period are planetary rituals, talismans, and related techniques as seen in Regardie’s work undertaken.4) For those who do not belong to any formal course of study, it is generally suggested that the first year of activity be spent learning Elemental and Pentagram work. The second year doing planetary work; with the third year being spent integrating the two. The fourth year often focuses on zodiacal magic and the completion of any Pathworking. Pathworking can be started anywhere from the first year on and requires about 1 1/2 years to fully do all of the 32 Paths of the Tree of Life. Since each Path is often done more than once, it is best to allow two to three years for this additional aspect of magical training. Pathworking, particularly Paths 32 through 24 are critical for psychological health and should be done two or three times before doing the second set of Paths, or 23 through 19.5) Of course, the speed at which one works is not important. It is better to go slowly and diligently and make real progress, than to rush through and simply do the work haphazardly. The most complete method available for creating the Body of Light is in the ritual called “The Magician” in Mysteria Magica, vol 3 of The Magical Philosophy by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips.6) The material belongs to the curriculum of the Aurlem Solis Sacra Verbum. The ritual is divided into five main sections, composed of fourteen distinct parts in total. A note belonging to the title suggests that the ritual is considered most effective when performed at the beginning of the day. Presumably, during the first planetary hour of the day.

Among the most important points in gnostic and Platonic literature is the need to separate the subtle body from the physical body for its purification. This imagined, and eventually real separation, forms the core of the technique. Only by freeing the psychic self from the constraints of material life can we experience the full degree of good and evil in our psyche. The methodical and militant purification of our psyche and integration of its diverse aspects constitutes the most difficult, and rewarding, psycho-spiritual practices known.

 

Preliminaries: The temple area should be set as usual, with alter in the middle, or slightly East of center. If possible, wear a consecrated Rose+Cross present, and place the Pentacle of Earth on the altar.7). Establishing the Temple: Perform the Banishing Ritual of the Lesser or Greater Pentagram.8)

Higher Self: Place your left hand, the hand of Mercy, upon the Earth Pantacle. Invoke the presence of your Higher Self. Imagine in brilliant phosphorescence a flaming sphere, or flaming yod, touching your crown and uniting you with the cosmos. Stand in the posture of the Adeptus Minor. (Tau Cross, arms outstretched).

Lower arms and meditate on the significance of your Higher Self, this flame of Creation within you. This cosmic seed. Perform the Middle Pillar exercise.: Affirm your intentions for performing this exercise, and appreciation for consciousness and the opportunity to develop in awareness and Service. Ask that Light, Life, and Love be expressed in every cell, thought, and action of your being. The Lower Self: Turning clockwise, face the West of the Temple. Pause and imagine the great streams of energy circulating through your physical and psychic bodies. Energize your heart center, feeling a stream of energy running from your crown to your heart, and feet, and back up again. Affirm your position of authority over your lower self and physical body in a loving, but firm manner. Be thankful that they are present to serve you, but that they are at the service of the development of Self, and not as independent beings. Assume the position of the Adeptus Minor, and imagine yourself growing to a vast and immense size. Maintain or reformulate your Flaming Crown center. Feeling most of your consciousness operating from inside of it. Send thoughts of blessing, love, good health, and well being to your lower self and guph. Pause for a few moments as the feeling of vastness disappears and you return to normal awareness of the temple. Turn to the East and ask that the Powers of the Higher Self be present and fully utilized for this operation and at all times forward. Move to the eastern Quarter and Face the West again. Perform the Middle Pillar a second time if needed. Project the simulacrum from the solar plexus, upper abdomen region. Have it facing East, or toward the operator, with the silvery-bluish cord visible between the simulacrum and the operator’s abdomen or solar plexus.

Exhortation and Instruction: In the Name of your Higher Self, address the image before you firmly and lovingly that it is to give your full assistance in the Great Work. If any particular instruction, assistance, or additional work is needed, it is to be interjected here. Give blessing to your Nephesh, in the Name of the Most High, and thank it for its participation in this ritual.

Energize and imagine the simulacrum attaining a high degree of integration. Completion: Re-absorb the simulacrum and the silver cord by imaging it return to a cloud or mist of bright bluish-gray or silver psychic protoplasm and collapsing backward along the cord (bring the cord with it) into your body at the level it was projected from. Close down firmly. Feel the energy move throughout your body and sink deep into your muscles, bones, marrow, and envelope you in a body of light, just below the surface of the skin. Rejoice in the successful operation.

Instructing the Simulacrum: After a two or three weeks of successful projection and reabsorbing of the simulacrum, you can begin projecting specific ideas into it. This can be done in several ways depending on your personal preference. First, use a general plan of associating the simulacrum with the planets, by imagining them along the spinal column from Saturn at the base, to Luna and Sol at the head. Imagine them in bright white light, or the Queens Color Scale. Using the colors, symbols, and sounds of the planets, the simulacrum can be tincted with particular qualities and virtues. Or imagine counterparts of physical organs inside the simulacrum and them having the colors and sounds of their planetary counterparts, filling the whole image with the light and sense and virtues of that planet.

This is the Lunar, or Astral purification of the simulacrum so that it can be rightly called a Silver Body, as it will be influenced and influential upon the Lunar and Astral worlds as a whole. At some point you can then begin to educate it further, that it might become a Solar, or Golden, Radiant Body, influenced by the Briactic Worlds. Beyond this, it would find perfection in the Diamond, or Resurrection Body, under the influence of the Sphere of Saturn. Also, practice performing the Middle Pillar inside the simulacrum, after it has been projected. Always reabsorb the energy, either as a mist, or a shadow image fusing itself into your earthly body. When venturing into the Quarters, use the simulacrum and tune it to the Element you seek to explore, making it a body of Fire, Air, Water, or Earth. When generally projected, it should be thought of as a body of Quintessence, or Spirit, of dynamic electric and magnetic qualities containing within it the balanced potential for all bodies of the four Elements. The simulacrum can also be projected and modified to a deific image or godform. The effects of this are different than the usual methods for Assumption of the Godform. In this instance it is helpful to grow the image in size and stature to a larger than normal appearance after it has been created. It is important that your consciousness be projected firmly into the simulacrum during any working, and that the energy be completely reabsorbed after it is over. The simulacrum can be charged with Hebrew letters. Engraving them according to there location and association with the physical organs as outlined in the Sepher Yetzirah. This can be done to the physical body as well, prior to projection of the simulacrum, and will assist in its creation and projection.9) The letters can be done in blazing white, or according to the Queen’s Scale. It can also be charged with the Tetragrammaton, in the normal Y (Head) Heh (Shoulders) Vau (Spine) Heh (Hips Feet) fashion. As with the alphabet, they should be seen as existing inside the figure, glowing and strong, and not carved on the surface, or projected onto it from elsewhere. The purpose of the simulacrum is to create a vehicle for the purification and expression of astral (Yetziric) and mental (Briah) energies. As such, it also acts as a bridge between not just our objective and subjective worlds, but also between our emotional and physical realities. As stated, we can in effect, alter our physical appearance and health through proper and loving purification of our astral matrix. The Nephesch, which constitutes the bulk of the ‘self’ that we are refining in this work, overlaps and connects the worlds of matter (forming our Salt) and mind (forming our Mercury). When we address it from the perspective of our Kether, we are adding the third Essential, or the overlap of Mind and Spirit (forming our Sulfur). These Four Qabalstic Worlds and their overlapping, forming the Three Essentials, form the basis for inner and outer alchemy. The 27th Path is also a sort of Kundalini Yoga exercise, whereas the 24th Path is the arousal of Kundalini. Where the 27th connects Natural Energy to the Intellectual World, the 24th Path converts Solar (soul) energy into Natural (psychic) energy. Both are under the influence of Mars, or Will, as they reverse the flow of Mezla, and clear out psychic blockages on the Path of Return. This exercise will have secondary effects on the 24th Path, and some effects on the 28th Path (Net-Yes) as this Path governs the flow of Psychic energy through our Psychic centers. All of the Paths of Yetzirah will be effected to some degree by this exercise. We cannot ascend and take our mistaken ideas with us, or our passions and lusts. Both are eradicated, disciplined, or redirected by the Sword of Geburah, or an Enlightened Will. The Lightning Bolt on the tarot card the Tower, sometimes called the House of God (Deu) or Fire (Feu) shows us that the ever flowing lightning bolt of Mezla will destroy any imperfections that it comes in contact with. 1) The Magical Personality is defined as a self-created image of one’s self that allows for greater power and presence when doing esoteric work. 2) See: Fundamentals of Esoteric Knowledge, Lesson 1-3. The Philosopher’s of Nature (PON), Wheaton, Ill. ©1988. 3) See: Qabala Course, Lesson 17. The Philosophers of Nature (PON), Wheaton, Ill. © 1995.

4) See: Self-Initiation into the Golden Dawn Tradition by Chic and Sandra Tabatha Cicero. Llewellyn Publications. Saint Paul, MN. Copyright 1995 5) For more information on Pathworking see: PON Qabala Course, Lessons through . Highways of the Mind by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, and Magical States of Consciousness by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips. 6) P. 359-362.

7) As mentioned, in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Hermetic Rose+Cross and the Pantacle of Earth are ‘adept level’ tools. In The Philosopher’s of Nature (PON) Qabala Course, they are not constructed until the very end of the six year course. However, the Supreme Pentagram and Hexagram rituals are presented in the second year. 8) Use of the ‘Elemental Grade Signs’ or the ‘Rending of the Veil’ is at the performers discretion.

9) One student who did this noted that the simulacrum was more vital, but also slightly more difficult to control. They also noted, they when they imagined the letters within their physical body when falling asleep, that astral projection occurred rapidly, often before the fifth or sixth letter was reached.

 

hermetic.com/stavish/essays/bodylight

 

The Advanced Middle Pillar Ritual: The Middle Pillar ritual seems to be a ritual that one can progressively build upon. Visualization of the 5 central spheres and reciting the corresponding God-names is obviously the foundation. From there on, I have begun incorporating the remainder of the spheres - and also reciting the Angelic correspondences too (Metatron - Raphael - Gabriel - Sandalphon). Upon adding these to the ritual - it has become considerably more powerful (in terms of how strongly it alters my consciousness) and immersive. I am looking to further energize and advance the ritual. From those of you who have developed their own Middle Pillar Ritual - what have you specifically done, and what has been in the effect? Also, do you supplement the process by topping it off with another ritual (Bornless Ritual, LIRP, etc...) This practice is based on the symbolism of the Middle Pillar of the qabalistic Tree of Life. Alternately, this pillar is known by the titles Equilibrium, Balance, or Mildness. The Middle Pillar Exercise imagines bright spiritual light descending and flowing through the central axis of the body, marked by a series of energy centers (circles 1, 6, 9, 10, and the unmarked throat center in the diagram). Visualizing certain colors and using intense vocalization, called vibration, of the associated name of G-d activates these centers. Then the light is circulated, or directed into a certain pattern of flow, throughout the whole energy field. This practice connects us to the Divine, clears and recharges our personal energy field, and increases our capacity to channel spiritual energy. Additionally, it brings us a sense of peace and harmonious balance. Many teachers recommend performing a clearing ritual prior to practicing the Middle Pillar Exercise. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP) is frequently used. I have used the Middle Pillar Exercise with students for many years without a prefatory clearing ritual and with no ill effects. However, if you feel your energy is disproportionately out-of-balance, please consider using the LBRP or otherwise setting sacred space before beginning this meditation.The name of the exercise is taken from the position of the central Sephiroth on the diagrammatic Tree of Life.

As has been said... "The Secret of Wisdom can be discerned only from the place of balanced power" - that is, from between the pillars of Severity and Mercy. The Middle Pillar positions us at a balanced point, neutralizing to some extent the swing of the psychic pendulum from one extreme to the other.

In this exercise we will visualize the sephiroth of the middle pillar as part of our bodies, illuminating them in descending order while vibrating the sephiroth's divine name. This establishes balance and fills us with energy.Once the middle pillar is 'lit' we will circle the energy around and through our bodies, to cleanse and fortify. Think of the names as vibratory rates.

The exercise can be performed standing, sitting, or lying down. Names can be vibrated aloud or internally.Kether

After a few minutes of relaxation, imagine a sphere of white light just above your head. Vibrate the name Eheieh (pronounced Eh-hey-yay, meaning I am). Keep vibrating this word until it is the only thought in your conscious mind. Then imagine a shaft of light descending from your Kether center to your Daath center at the nape of the neck.

Daath: Form a sphere of light at the Daath center. Vibrate the name YHVH Elohim (pronounced Yode-heh-vav-heh El-oh-heem, meaning Lord of Hosts).

Tiphareth: Bring a shaft of light down from the Daath center to the Tiphareth center around your heart. Form a sphere of light there. Vibrate the name YHVH Eloah ve-Daath (pronounced Yode-heh-vav-heh El-oh-ah v’-Dah-ath, meaning Lord of Knowledge).

Yesod: See the shaft of light descending from Tiphareth into the Yesod center in the genital region. Imagine a sphere of light formed there. Intone the name Shaddai El Chai (pronounced Shah-dye El-Chai meaning Almighty Living God.

Malkuth: Visualize the shaft of light descending from Yesod into your Malkuth center at the feet and ankles. Vibrate the name Adonai ha-Aretz (pronounced Ah-doe-nye ha-Ah-retz, meaning Lord of Earth). Visualize the Middle Pillar complete.

 

Circulating the light: Then circulate the light you have brought down through the Middle Pillar around the outside of your body to strengthen your aura (Perform each circulation a number of times.): Circulation One: Side to Side. Using the cycles of rhythmic breathing, bring the light down one side of the body and up the other, from Kether to Malkuth and back to Kether. Exhale and visualize the light descending the left side of the body. Inhale and imagine the light ascending the right side of the body back to Kether.. Circulation Two: Front to Back:

After performing this for a short space of time, imagine the ribbon of light descending from Kether down the front of your body to Malkuth and rising up your back, returning again to Kether. Circulation Three: The Shower of Light Still employing rhythmic breathing, visualize the sphere of Malkuth, then see the shaft of light rising up the Middle Pillar in the center of your body. When it reaches Kether, imagine a shower of light cascading down the outside of your body as it descends to Malkuth again. Circulate the light in this manner for some time. Circulation Four: The Ascending Spiral Then see the light rise again in a ribbon that spirals around the outside of your body from Malkuth to Kether. Closing Finally focus some of the energy back into your Tiphareth center, the seat of equilibrium and balance.

Often, the Middle Pillar is combined with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (see also Site "Rituals") To do this:

Perform the opening Kabalistic Cross .Formulate the Pentagrams

Call the Archangels: Perform the Middle Pillar exercise

Perform the closing Kabalistic Cross. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. The Kabalistic Cross: Face east. Perform the Kabalistic Cross as follows:. Imagine a sphere of light just above the crown of your head. Touch the forehead and vibrate Ateh (Thou Art, or, Unto Thee) Bring hand down the body. At about the level of the genitals, indicate the feet and vibrate Malkuth (The Kingdom) Imagine a shaft of light descending from the Crown Sphere to the feet where another sphere expands just under your feet. Touch the right shoulder and vibrate Ve-Geburah (and The Power) Imagine a 6 inch sphere of brilliant white light appear just next to the right shoulder.

Touch the left shoulder and vibrate Ve-Gedulah (and The Glory)

Imagine a shaft of light emerge from the right Sphere and cross your breast to expand and form another Sphere at your left shoulder. Clasp the hands before you and vibrate Le-Olam (For Ever) Imagine clearly the cross of light as it extends through your body.

Amen.

 

The Pentagrams

Draw, in the air facing east, a banishing Earth Pentagram (Begin at the lower left corner and trace clockwise). Bringing your hand to the center of the Pentagram, vibrate the Name Y H V H (pronounced Yahd Hey Vau Hey)

Trace a semicircle before you as you turn toward the south. Again trace the Pentagram, bring your hand to the center of it, and vibrate the Name Adonai, (pronounced Ah-Do-Neye)

Again, trace the semicircle with the dagger to the west, trace the Pentagram, bring your hand to the center, and vibrate the Name Eheieh, (pronounced Eh-Hey-Yay)

Then, turn towards the north, trace the circle, trace the Pentagram, bring your hand to the center and vibrate the Name AGLA, (pronounced either Ah-Gah-Lah or Atah Gibor Le-Olahm Adonai) Return to the EAST, completing tracing the circle of Light, bringing your hand to the center of the east Pentagram.

 

The Archangels

Extend the arms in the form of a cross, say:

Before me (then vibrate) Raphael

Behind me (then vibrate) Gabriel

At my right hand (then vibrate) Michael

At my left hand (then vibrate) Ariel

About me flames the pentagrams, and in the column shines the six-rayed star.

 

At this point, perform the Middle Pillar exercise

 

Repeat the Kabalistic Cross

 

Adding Color

Once the ritual becomes familiar, try adding color to the spheres. While white light contains all colors within it, visualizing the spheres in color can strengthen the individual energy of each.

 

Colors in the Middle Pillar

Kether – White

Daath – Lavender or grey

Tiphareth - Yellow

Yesod – Violet

Malkuth – Traditionally a swirl of russet, olive, citrine and black. Or simply brown.

 

Colors in the LBR

Ateh – White

Malkuth – Brown, or russet – olive - citrine – black

Ve-Geburah – Red

Ve – Gedula – Blue

Le-Olam – Yellow

Visualize the complete cross in white.

 

East - a yellow pentagram

South – a red pentagram

West – a blue pentagram

North – a green pentagram

 

aethyrea.blogspot.com/p/middle-pillar.html

 

This esoteric symbol has its origins linked to the Chimi Lhakhang monastery and Drukpa Kunley (The Divine Madman). The very explicit paintings and carvings may be embarrassing to some visitors but they can be seen throughout the country especially in villages. The erect penis is meant to drive away the evil eye and malicious gossip and is not related in any way to pornography as many Westerners would view it.

 

Drukpa Kunley (1455-1529) was trained in Tibet at the Ralung Monastery and travelled extensively in Bhutan. He was in many ways crazy and was very fond of women and wine. During his life he adopted many blasphemous and unorthodox ways to teach Buddhism, this is just one of them.

 

The Chime Lhakhang monastery holds the original wooden phallus that Kunley brought with him from Tibet. The phallus wood carving is decorated with a silver handle and is used to bless those people, especially woman, wanting children. Tradition dictates that they are struck on the head with the 10 inch (25 cm) wooden phallus or erect penis.

Only at Esoteric. Every Sunday at 8am. This Sunday is Fantasy dress and rock from Dj Luca! maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cherished%20Bond/219/170/27

 

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Such a need to explode.

For this time ticks slowly,

Through this, the greyest of all days.

Waiting for now to become then.

 

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Esoteric signs near Dârste wayside cross on the outskirts of Brașov city.

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Sinful Sundays @ Esoteric - 8am

 

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The unknown years of Jesus (also called his silent years, lost years, or missing years) generally refers to the period of Jesus's life between his childhood and the beginning of his ministry, a period not described in the New Testament.

 

The "lost years of Jesus" concept is usually encountered in esoteric literature (where it at times also refers to his possible post-crucifixion activities) but is not commonly used in scholarly literature since it is assumed that Jesus was probably working as a carpenter in Galilee, at least some of the time with Joseph, from the age of 12 to 29.

 

In the late medieval period, there appeared Arthurian legends that the young Jesus had been in Britain. In the 19th and 20th centuries theories began to emerge that between the ages of 12 and 29 Jesus had visited India, or had studied with the Essenes in the Judea desert. Modern mainstream Christian scholarship has generally rejected these theories and holds that nothing is known about this time period in the life of Jesus.

 

The use of the "lost years" in the "swoon hypothesis", suggests that Jesus survived his crucifixion and continued his life, instead of what was stated in the New Testament that he ascended into Heaven with two angels. This, and the related view that he avoided crucifixion altogether, has given rise to several speculations about what happened to him in the supposed remaining years of his life, but these are not accepted by mainstream scholars either.

Among all of Israel’s neighbors, Egypt is the most prominent one in the Bible, especially in relation to Moses in the Old Testament, and in the New – to Jesus. Though not a lot of Egypt’s own history is described in the Bible, it carries great significance in Biblical history and in Jewish life.

  

Since the rebirth of modern Israel in 1948, relations between the Jewish state and neighboring Egypt have only gained momentum. Peace treaties, negotiations over the Suez Canal, and mediation with Gaza are just examples of how much has been happening on Israel’s southern border.

 

But politics aside, the land of Egypt is mentioned by the Jewish people on a regular basis. Why? Consider the story of Passover – it begins in Egypt! The entire Book of Exodus (meaning ‘departure’ or ‘escape’) speaks of the Hebrews fleeing Egypt and finding their way to the Promised Land through the desert.

 

Most notably, Mount Sinai is likely located in present-day Egypt, on Sinai Peninsula, where Moses received God’s commandments. You may be wondering: How do the Jewish people feel about Egypt today? Is it hard for Egyptian believers to read the Old Testament? Do they take the harsh words about Egypt personally? Let’s take a closer look at history.

  

Ancient Egypt and the Modern Arab Republic

Before visiting Egypt, I knew quite a bit about her ancient beginnings from schoolbooks, movies and photo albums. But although the ancient tombs and temples remain impressive to this day, I was curious about believers in present day Egypt. Because what does Egypt mean to us?

 

Some may think of hieroglyphs of slender men and women with neatly shaved or trimmed hair. Others will immediately think of pyramids and the Sphinx. Still, some may associate Egypt with the kingdom described in the Old Testament – the enemy that oppressed the Jewish people. And a nation that endured plagues and served pharaohs.

 

If you follow modern-day events, you may think Egypt is a turbulent country that was at the forefront of the Arab Spring in early 2010s. One thing is abundantly clear. Egypt was and is a unique place that is in great need of our prayers.

 

Egypt – the Cradle of Civilization

Egypt’s remarkable historical heritage is a major part of her people’s identity even today. Which is easily noticeable at every step, with ancient symbols appearing on items of common use. Egyptians are proud of the superpower that the ancient Egypt once was.

 

We know from the Bible that Egypt had wealth, a strong army and powerful kings. Abraham and many of his descendants sojourned to Egypt in difficult times, for food and shelter. This only confirms that it was the most powerful and prosperous nation in the region.

 

Already in antiquity Egypt became known for its advancements in construction, medicine and agriculture. Their achievements are recognized to this day in mathematics or literature (including early paper production). And also in art, for example in unique ceramic and glass techniques.

 

On top of that, Egypt had an elaborate religious system. The pagan nature of the land was very evident. Kings were considered to be gods and superstition was common. After the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt, the Bible instructed them not to follow the ways of Egypt (Lev. 18:3).

  

How Long were Israelites in Egypt?

Joseph, son of Jacob, did not end up in Egypt by choice (Genesis 37). But God raised him to hold a very influential position in this foreign land. Historically, Egypt was known for cooperating with other tribes and kingdoms, even allowing foreigners to take high positions in governance. We read that Joseph became second only to Pharaoh (Genesis 41:39-41) in all of Egypt.

 

In the end, the entire family of Jacob moved to Egypt, escaping famine and drought. For as long as Joseph was remembered by the rulers in the country, the Hebrews led a peaceful and good life among the Egyptians. But that changed once a new Pharaoh ascended to the throne “who did not know Joseph.” (Exodus 1:8)

 

Life conditions became progressively worse for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This situation deteriorated to the point that a few generations later, they became slaves to the Egyptians. But then, we read that God heard their cry (Exodus 3:7-8) and raised up Moses to lead them out of this land and into freedom.

 

Despite Moses being raised in the Pharaoh’s house, it was no easy task to set his people free. It took some intense negotiations, ten plagues and the death of Pharaoh’s own son for the Israelites to finally leave Egypt. The Bible says that the chosen nation spent 430 years in Egypt (Exodus 12:40-41) , but it was time for them to return home.

 

The Foreign Affairs of the Promised Land

Moses is considered to be the most important prophet in Judaism. And the Exodus from Egypt was undoubtedly the most significant event on the Nile that is mentioned in the Bible. But it is far from the last one. As Israelites were taking possession of their Promised Land, they were still very aware of the powerful kingdom to the south.

 

That could be the reason why Israel’s third king, Solomon, made the diplomatic decision to marry Pharaoh’s daughter: “And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter, and brought her into the city of David…” (1 Kings 3:1).

 

What may have seemed like a good political move did not turn out to be a good one spiritually. The many wives of Solomon weakened his devotion to the Lord. One of his biggest downfalls was building altars to other gods for his wives. His rulership ended with the Kingdom of Israel being split into two. But it was his son who reaped the fruit of his failures:

 

“Rehoboam, son of Solomon and the first king of Judah, was attacked in the fifth year of his reign by an Egyptian pharaoh. As a result of his defeat, Judah became a vassal state, subordinate to Egypt. The Israelites had forsaken the LORD and so, the LORD left them to the hands of Pharaoh. And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of King Rehoboam Shishak King of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord.” (2 Chronicles 12:2)

 

Jesus in Egypt

The family of Jesus was instructed to seek shelter in Egypt when His life was in danger (Matt. 2:13). We don’t know much about the time they spent by the Nile, but we can assume they were safe. God Himself instructed them to find refuge in the south. Egyptian Christians share this story with pride, even though not much else can be said about it.

 

But this remains true: the Jewish Messiah, our Savior and Son of God, lived for a short season in Egypt. What an exceptional fact to have as a part of your nation’s history! Nevertheless, not too many Egyptians know this, given that the majority of the country follows Islam.

 

It is legal to be a Christian in Egypt, as long as you are born one. Every citizen has their religious affiliation specified on their identity card. If your passport or other document states you were born into a Muslim family, you cannot change it.

 

This means that the right to choose what to believe is practically withdrawn from you at the moment of birth. So, are there no people in Egypt who consciously chose to accept Jesus as their Savior? There are. But often they have to keep their faith secret, to avoid persecution or even death.

 

My Egyptian host explained to me how significant the stories of Joseph and baby Jesus are to the believers in his country. It is what unites them all across Egypt. And then, he started asking me about Western countries, and sighed: “It must be wonderful to live in a country where everyone’s a Christian…” Inadvertently, I sighed as well.

 

Why is Egypt in the Bible?

I asked my host how the Egyptian Christians look at some of the prophecies and harsh words about Egypt in the Old Testament. Aside from actual events that took place in Egypt or in relation to Egypt, the Bible often uses this nation as a negative example or a lesson to learn.

 

After enslaving the Hebrews and because of idolatry, Egypt became synonymous with sin and bondage. Compelling the Jewish people to choose life, God cautions them about returning to Egypt and living in sin (Deut. 17:16).

 

Since the days of the Old Testament’s prophets, many of the prophecies about Egypt have been fulfilled. The glory of the Pharaohs is long gone, and Egypt is not as powerful as it was in antiquity. As the prophets had foretold, Egypt became a home of rebellion and internal conflicts.

 

But just as God said Egypt will be smitten, He also promised that she will be healed. Christians in Egypt hold on to this promise and continue to pray for their nation. In response to my question, my host smiled with understanding. Maybe I wasn’t the first one to ask these questions.

 

He humbly replied, “This country probably deserved great damnation in the past. But Jesus came to earth for that very reason. He showed us that there is such a thing as grace.”

 

Thanks to the prophet Isaiah, we know that to be true. “​​And when the Lord will strike Egypt, strike and heal, then they will turn to the Lord, and He will turn to God, let them plead and heal them.” (Isa. 19:22)

 

firmisrael.org/learn/from-moses-to-jesus-egypt-in-the-bib...

  

The 18 unknown years

  

Following the accounts of Jesus' young life, there is a gap of about 18 years in his story in the New Testament. Other than the statement that after he was 12 years old (Luke 2:42) Jesus "advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men" (Luke 2:52), the New Testament has no other details regarding the gap.[4] Christian tradition suggests that Jesus simply lived in Galilee during that period. Modern scholarship holds that there is little historical information to determine what happened during those years.

 

The ages of 12 and 29, the approximate ages at either end of the unknown years, have some significance in Judaism of the Second Temple period: 13 is the age of the bar mitzvah, the age of secular maturity,and 30 the age of readiness for the priesthood, although Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi.

 

Christians have generally taken the statement in Mark 6:3 referring to Jesus as "Is not this the carpenter...?" (Greek: οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ τέκτων, romanized: ouch outos estin ho tektōn) as an indication that before the age of 30 Jesus had been working as a carpenter. The tone of the passage leading to the question "Is not this the carpenter?" suggests familiarity with Jesus in the area, reinforcing that he had been generally seen as a carpenter in the gospel account before the start of his ministry. Matthew 13:55 poses the question as "Is not this the carpenter's son?" suggesting that the profession tektōn had been a family business and Jesus was engaged in it before starting his preaching and ministry in the gospel accounts.

 

Background of Galilee and Judea

Cultural and historical background of Jesus

The historical record of the large number of workmen employed in the rebuilding of Sepphoris has led Batey (1984) and others to suggest that when Jesus was in his teens and twenties carpenters would have found more employment at Sepphoris rather than at the small town of Nazareth.

 

Aside from secular employment some attempts have been made to reconstruct the theological and rabbinical circumstances of the "unknown years", e.g., soon after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls novelist Edmund Wilson (1955) suggested Jesus may have studied with the Essenes, followed by the Unitarian Charles F. Potter (1958) and others. Other writers have taken the view that the predominance of Pharisees in Judea during that period, and Jesus' own later recorded interaction with the Pharisees, makes a Pharisee background more likely, as in the recorded case of another Galilean, Josephus studied with all three groups: Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes.

 

Other sources

See also: Infancy gospels and Pseudepigrapha

The New Testament apocrypha and early Christian pseudepigrapha preserve various pious legends filling the "gaps" in Christ's youth. Charlesworth (2008) explains this as due to the canonical Gospels having left "a narrative vacuum" that many have attempted to fill.

 

Jesus's childhood is described in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and the Syriac Infancy Gospel, among other sources.

 

Claims of young Jesus in Britain

The story of Jesus visiting Britain as a boy is a late medieval development based on legends connected with Joseph of Arimathea. During the late 12th century, Joseph of Arimathea became connected with the Arthurian cycle, appearing in them as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. This idea first appears in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Britain. This theme is elaborated upon in Boron's sequels and in subsequent Arthurian works penned by others.

 

Some Arthurian legends hold that Jesus travelled to Britain as a boy, lived at Priddy in the Mendips, and built the first wattle cabin at Glastonbury. William Blake's early 19th-century poem "And did those feet in ancient time" was inspired by the story of Jesus travelling to Britain. In some versions, Joseph was supposedly a tin merchant and took Jesus under his care when his mother Mary was widowed. Gordon Strachan wrote Jesus the Master Builder: Druid Mysteries and the Dawn of Christianity (1998), which was the basis of the documentary titled And Did Those Feet (2009). Strachan believed Jesus may have travelled to Britain to study with the Druids.

 

Claims of young Jesus in India and/or Tibet

  

Nicolas Notovitch

In 1887, Russian war correspondent Nicolas Notovitch claimed that while at the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, he had learned of a document called the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" – Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam.[30][31][32] Notovitch's story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa", was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ (Unknown Life of Jesus Christ).[7][32]

 

According to the scrolls, Jesus abandoned Jerusalem at the age of 13 and set out towards Sind, “intending to improve and perfect himself in the divine understanding and to studying the laws of the great Buddha”. He crossed Punjab and reached Puri Jagannath where he studied the Vedas under Brahmin priests. He spent six years in Puri and Rajgirh, near Nalanda, the ancient seat of Hindu learning. Then he went to the Himalayas, and spent time in Tibetan monasteries, studying Buddhism,[30] and through Persia, returned to Jerusalem at the age of 29.

 

Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial and Max Müller stated that either the monks at the monastery had deceived Notovitch (or played a joke on him), or he had fabricated the evidence.[30][33][34] Müller then wrote to the monastery at Hemis and the head lama replied that there had been no Western visitor at the monastery in the past fifteen years and there were no documents related to Notovitch's story.[35] J. Archibald Douglas then visited Hemis monastery and interviewed the head lama who stated that Notovitch had never been there. Indologist Leopold von Schroeder called Notovitch's story a "big fat lie". Wilhelm Schneemelcher states that Notovich's accounts were soon exposed as fabrications, and that to date no one has even had a glimpse at the manuscripts Notovitch claims to have had.

 

Notovich responded to claims to defend himself. But once his story had been re-examined by historians – some even questioning his existence – it is claimed that Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax".However, others deny that Notovich ever accepted the accusations against him – that his account was a forgery, etc. Although he was not impressed with his story, Sir Francis Younghusband recalls meeting Nicolas Notovitch near Skardu, not long before Notovitch had visited Hemis monastery.

 

In 1922, Swami Abhedananda, the president of the Vedanta Society of New York between 1897 and 1921 and the author of several books, went to the Himalayas on foot and reached Tibet, where he studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism. He went to the Hemis Monastery, and allegedly found the manuscript translated by Notovitch, which was a Tibetan translation of the original scrolls written in Pali. The lama said that it was a copy and that the original was in a monastery at Marbour near Lhasa. After Abhedananda's death in 1939, one of his disciples inquired about the documents at the Hemis monastery, but was told that they had disappeared.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_years_of_Jesus

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Dualism in cosmology is the moral, or spiritual belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which often oppose each other. It is an umbrella term that covers a diversity of views from various religions, including both traditional religions and scriptural religions.

 

Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of, or conflict between, the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be "moral" and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview which has one god, more than one god, or none. By contrast, duotheism, bitheism or ditheism implies (at least) two gods. While bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, or light and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system could be one in which one god is a creator, and the other a destroyer. In theology, dualism can also refer to the relationship between the deity and creation or the deity and the universe (see theistic dualism). This form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism.[1] Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories. The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism. It is also discussed in Confucianism.

 

Many myths and creation motifs with dualistic cosmologies have been described in ethnographic and anthropological literature. These motifs conceive the world as being created, organized, or influenced by two demiurges, culture heroes, or other mythological beings, who either compete with each other or have a complementary function in creating, arranging or influencing the world. There is a huge diversity of such cosmologies. In some cases, such as among the Chukchi, the beings collaborate rather than competing, and contribute to the creation in a coequal way. In many other instances the two beings are not of the same importance or power (sometimes, one of them is even characterized as gullible). Sometimes they can be contrasted as good versus evil.[2] They may be often believed to be twins or at least brothers.[3][4] Dualistic motifs in mythologies can be observed in all inhabited continents. Zolotaryov concludes that they cannot be explained by diffusion or borrowing, but are rather of convergent origin: they are related to a dualistic organization of society (moieties); in some cultures, this social organization may have ceased to exist, but mythology preserves the memory in more and more disguised ways.[5]

Moral dualism[edit]

 

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Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. Like ditheism/bitheism (see below), moral dualism does not imply the absence of monist or monotheistic principles. Moral dualism simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be "moral" and—unlike ditheism/bitheism—independent of how these may be represented.

 

For example, Mazdaism (Mazdean Zoroastrianism) is both dualistic and monotheistic (but not monist by definition) since in that philosophy God—the Creator—is purely good, and the antithesis—which is also uncreated–is an absolute one. Zurvanism (Zurvanite Zoroastrianism), Manichaeism, and Mandaeism are representative of dualistic and monist philosophies since each has a supreme and transcendental First Principle from which the two equal-but-opposite entities then emanate. This is also true for the lesser-known Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, and so on. More complex forms of monist dualism also exist, for instance in Hermeticism, where Nous "thought"—that is described to have created man—brings forth both good and evil, dependent on interpretation, whether it receives prompting from the God or from the Demon. Duality with pluralism is considered a logical fallacy.

 

History[edit]

Moral dualism began as a theological belief. Dualism was first seen implicitly in Egyptian religious beliefs by the contrast of the gods Set (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life).[6] The first explicit conception of dualism came from the Ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that believes that Ahura Mazda is the eternal creator of all good things. Any violations of Ahura Mazda's order arise from druj, which is everything uncreated. From this comes a significant choice for humans to make. Either they fully participate in human life for Ahura Mazda or they do not and give druj power. Personal dualism is even more distinct in the beliefs of later religions.

 

The religious dualism of Christianity between good and evil is not a perfect dualism as God (good) will inevitably destroy Satan (evil). Early Christian dualism is largely based on Platonic Dualism (See: Neoplatonism and Christianity). There is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian soul.[7]

 

Duotheism, bitheism, ditheism[edit]

When used with regards to multiple gods, dualism may refer to duotheism, bitheism, or ditheism. Although ditheism/bitheism imply moral dualism, they are not equivalent: ditheism/bitheism implies (at least) two gods, while moral dualism does not necessarily imply theism (theos = god) at all.

 

Both bitheism and ditheism imply a belief in two equally powerful gods with complementary or antonymous properties; however, while bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, bright and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system would be one in which one god is creative, the other is destructive (cf. theodicy). In the original conception of Zoroastrianism, for example, Ahura Mazda was the spirit of ultimate good, while Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) was the spirit of ultimate evil.

 

In a bitheistic system, by contrast, where the two deities are not in conflict or opposition, one could be male and the other female (cf. duotheism[clarification needed]). One well-known example of a bitheistic or duotheistic theology based on gender polarity is found in the neopagan religion of Wicca. In Wicca, dualism is represented in the belief of a god and a goddess as a dual partnership in ruling the universe. This is centered on the worship of a divine couple, the Moon Goddess and the Horned God, who are regarded as lovers. However, there is also a ditheistic theme within traditional Wicca, as the Horned God has dual aspects of bright and dark - relating to day/night, summer/winter - expressed as the Oak King and the Holly King, who in Wiccan myth and ritual are said to engage in battle twice a year for the hand of the Goddess, resulting in the changing seasons. (Within Wicca, bright and dark do not correspond to notions of "good" and "evil" but are aspects of the natural world, much like yin and yang in Taoism.)

 

Radical and mitigated dualism[edit]

Radical Dualism – or absolute Dualism which posits two co-equal divine forces.[8] Manichaeism conceives of two previously coexistent realms of light and darkness which become embroiled in conflict, owing to the chaotic actions of the latter. Subsequently, certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness; the purpose of material creation is to enact the slow process of extraction of these individual elements, at the end of which the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness. Manicheanism likely inherits this dualistic mythology from Zoroastrianism, in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu; the two are engaged in a cosmic struggle, the conclusion of which will likewise see Ahura Mazda triumphant. 'The Hymn of the Pearl' included the belief that the material world corresponds to some sort of malevolent intoxication brought about by the powers of darkness to keep elements of the light trapped inside it in a state of drunken distraction.

Mitigated Dualism – is where one of the two principles is in some way inferior to the other. Such classical Gnostic movements as the Sethians conceived of the material world as being created by a lesser divinity than the true God that was the object of their devotion. The spiritual world is conceived of as being radically different from the material world, co-extensive with the true God, and the true home of certain enlightened members of humanity; thus, these systems were expressive of a feeling of acute alienation within the world, and their resultant aim was to allow the soul to escape the constraints presented by the physical realm.[8]

However, bitheistic and ditheistic principles are not always so easily contrastable, for instance in a system where one god is the representative of summer and drought and the other of winter and rain/fertility (cf. the mythology of Persephone). Marcionism, an early Christian sect, held that the Old and New Testaments were the work of two opposing gods: both were First Principles, but of different religions.[9]

 

Theistic dualism[edit]

In theology, dualism can refer to the relationship between God and creation or God and the universe. This form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism.[10][1]

 

In Christianity[edit]

 

The Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. The Cathars were denounced as heretics by the Roman Catholic Church for their dualist beliefs.

The dualism between God and Creation has existed as a central belief in multiple historical sects and traditions of Christianity, including Marcionism, Catharism, Paulicianism, and other forms of Gnostic Christianity. Christian dualism refers to the belief that God and creation are distinct, but interrelated through an indivisible bond.[1] However, Gnosticism is a diverse, syncretistic religious movement consisting of various belief systems generally united in a belief in a distinction between a supreme, transcendent God and a blind, evil demiurge responsible for creating the material universe, thereby trapping the divine spark within matter.[11]

 

In sects like the Cathars and the Paulicians, this is a dualism between the material world, created by an evil god, and a moral god. Historians divide Christian dualism into absolute dualism, which held that the good and evil gods were equally powerful, and mitigated dualism, which held that material evil was subordinate to the spiritual good.[12] The belief, by Christian theologians who adhere to a libertarian or compatibilist view of free will, that free will separates humankind from God has also been characterized as a form of dualism.[1] The theologian Leroy Stephens Rouner compares the dualism of Christianity with the dualism that exists in Zoroastrianism and the Samkhya tradition of Hinduism. The theological use of the word dualism dates back to 1700, in a book that describes the dualism between good and evil.[1]

 

The tolerance of dualism ranges widely among the different Christian traditions. As a monotheistic religion, the conflict between dualism and monism has existed in Christianity since its inception.[13] The 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia describes that, in the Catholic Church, "the dualistic hypothesis of an eternal world existing side by side with God was of course rejected" by the thirteenth century, but mind–body dualism was not.[14] The problem of evil is difficult to reconcile with absolute monism, and has prompted some Christian sects to veer towards dualism. Gnostic forms of Christianity were more dualistic, and some Gnostic traditions posited that the Devil was separate from God as an independent deity.[13] The Christian dualists of the Byzantine Empire, the Paulicians, were seen as Manichean heretics by Byzantine theologians. This tradition of Christian dualism, founded by Constantine-Silvanus, argued that the universe was created through evil and separate from a moral God.[15]

 

The Cathars, a Christian sect in southern France, believed that there was a dualism between two gods, one representing good and the other representing evil. Whether or not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from ancient Gnosticism is a matter of dispute, as the basic conceptions of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs (most distinctly in their notion of a lesser creator god), though unlike the second century Gnostics, they did not apparently place any special relevance upon knowledge (gnosis) as an effective salvific force. In any case, the Roman Catholic Church denounced the Cathars as heretics, and sought to crush the movement in the 13th century. The Albigensian Crusade was initiated by Pope Innocent III in 1208 to remove the Cathars from Languedoc in France, where they were known as Albigesians. The Inquisition, which began in 1233 under Pope Gregory IX, also targeted the Cathars.[16]

 

In Hinduism[edit]

The Dvaita Vedanta school of Indian philosophy espouses a dualism between God and the universe by theorizing the existence of two separate realities. The first and the more important reality is that of Shiva or Shakti or Vishnu or Brahman. Shiva or Shakti or Vishnu is the supreme Self, God, the absolute truth of the universe, the independent reality. The second reality is that of dependent but equally real universe that exists with its own separate essence. Everything that is composed of the second reality, such as individual soul (Jiva), matter, etc. exist with their own separate reality. The distinguishing factor of this philosophy as opposed to Advaita Vedanta (monistic conclusion of Vedas) is that God takes on a personal role and is seen as a real eternal entity that governs and controls the universe.[17][better source needed] Because the existence of individuals is grounded in the divine, they are depicted as reflections, images or even shadows of the divine, but never in any way identical with the divine. Salvation therefore is described as the realization that all finite reality is essentially dependent on the Supreme.[18]

 

Ontological dualism[edit]

 

The yin and yang symbolizes the duality in nature and all things in the Taoist religion.

Alternatively, dualism can mean the tendency of humans to perceive and understand the world as being divided into two overarching categories. In this sense, it is dualistic when one perceives a tree as a thing separate from everything surrounding it. This form of ontological dualism exists in Taoism and Confucianism, beliefs that divide the universe into the complementary oppositions of yin and yang.[19] In traditions such as classical Hinduism (Samkhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika and the later Vedanta schools, which accepted the theory of Gunas), Zen Buddhism or Islamic Sufism, a key to enlightenment is "transcending" this sort of dualistic thinking, without merely substituting dualism with monism or pluralism.

 

In Chinese philosophy[edit]

 

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The opposition and combination of the universe's two basic principles of yin and yang is a large part of Chinese philosophy, and is an important feature of Taoism, both as a philosophy and as a religion, although the concept developed much earlier. Some argue that yin and yang were originally an earth and sky god, respectively.[20] As one of the oldest principles in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang are also discussed in Confucianism, but to a lesser extent.

 

Some of the common associations with yang and yin, respectively, are: male and female, light and dark, active and passive, motion and stillness. Some scholars believe that the two ideas may have originally referred to two opposite sides of a mountain, facing towards and away from the sun.[20] The yin and yang symbol in actuality has very little to do with Western dualism; instead it represents the philosophy of balance, where two opposites co-exist in harmony and are able to transmute into each other. In the yin-yang symbol there is a dot of yin in yang and a dot of yang in yin. In Taoism, this symbolizes the inter-connectedness of the opposite forces as different aspects of Tao, the First Principle. Contrast is needed to create a distinguishable reality, without which we would experience nothingness. Therefore, the independent principles of yin and yang are actually dependent on one another for each other's distinguishable existence.

 

The complementary dualistic concept seen in yin and yang represent the reciprocal interaction throughout nature, related to a feedback loop, where opposing forces do not exchange in opposition but instead exchange reciprocally to promote stabilization similar to homeostasis. An underlying principle in Taoism states that within every independent entity lies a part of its opposite. Within sickness lies health and vice versa. This is because all opposites are manifestations of the single Tao, and are therefore not independent from one another, but rather a variation of the same unifying force throughout all of nature.

 

In traditional religions[edit]

Samoyed peoples[edit]

In a Nenets myth, Num and Nga collaborate and compete with each other, creating land,[21] there are also other myths about competing-collaborating demiurges.[22]

 

Comparative studies of Kets and neighboring peoples[edit]

Among others, also dualistic myths were investigated in researches which tried to compare the mythologies of Siberian peoples and settle the problem of their origins. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov compared the mythology of Ket people with those of speakers of Uralic languages, assuming in the studies, that there are modelling semiotic systems in the compared mythologies; and they have also made typological comparisons.[23][24] Among others, from possibly Uralic mythological analogies, those of Ob-Ugric peoples[25] and Samoyedic peoples[26] are mentioned. Some other discussed analogies (similar folklore motifs, and purely typological considerations, certain binary pairs in symbolics) may be related to dualistic organization of society—some of such dualistic features can be found at these compared peoples.[27] It must be admitted that, for Kets, neither dualistic organization of society[28] nor cosmological dualism[29] has been researched thoroughly: if such features existed at all, they have either weakened or remained largely undiscovered;[28] although there are some reports on division into two exogamous patrilinear moieties,[30] folklore on conflicts of mythological figures, and also on cooperation of two beings in creating the land:[29] the diving of the water fowl.[31] If we include dualistic cosmologies meant in broad sense, not restricted to certain concrete motifs, then we find that they are much more widespread, they exist not only among some Siberian peoples, but there are examples in each inhabited continent.[32]

 

Chukchi[edit]

A Chukchi myth and its variations report the creation of the world; in some variations, it is achieved by the collaboration of several beings (birds, collaborating in a coequal way; or the creator and the raven, collaborating in a coequal way; or the creator alone, using the birds only as assistants).[33][34]

 

Fuegians[edit]

See also: Fuegians § Spiritual culture

All three Fuegian tribes had dualistic myths about culture heros.[35] The Yámana have dualistic myths about the two [joalox] brothers. They act as culture heroes, and sometimes stand in an antagonistic relation with each other, introducing opposite laws. Their figures can be compared to the Kwanyip-brothers of the Selk'nam.[36] In general, the presence of dualistic myths in two compared cultures does not imply relatedness or diffusion necessarily.[32]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualistic_cosmology

 

In spirituality, nondualism, also called non-duality, means "not two" or "one undivided without a second".[1][2] Nondualism primarily refers to a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is "transcended", and awareness is described as "centerless" and "without dichotomies". Although this state of consciousness may seem to appear spontaneous,[note 1] it usually follows prolonged preparation through ascetic or meditative/contemplative practice, which may include ethical injunctions. While the term "nondualism" is derived from Advaita Vedanta, descriptions of nondual consciousness can be found within Hinduism (Turiya, sahaja), Buddhism (emptiness, pariniṣpanna, nature of mind, rigpa), Islam (Wahdat al Wujud, Fanaa, and Haqiqah) and western Christian and neo-Platonic traditions (henosis, mystical union).

 

The Asian ideas of nondualism developed in the Vedic and post-Vedic Upanishadic philosophies around 800 BCE,[3] as well as in the Buddhist traditions.[4] The oldest traces of nondualism in Indian thought are found in the earlier Hindu Upanishads such as Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as well as other pre-Buddhist Upanishads such as the Chandogya Upanishad, which emphasizes the unity of individual soul called Atman and the Supreme called Brahman. In Hinduism, nondualism has more commonly become associated with the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Adi Shankara.[5]

 

In the Buddhist tradition non-duality is associated with the teachings of emptiness (śūnyatā) and the two truths doctrine, particularly the Madhyamaka teaching of the non-duality of absolute and relative truth,[6][7] and the Yogachara notion of "mind/thought only" (citta-matra) or "representation-only" (vijñaptimātra).[5] These teachings, coupled with the doctrine of Buddha-nature have been influential concepts in the subsequent development of Mahayana Buddhism, not only in India, but also in East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, most notably in Chán (Zen) and Vajrayana.

 

Western Neo-Platonism is an essential element of both Christian contemplation and mysticism, and of Western esotericism and modern spirituality, especially Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, Universalism and Perennialism.Etymology[edit]

When referring to nondualism, Hinduism generally uses the Sanskrit term Advaita, while Buddhism uses Advaya (Tibetan: gNis-med, Chinese: pu-erh, Japanese: fu-ni).[8]

 

"Advaita" (अद्वैत) is from Sanskrit roots a, not; dvaita, dual, and is usually translated as "nondualism", "nonduality" and "nondual". The term "nondualism" and the term "advaita" from which it originates are polyvalent terms. The English word's origin is the Latin duo meaning "two" prefixed with "non-" meaning "not".

 

"Advaya" (अद्वय) is also a Sanskrit word that means "identity, unique, not two, without a second," and typically refers to the two truths doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism, especially Madhyamaka.

 

One of the earliest uses of the word Advaita is found in verse 4.3.32 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (~800 BCE), and in verses 7 and 12 of the Mandukya Upanishad (variously dated to have been composed between 500 BCE to 200 CE).[9] The term appears in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the section with a discourse of the oneness of Atman (individual soul) and Brahman (universal consciousness), as follows:[10]

 

An ocean is that one seer, without any duality [Advaita]; this is the Brahma-world, O King. Thus did Yajnavalkya teach him. This is his highest goal, this is his highest success, this is his highest world, this is his highest bliss. All other creatures live on a small portion of that bliss.

 

— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.32, [11][12][13]

The English term "nondual" was also informed by early translations of the Upanishads in Western languages other than English from 1775. These terms have entered the English language from literal English renderings of "advaita" subsequent to the first wave of English translations of the Upanishads. These translations commenced with the work of Müller (1823–1900), in the monumental Sacred Books of the East (1879).

 

Max Müller rendered "advaita" as "Monism", as have many recent scholars.[14][15][16] However, some scholars state that "advaita" is not really monism.[17]

 

Definitions[edit]

See also: Monism, Mind-body dualism, Dualistic cosmology, and Pluralism (philosophy)

Nondualism is a fuzzy concept, for which many definitions can be found.[note 2]

 

According to Espín and Nickoloff, "nondualism" is the thought in some Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist schools, which, generally speaking:

 

... teaches that the multiplicity of the universe is reducible to one essential reality."[18]

 

However, since there are similar ideas and terms in a wide variety of spiritualities and religions, ancient and modern, no single definition for the English word "nonduality" can suffice, and perhaps it is best to speak of various "nondualities" or theories of nonduality.[19]

 

David Loy, who sees non-duality between subject and object as a common thread in Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta,[20][note 3] distinguishes "Five Flavors Of Nonduality":[web 1]

 

The negation of dualistic thinking in pairs of opposites. The Yin-Yang symbol of Taoism symbolises the transcendence of this dualistic way of thinking.[web 1]

Monism, the nonplurality of the world. Although the phenomenal world appears as a plurality of "things", in reality they are "of a single cloth".[web 1]

Advaita, the nondifference of subject and object, or nonduality between subject and object.[web 1]

Advaya, the identity of phenomena and the Absolute, the "nonduality of duality and nonduality",[web 1] c.q. the nonduality of relative and ultimate truth as found in Madhyamaka Buddhism and the two truths doctrine.

Mysticism, a mystical unity between God and man.[web 1]

The idea of nondualism is typically contrasted with dualism, with dualism defined as the view that the universe and the nature of existence consists of two realities, such as the God and the world, or as God and Devil, or as mind and matter, and so on.[23][24]

 

Ideas of nonduality are also taught in some western religions and philosophies, and it has gained attraction and popularity in modern western spirituality and New Age-thinking.[25]

 

Different theories and concepts which can be linked to nonduality are taught in a wide variety of religious traditions. These include:

 

Hinduism:

In the Upanishads, which teach a doctrine that has been interpreted in a nondualistic way, mainly tat tvam asi.[26]

The Advaita Vedanta of Shankara[27][26] which teaches that a single pure consciousness is the only reality, and that the world is unreal (Maya).

Non-dual forms of Hindu Tantra[28] including Kashmira Shaivism[29][28] and the goddess centered Shaktism. Their view is similar to Advaita, but they teach that the world is not unreal, but it is the real manifestation of consciousness.[30]

Forms of Hindu Modernism which mainly teach Advaita and modern Indian saints like Ramana Maharshi and Swami Vivekananda.

Buddhism:

"Shūnyavāda (emptiness view) or the Mādhyamaka school",[31][32] which holds that there is a non-dual relationship (that is, there is no true separation) between conventional truth and ultimate truth, as well as between samsara and nirvana.

"Vijnānavāda (consciousness view) or the Yogācāra school",[31][33] which holds that there is no ultimate perceptual and conceptual division between a subject and its objects, or a cognizer and that which is cognized. It also argues against mind-body dualism, holding that there is only consciousness.

Tathagatagarbha-thought,[33] which holds that all beings have the potential to become Buddhas.

Vajrayana-buddhism,[34] including Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen[35] and Mahamudra.[36]

East Asian Buddhist traditions like Zen[37] and Huayan, particularly their concept of interpenetration.

Sikhism,[38] which usually teaches a duality between God and humans, but was given a nondual interpretation by Bhai Vir Singh.

Taoism,[39] which teaches the idea of a single subtle universal force or cosmic creative power called Tao (literally "way").

Subud[25]

Abrahamic traditions:

Christian mystics who promote a "nondual experience", such as Meister Eckhart and Julian of Norwich. The focus of this Christian nondualism is on bringing the worshiper closer to God and realizing a "oneness" with the Divine.[40]

Sufism[39]

Jewish Kabbalah

Western traditions:

Neo-platonism [41] which teaches there is a single source of all reality, The One.

Western philosophers like Hegel, Spinoza and Schopenhauer.[41] They defended different forms of philosophical monism or Idealism.

Transcendentalism, which was influenced by German Idealism and Indian religions.

Theosophy

New age

Hinduism[edit]

"Advaita" refers to nondualism, non-distinction between realities, the oneness of Atman (individual self) and Brahman (the single universal existence), as in Vedanta, Shaktism and Shaivism.[42] Although the term is best known from the Advaita Vedanta school of Adi Shankara, "advaita" is used in treatises by numerous medieval era Indian scholars, as well as modern schools and teachers.[note 4]

 

The Hindu concept of Advaita refers to the idea that all of the universe is one essential reality, and that all facets and aspects of the universe is ultimately an expression or appearance of that one reality.[42] According to Dasgupta and Mohanta, non-dualism developed in various strands of Indian thought, both Vedic and Buddhist, from the Upanishadic period onward.[4] The oldest traces of nondualism in Indian thought may be found in the Chandogya Upanishad, which pre-dates the earliest Buddhism. Pre-sectarian Buddhism may also have been responding to the teachings of the Chandogya Upanishad, rejecting some of its Atman-Brahman related metaphysics.[43][note 5]

 

Advaita appears in different shades in various schools of Hinduism such as in Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita Vedanta (Vaishnavism), Suddhadvaita Vedanta (Vaishnavism), non-dual Shaivism and Shaktism.[42][46][47] In the Advaita Vedanta of Adi Shankara, advaita implies that all of reality is one with Brahman,[42] that the Atman (soul, self) and Brahman (ultimate unchanging reality) are one.[48][49] The advaita ideas of some Hindu traditions contrasts with the schools that defend dualism or Dvaita, such as that of Madhvacharya who stated that the experienced reality and God are two (dual) and distinct.[50][51]

 

Vedanta[edit]

Main article: Vedanta

Several schools of Vedanta teach a form of nondualism. The best-known is Advaita Vedanta, but other nondual Vedanta schools also have a significant influence and following, such as Vishishtadvaita Vedanta and Shuddhadvaita,[42] both of which are bhedabheda.

 

Advaita Vedanta[edit]

Main article: Advaita Vedanta

 

Swans are important figures in Advaita

The nonduality of the Advaita Vedanta is of the identity of Brahman and the Atman.[52] Advaita has become a broad current in Indian culture and religions, influencing subsequent traditions like Kashmir Shaivism.

 

The oldest surviving manuscript on Advaita Vedanta is by Gauḍapāda (6th century CE),[5] who has traditionally been regarded as the teacher of Govinda bhagavatpāda and the grandteacher of Adi Shankara. Advaita is best known from the Advaita Vedanta tradition of Adi Shankara (788-820 CE), who states that Brahman, the single unified eternal truth, is pure Being, Consciousness and Bliss (Sat-cit-ananda).[53]

 

Advaita, states Murti, is the knowledge of Brahman and self-consciousness (Vijnana) without differences.[54] The goal of Vedanta is to know the "truly real" and thus become one with it.[55] According to Advaita Vedanta, Brahman is the highest Reality,[56][57][58] The universe, according to Advaita philosophy, does not simply come from Brahman, it is Brahman. Brahman is the single binding unity behind the diversity in all that exists in the universe.[57] Brahman is also that which is the cause of all changes.[57][59][60] Brahman is the "creative principle which lies realized in the whole world".[61]

 

The nondualism of Advaita, relies on the Hindu concept of Ātman which is a Sanskrit word that means "real self" of the individual,[62][63] "essence",[web 3] and soul.[62][64] Ātman is the first principle,[65] the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. Atman is the Universal Principle, one eternal undifferentiated self-luminous consciousness, asserts Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism.[66][67]

 

Advaita Vedanta philosophy considers Atman as self-existent awareness, limitless, non-dual and same as Brahman.[68] Advaita school asserts that there is "soul, self" within each living entity which is fully identical with Brahman.[69][70] This identity holds that there is One Soul that connects and exists in all living beings, regardless of their shapes or forms, there is no distinction, no superior, no inferior, no separate devotee soul (Atman), no separate God soul (Brahman).[69] The Oneness unifies all beings, there is the divine in every being, and all existence is a single Reality, state the Advaita Vedantins.[71] The nondualism concept of Advaita Vedanta asserts that each soul is non-different from the infinite Brahman.[72]

 

Advaita Vedanta – Three levels of reality[edit]

Advaita Vedanta adopts sublation as the criterion to postulate three levels of ontological reality:[73][74]

 

Pāramārthika (paramartha, absolute), the Reality that is metaphysically true and ontologically accurate. It is the state of experiencing that "which is absolutely real and into which both other reality levels can be resolved". This experience can't be sublated (exceeded) by any other experience.[73][74]

Vyāvahārika (vyavahara), or samvriti-saya,[75] consisting of the empirical or pragmatic reality. It is ever-changing over time, thus empirically true at a given time and context but not metaphysically true. It is "our world of experience, the phenomenal world that we handle every day when we are awake". It is the level in which both jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and Iswara are true; here, the material world is also true.[74]

Prāthibhāsika (pratibhasika, apparent reality, unreality), "reality based on imagination alone". It is the level of experience in which the mind constructs its own reality. A well-known example is the perception of a rope in the dark as being a snake.[74]

Similarities and differences with Buddhism[edit]

Scholars state that Advaita Vedanta was influenced by Mahayana Buddhism, given the common terminology and methodology and some common doctrines.[76][77] Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi state:

 

In any event a close relationship between the Mahayana schools and Vedanta did exist, with the latter borrowing some of the dialectical techniques, if not the specific doctrines, of the former.[78]

 

Advaita Vedanta is related to Buddhist philosophy, which promotes ideas like the two truths doctrine and the doctrine that there is only consciousness (vijñapti-mātra). It is possible that the Advaita philosopher Gaudapada was influenced by Buddhist ideas.[5] Shankara harmonised Gaudapada's ideas with the Upanishadic texts, and developed a very influential school of orthodox Hinduism.[79][80]

 

The Buddhist term vijñapti-mātra is often used interchangeably with the term citta-mātra, but they have different meanings. The standard translation of both terms is "consciousness-only" or "mind-only." Advaita Vedanta has been called "idealistic monism" by scholars, but some disagree with this label.[81][82] Another concept found in both Madhyamaka Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta is Ajativada ("ajāta"), which Gaudapada adopted from Nagarjuna's philosophy.[83][84][note 6] Gaudapada "wove [both doctrines] into a philosophy of the Mandukaya Upanisad, which was further developed by Shankara.[86][note 7]

 

Michael Comans states there is a fundamental difference between Buddhist thought and that of Gaudapada, in that Buddhism has as its philosophical basis the doctrine of Dependent Origination according to which "everything is without an essential nature (nissvabhava), and everything is empty of essential nature (svabhava-sunya)", while Gaudapada does not rely on this principle at all. Gaudapada's Ajativada is an outcome of reasoning applied to an unchanging nondual reality according to which "there exists a Reality (sat) that is unborn (aja)" that has essential nature (svabhava), and this is the "eternal, fearless, undecaying Self (Atman) and Brahman".[88] Thus, Gaudapada differs from Buddhist scholars such as Nagarjuna, states Comans, by accepting the premises and relying on the fundamental teaching of the Upanishads.[88] Among other things, Vedanta school of Hinduism holds the premise, "Atman exists, as self evident truth", a concept it uses in its theory of nondualism. Buddhism, in contrast, holds the premise, "Atman does not exist (or, An-atman) as self evident".[89][90][91]

 

Mahadevan suggests that Gaudapada adopted Buddhist terminology and adapted its doctrines to his Vedantic goals, much like early Buddhism adopted Upanishadic terminology and adapted its doctrines to Buddhist goals; both used pre-existing concepts and ideas to convey new meanings.[92] Dasgupta and Mohanta note that Buddhism and Shankara's Advaita Vedanta are not opposing systems, but "different phases of development of the same non-dualistic metaphysics from the Upanishadic period to the time of Sankara."[4]

 

Vishishtadvaita Vedanta[edit]

 

Ramanuja, founder of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, taught 'qualified nondualism' doctrine.

See also: Bhedabheda

Vishishtadvaita Vedanta is another main school of Vedanta and teaches the nonduality of the qualified whole, in which Brahman alone exists, but is characterized by multiplicity. It can be described as "qualified monism," or "qualified non-dualism," or "attributive monism."

 

According to this school, the world is real, yet underlying all the differences is an all-embracing unity, of which all "things" are an "attribute." Ramanuja, the main proponent of Vishishtadvaita philosophy contends that the Prasthana Traya ("The three courses") – namely the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutras – are to be interpreted in a way that shows this unity in diversity, for any other way would violate their consistency.

 

Vedanta Desika defines Vishishtadvaita using the statement: Asesha Chit-Achit Prakaaram Brahmaikameva Tatvam – "Brahman, as qualified by the sentient and insentient modes (or attributes), is the only reality."

 

Neo-Vedanta[edit]

Main articles: Neo-Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda, and Ramakrishna Mission

Neo-Vedanta, also called "neo-Hinduism"[93] is a modern interpretation of Hinduism which developed in response to western colonialism and orientalism, and aims to present Hinduism as a "homogenized ideal of Hinduism"[94] with Advaita Vedanta as its central doctrine.[95]

 

Neo-Vedanta, as represented by Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan, is indebted to Advaita vedanta, but also reflects Advaya-philosophy. A main influence on neo-Advaita was Ramakrishna, himself a bhakta and tantrika, and the guru of Vivekananda. According to Michael Taft, Ramakrishna reconciled the dualism of formlessness and form.[96] Ramakrishna regarded the Supreme Being to be both Personal and Impersonal, active and inactive:

 

When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive – neither creating nor preserving nor destroying – I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active – creating, preserving and destroying – I call Him Sakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one.[97]

 

Radhakrishnan acknowledged the reality and diversity of the world of experience, which he saw as grounded in and supported by the absolute or Brahman.[web 4][note 8] According to Anil Sooklal, Vivekananda's neo-Advaita "reconciles Dvaita or dualism and Advaita or non-dualism":[99]

 

The Neo-Vedanta is also Advaitic inasmuch as it holds that Brahman, the Ultimate Reality, is one without a second, ekamevadvitiyam. But as distinguished from the traditional Advaita of Sankara, it is a synthetic Vedanta which reconciles Dvaita or dualism and Advaita or non-dualism and also other theories of reality. In this sense it may also be called concrete monism in so far as it holds that Brahman is both qualified, saguna, and qualityless, nirguna.[99]

 

Radhakrishnan also reinterpreted Shankara's notion of maya. According to Radhakrishnan, maya is not a strict absolute idealism, but "a subjective misperception of the world as ultimately real."[web 4] According to Sarma, standing in the tradition of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Advaitavāda means "spiritual non-dualism or absolutism",[100] in which opposites are manifestations of the Absolute, which itself is immanent and transcendent:[101]

 

All opposites like being and non-being, life and death, good and evil, light and darkness, gods and men, soul and nature are viewed as manifestations of the Absolute which is immanent in the universe and yet transcends it.[102]

 

Kashmir Shaivism[edit]

Main articles: Shaivism and Kashmir Shaivism

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Advaita is also a central concept in various schools of Shaivism, such as Kashmir Shaivism[42] and Shiva Advaita.

 

Kashmir Shaivism is a school of Śaivism, described by Abhinavagupta[note 9] as "paradvaita", meaning "the supreme and absolute non-dualism".[web 5] It is categorized by various scholars as monistic[103] idealism (absolute idealism, theistic monism,[104] realistic idealism,[105] transcendental physicalism or concrete monism[105]).

 

Kashmir Saivism is based on a strong monistic interpretation of the Bhairava Tantras and its subcategory the Kaula Tantras, which were tantras written by the Kapalikas.[106] There was additionally a revelation of the Siva Sutras to Vasugupta.[106] Kashmir Saivism claimed to supersede the dualistic Shaiva Siddhanta.[107] Somananda, the first theologian of monistic Saivism, was the teacher of Utpaladeva, who was the grand-teacher of Abhinavagupta, who in turn was the teacher of Ksemaraja.[106][108]

 

The philosophy of Kashmir Shaivism can be seen in contrast to Shankara's Advaita.[109] Advaita Vedanta holds that Brahman is inactive (niṣkriya) and the phenomenal world is an illusion (māyā). In Kashmir Shavisim, all things are a manifestation of the Universal Consciousness, Chit or Brahman.[110][111] Kashmir Shavisim sees the phenomenal world (Śakti) as real: it exists, and has its being in Consciousness (Chit).[112]

 

Kashmir Shaivism was influenced by, and took over doctrines from, several orthodox and heterodox Indian religious and philosophical traditions.[113] These include Vedanta, Samkhya, Patanjali Yoga and Nyayas, and various Buddhist schools, including Yogacara and Madhyamika,[113] but also Tantra and the Nath-tradition.[114]

 

Contemporary vernacular Advaita[edit]

Advaita is also part of other Indian traditions, which are less strongly, or not all, organised in monastic and institutional organisations. Although often called "Advaita Vedanta," these traditions have their origins in vernacular movements and "householder" traditions, and have close ties to the Nath, Nayanars and Sant Mat traditions.

 

Ramana Maharshi[edit]

 

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) explained his insight using Shaiva Siddhanta, Advaita Vedanta and Yoga teachings.

Main article: Ramana Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi (30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) is widely acknowledged as one of the outstanding Indian gurus of modern times.[115] Ramana's teachings are often interpreted as Advaita Vedanta, though Ramana Maharshi never "received diksha (initiation) from any recognised authority".[web 6] Ramana himself did not call his insights advaita:

 

D. Does Sri Bhagavan advocate advaita?

M. Dvaita and advaita are relative terms. They are based on the sense of duality. The Self is as it is. There is neither dvaita nor advaita. "I Am that I Am."[note 10] Simple Being is the Self.[117]

 

Neo-Advaita[edit]

Main article: Neo-Advaita

Neo-Advaita is a New Religious Movement based on a modern, western interpretation of Advaita Vedanta, especially the teachings of Ramana Maharshi.[118] According to Arthur Versluis, neo-Advaita is part of a larger religious current which he calls immediatism,[119][web 9] "the assertion of immediate spiritual illumination without much if any preparatory practice within a particular religious tradition."[web 9] Neo-Advaita is criticized for this immediatism and its lack of preparatory practices.[120][note 11][122][note 12] Notable neo-advaita teachers are H. W. L. Poonja[123][118] and his students Gangaji,[124] Andrew Cohen,[note 13], and Eckhart Tolle.[118]

 

According to a modern western spiritual teacher of nonduality, Jeff Foster, nonduality is:

 

the essential oneness (wholeness, completeness, unity) of life, a wholeness which exists here and now, prior to any apparent separation [...] despite the compelling appearance of separation and diversity there is only one universal essence, one reality. Oneness is all there is – and we are included.[126]

 

Natha Sampradaya and Inchegeri Sampradaya[edit]

Main articles: Nath, Sahaja, and Inchegeri Sampradaya

The Natha Sampradaya, with Nath yogis such as Gorakhnath, introduced Sahaja, the concept of a spontaneous spirituality. Sahaja means "spontaneous, natural, simple, or easy".[web 13] According to Ken Wilber, this state reflects nonduality.[127]

 

Buddhism[edit]

There are different Buddhist views which resonate with the concepts and experiences of non-duality or "not two" (advaya). The Buddha does not use the term advaya in the earliest Buddhist texts, but it does appear in some of the Mahayana sutras, such as the Vimalakīrti.[128] While the Buddha taught unified states of mental focus (samadhi) and meditative absorption (dhyana) which were commonly taught in Upanishadic thought, he also rejected the metaphysical doctrines of the Upanishads, particularly ideas which are often associated with Hindu nonduality, such as the doctrine that "this cosmos is the self" and "everything is a Oneness" (cf. SN 12.48 and MN 22).[129][130] Because of this, Buddhist views of nonduality are particularly different than Hindu conceptions, which tend towards idealistic monism.

 

In Indian Buddhism[edit]

 

The layman Vimalakīrti Debates Manjusri, Dunhuang Mogao Caves

According to Kameshwar Nath Mishra, one connotation of advaya in Indic Sanskrit Buddhist texts is that it refers to the middle way between two opposite extremes (such as eternalism and annihilationism), and thus it is "not two".[131]

 

One of these Sanskrit Mahayana sutras, the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra contains a chapter on the "Dharma gate of non-duality" (advaya dharma dvara pravesa) which is said to be entered once one understands how numerous pairs of opposite extremes are to be rejected as forms of grasping. These extremes which must be avoided in order to understand ultimate reality are described by various characters in the text, and include: Birth and extinction, 'I' and 'Mine', Perception and non-perception, defilement and purity, good and not-good, created and uncreated, worldly and unworldly, samsara and nirvana, enlightenment and ignorance, form and emptiness and so on.[132] The final character to attempt to describe ultimate reality is the bodhisattva Manjushri, who states:

 

It is in all beings wordless, speechless, shows no signs, is not possible of cognizance, and is above all questioning and answering.[133]

 

Vimalakīrti responds to this statement by maintaining completely silent, therefore expressing that the nature of ultimate reality is ineffable (anabhilāpyatva) and inconceivable (acintyatā), beyond verbal designation (prapañca) or thought constructs (vikalpa).[133] The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, a text associated with Yogācāra Buddhism, also uses the term "advaya" extensively.[134]

 

In the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy of Madhyamaka, the two truths or ways of understanding reality, are said to be advaya (not two). As explained by the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, there is a non-dual relationship, that is, there is no absolute separation, between conventional and ultimate truth, as well as between samsara and nirvana.[135][136] The concept of nonduality is also important in the other major Indian Mahayana tradition, the Yogacara school, where it is seen as the absence of duality between the perceiving subject (or "grasper") and the object (or "grasped"). It is also seen as an explanation of emptiness and as an explanation of the content of the awakened mind which sees through the illusion of subject-object duality. However, it is important to note that in this conception of non-dualism, there are still a multiplicity of individual mind streams (citta santana) and thus Yogacara does not teach an idealistic monism.[137]

 

These basic ideas have continued to influence Mahayana Buddhist doctrinal interpretations of Buddhist traditions such as Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Zen, Huayan and Tiantai as well as concepts such as Buddha-nature, luminous mind, Indra's net, rigpa and shentong.

 

Madhyamaka[edit]

Main articles: Madhyamika, Shunyata, and Two truths doctrine

 

Nagarjuna (right), Aryadeva (middle) and the Tenth Karmapa (left).

Madhyamaka, also known as Śūnyavāda (the emptiness teaching), refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of philosophy [138] founded by Nāgārjuna. In Madhyamaka, Advaya refers to the fact that the two truths are not separate or different.,[139] as well as the non-dual relationship of saṃsāra (the round of rebirth and suffering) and nirvāṇa (cessation of suffering, liberation).[42] According to Murti, in Madhyamaka, "Advaya" is an epistemological theory, unlike the metaphysical view of Hindu Advaita.[54] Madhyamaka advaya is closely related to the classical Buddhist understanding that all things are impermanent (anicca) and devoid of "self" (anatta) or "essenceless" (niḥsvabhāvavā),[140][141][142] and that this emptiness does not constitute an "absolute" reality in itself.[note 14].

 

In Madhyamaka, the two "truths" (satya) refer to conventional (saṃvṛti) and ultimate (paramārtha) truth.[143] The ultimate truth is "emptiness", or non-existence of inherently existing "things",[144] and the "emptiness of emptiness": emptiness does not in itself constitute an absolute reality. Conventionally, "things" exist, but ultimately, they are "empty" of any existence on their own, as described in Nagarjuna's magnum opus, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK):

 

The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths: a truth of worldly convention and an ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved.[note 15]

 

As Jay Garfield notes, for Nagarjuna, to understand the two truths as totally different from each other is to reify and confuse the purpose of this doctrine, since it would either destroy conventional realities such as the Buddha's teachings and the empirical reality of the world (making Madhyamaka a form of nihilism) or deny the dependent origination of phenomena (by positing eternal essences). Thus the non-dual doctrine of the middle way lies beyond these two extremes.[146]

 

"Emptiness" is a consequence of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent arising),[147] the teaching that no dharma ("thing", "phenomena") has an existence of its own, but always comes into existence in dependence on other dharmas. According to Madhyamaka all phenomena are empty of "substance" or "essence" (Sanskrit: svabhāva) because they are dependently co-arisen. Likewise it is because they are dependently co-arisen that they have no intrinsic, independent reality of their own. Madhyamaka also rejects the existence of absolute realities or beings such as Brahman or Self.[148] In the highest sense, "ultimate reality" is not an ontological Absolute reality that lies beneath an unreal world, nor is it the non-duality of a personal self (atman) and an absolute Self (cf. Purusha). Instead, it is the knowledge which is based on a deconstruction of such reifications and Conceptual proliferations.[149] It also means that there is no "transcendental ground," and that "ultimate reality" has no existence of its own, but is the negation of such a transcendental reality, and the impossibility of any statement on such an ultimately existing transcendental reality: it is no more than a fabrication of the mind.[web 14][note 16] Susan Kahn further explains:

 

Ultimate truth does not point to a transcendent reality, but to the transcendence of deception. It is critical to emphasize that the ultimate truth of emptiness is a negational truth. In looking for inherently existent phenomena it is revealed that it cannot be found. This absence is not findable because it is not an entity, just as a room without an elephant in it does not contain an elephantless substance. Even conventionally, elephantlessness does not exist. Ultimate truth or emptiness does not point to an essence or nature, however subtle, that everything is made of.[web 15]

 

However, according to Nagarjuna, even the very schema of ultimate and conventional, samsara and nirvana, is not a final reality, and he thus famously deconstructs even these teachings as being empty and not different from each other in the MMK where he writes:[41]

 

The limit (koti) of nirvāṇa is that of saṃsāra

 

The subtlest difference is not found between the two.

 

According to Nancy McCagney, what this refers to is that the two truths depend on each other; without emptiness, conventional reality cannot work, and vice versa. It does not mean that samsara and nirvana are the same, or that they are one single thing, as in Advaita Vedanta, but rather that they are both empty, open, without limits, and merely exist for the conventional purpose of teaching the Buddha Dharma.[41] Referring to this verse, Jay Garfield writes that:

 

to distinguish between samsara and nirvana would be to suppose that each had a nature and that they were different natures. But each is empty, and so there can be no inherent difference. Moreover, since nirvana is by definition the cessation of delusion and of grasping and, hence, of the reification of self and other and of confusing imputed phenomena for inherently real phenomena, it is by definition the recognition of the ultimate nature of things. But if, as Nagarjuna argued in Chapter XXIV, this is simply to see conventional things as empty, not to see some separate emptiness behind them, then nirvana must be ontologically grounded in the conventional. To be in samsara is to see things as they appear to deluded consciousness and to interact with them accordingly. To be in nirvana, then, is to see those things as they are - as merely empty, dependent, impermanent, and nonsubstantial, not to be somewhere else, seeing something else.[150]

 

It is important to note however that the actual Sanskrit term "advaya" does not appear in the MMK, and only appears in one single work by Nagarjuna, the Bodhicittavivarana.[151]

 

The later Madhyamikas, states Yuichi Kajiyama, developed the Advaya definition as a means to Nirvikalpa-Samadhi by suggesting that "things arise neither from their own selves nor from other things, and that when subject and object are unreal, the mind, being not different, cannot be true either; thereby one must abandon attachment to cognition of nonduality as well, and understand the lack of intrinsic nature of everything". Thus, the Buddhist nondualism or Advaya concept became a means to realizing absolute emptiness.[152]

 

Yogācāra tradition[edit]

 

Asaṅga (fl. 4th century C.E.), a Mahayana scholar who wrote numerous works which discuss the Yogacara view and practice.

Main article: Yogacara

In the Mahayana tradition of Yogācāra (Skt; "yoga practice"), adyava (Tibetan: gnyis med) refers to overcoming the conceptual and perceptual dichotomies of cognizer and cognized, or subject and object.[42][153][154][155] The concept of adyava in Yogācāra is an epistemological stance on the nature of experience and knowledge, as well as a phenomenological exposition of yogic cognitive transformation. Early Buddhism schools such as Sarvastivada and Sautrāntika, that thrived through the early centuries of the common era, postulated a dualism (dvaya) between the mental activity of grasping (grāhaka, "cognition", "subjectivity") and that which is grasped (grāhya, "cognitum", intentional object).[156][152][156][157] Yogacara postulates that this dualistic relationship is a false illusion or superimposition (samaropa).[152]

 

Yogācāra also taught the doctrine which held that only mental cognitions really exist (vijñapti-mātra),[158][note 17] instead of the mind-body dualism of other Indian Buddhist schools.[152][156][158] This is another sense in which reality can be said to be non-dual, because it is "consciousness-only".[159] There are several interpretations of this main theory, which has been widely translated as representation-only, ideation-only, impressions-only and perception-only.[160][158][161][162] Some scholars see it as a kind of subjective or epistemic Idealism (similar to Kant's theory) while others argue that it is closer to a kind of phenomenology or representationalism. According to Mark Siderits the main idea of this doctrine is that we are only ever aware of mental images or impressions which manifest themselves as external objects, but "there is actually no such thing outside the mind."[163] For Alex Wayman, this doctrine means that "the mind has only a report or representation of what the sense organ had sensed."[161] Jay Garfield and Paul Williams both see the doctrine as a kind of Idealism in which only mentality exists.[164][165]

 

However, it is important to note that even the idealistic interpretation of Yogācāra is not an absolute monistic idealism like Advaita Vedanta or Hegelianism, since in Yogācāra, even consciousness "enjoys no transcendent status" and is just a conventional reality.[166] Indeed, according to Jonathan Gold, for Yogācāra, the ultimate truth is not consciousness, but an ineffable and inconceivable "thusness" or "thatness" (tathatā).[153] Also, Yogācāra affirms the existence of individual mindstreams, and thus Kochumuttom also calls it a realistic pluralism.[82]

 

The Yogācārins defined three basic modes by which we perceive our world. These are referred to in Yogācāra as the three natures (trisvabhāva) of experience. They are:[167][168]

 

Parikalpita (literally, "fully conceptualized"): "imaginary nature", wherein things are incorrectly comprehended based on conceptual and linguistic construction, attachment and the subject object duality. It is thus equivalent to samsara.

Paratantra (literally, "other dependent"): "dependent nature", by which the dependently originated nature of things, their causal relatedness or flow of conditionality. It is the basis which gets erroneously conceptualized,

Pariniṣpanna (literally, "fully accomplished"): "absolute nature", through which one comprehends things as they are in themselves, that is, empty of subject-object and thus is a type of non-dual cognition. This experience of "thatness" (tathatā) is uninfluenced by any conceptualization at all.

To move from the duality of the Parikalpita to the non-dual consciousness of the Pariniṣpanna, Yogācāra teaches that there must be a transformation of consciousness, which is called the "revolution of the basis" (āśraya-parāvṛtti). According to Dan Lusthaus, this transformation which characterizes awakening is a "radical psycho-cognitive change" and a removal of false "interpretive projections" on reality (such as ideas of a self, external objects, etc).[169]

 

The Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra, a Yogācāra text, also associates this transformation with the concept of non-abiding nirvana and the non-duality of samsara and nirvana. Regarding this state of Buddhahood, it states:

 

Its operation is nondual (advaya vrtti) because of its abiding neither in samsara nor in nirvana (samsaranirvana-apratisthitatvat), through its being both conditioned and unconditioned (samskrta-asamskrtatvena).[170]

 

This refers to the Yogācāra teaching that even though a Buddha has entered nirvana, they do no "abide" in some quiescent state separate from the world but continue to give rise to extensive activity on behalf of others.[170] This is also called the non-duality between the compounded (samskrta, referring to samsaric existence) and the uncompounded (asamskrta, referring to nirvana). It is also described as a "not turning back" from both samsara and nirvana.[171]

 

For the later thinker Dignaga, non-dual knowledge or advayajñāna is also a synonym for prajñaparamita (transcendent wisdom) which liberates one from samsara.[172]

 

Other Indian traditions[edit]

Buddha nature or tathagata-garbha (literally "Buddha womb") is that which allows sentient beings to become Buddhas.[173] Various Mahayana texts such as the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras focus on this idea and over time it became a very influential doctrine in Indian Buddhism, as well in East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism. The Buddha nature teachings may be regarded as a form of nondualism. According to Sally B King, all beings are said to be or possess tathagata-garbha, which is nondual Thusness or Dharmakaya. This reality, states King, transcends the "duality of self and not-self", the "duality of form and emptiness" and the "two poles of being and non being".[174]

 

There various interpretations and views on Buddha nature and the concept became very influential in India, China and Tibet, where it also became a source of much debate. In later Indian Yogācāra, a new sub-school developed which adopted the doctrine of tathagata-garbha into the Yogācāra system.[166] The influence of this hybrid school can be seen in texts like the Lankavatara Sutra and the Ratnagotravibhaga. This synthesis of Yogācāra tathagata-garbha became very influential in later Buddhist traditions, such as Indian Vajrayana, Chinese Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism.[175][166] Yet another development in late Indian Buddhism was the synthesis of Madhymaka and Yogacara philosophies into a single system, by figures such as Śāntarakṣita (8th century). Buddhist Tantra, also known as Vajrayana, Mantrayana or Esoteric Buddhism, drew upon all these previous Indian Buddhist ideas and nondual philosophies to develop innovative new traditions of Buddhist practice and new religious texts called the Buddhist tantras (from the 6th century onwards).[176] Tantric Buddhism was influential in China and is the main form of Buddhism in the Himalayan regions, especially Tibetan Buddhism.

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

   

Quote: "An esoteric is able to suggest more nonsense in five minutes, than a scientist can debunk during his whole life"

 

Zitat: "Ein Esoteriker kann in fünf Minuten mehr Unsinn behaupten als ein Wissenschaftler in seinem ganzen Leben widerlegen kann" (Vince Ebert "Freiheit ist alles")

 

I put green color on the whirligig, so that it draws on the paper while spinning around.

 

Part of: "an apple a day keeps the doctor away - An ENSO (circle, Kreis) a day .... " Ein Kreis Tagebuch A circle diary - Start of the Project: 1. September // "Homo Ludens" - Kreisel - Aleatorik // Astrologie-Entlarvung

 

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Fohat is a term of unknown origin, although H. P. Blavatsky claims it comes from the Tibetan language. According to her it is "one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric Cosmogony". Maybe because of this, it can be found in many forms. As Mme. Blavatsky said:

 

Fohat is a generic term and used in many senses. He is the light (Daiviprakriti) of all the three logoi—the personified symbols of the three spiritual stages of Evolution. Fohat is the aggregate of all the spiritual creative ideations above, and of all the electro-dynamic and creative forces below, in Heaven and on Earth.

Fohat is "the animating principle electrifying every atom into life." During the process of manifestation it is the cosmic energy which produces the differentiation of primordial cosmic matter to form the different planes. In the manifested Universe, Fohat is the link between spirit and matter, subject and object.A term and concept which appears throughout “The Secret Doctrine” by H.P. Blavatsky – and especially in the first volume titled “Cosmogenesis” – is FOHAT.

 

What is this mysterious yet vitally important thing called Fohat which happens to be “the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform symbols and respective allegories in the so-called mythology of every nation”?

 

The word itself has been identified as ’phro-wa (verb form) and spros-pa (noun form) in Tibetan transliteration. In the Eastern Esoteric Science taught in Theosophy, Fohat is always spoken of in terms of cosmic or universal electricity, vitality, energy, and life force. Just as every living human being is animated, vitalised, and held together by the principle of Prana within them, as explained further in the article The Sevenfold Nature of Man, so the universe itself is animated, vitalised, and powered from within by Prana on the macrocosmic level, i.e. Universal Prana…and this is Fohat.

 

HPB states that it is “the active force in Universal Life” and “the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles – on an immense scale – that of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action.”

 

If we go to HPB’s “Theosophical Glossary” (a valuable book for all students of the Philosophy) and turn to the entry for “Fohat” we find it described and defined as –

 

“…the active (male) potency of the Shakti (female reproductive power) in nature. The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daiviprakriti, primordial light: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant.” (bold added for emphasis in this article)

 

If we then turn to the entry for “Daiviprakriti” we find this: “Primordial, homogeneous light, called by some Indian Occultists “the Light of the Logos”; when differentiated this light becomes FOHAT.”

 

One of the Indian occultists (i.e. esotericists) we know of who used the term “Daiviprakriti” in this way was T. Subba Row, Madame Blavatsky’s highly gifted and erudite friend and associate during the time she lived in India in the 1880s. He was known to have been an initiated disciple of the Master M., who was also the Guru of HPB herself, and the nature and content of many of his writings indicate a close acquaintance with the Secret Doctrine itself, the Esoteric Doctrine preserved, guarded, and taught by the Masters and Adepts.

 

A few so-called scholars and academic researchers in today’s Theosophical world have asserted in confident – if not perhaps conceited – tones that no such term as “Daiviprakriti” actually exists and that it therefore must have been either an invention of HPB and T. Subba Row or a mistaken term used by them in ignorance. One such scholar has also informed Theosophists that the Sanskrit term “Mulaprakriti,” which is used frequently by HPB and Subba Row and said by them to be a technical term used in the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism, is in fact never used at all in Vedanta or by any Vedantins and that thus they are again mistaken.

 

It would not be out of place here to mention that these individuals are themselves mistaken on both grounds. There are plenty of Hindus who are familiar with the term “Daiviprakriti,” albeit generally spelling it as “Deviprakriti,” which is pronounced in exactly the same way.

 

In his article “Suddha Dharma Mandalam,” Raghavendra Raghu writes of “Bhagavan Narayana [i.e. the Universal Logos in Theosophical terminology], abiding in his own form, made up of brilliant material particles of what is known as “DeviPrakriti,” in the Uttara-Badari region of the Himalayas.”

 

The term is used particularly amongst certain sects and groups of Vaishnavas, devotees of Vishnu, just as the term “Mulaprakriti” is used freely by all types of Vedantins, followers of both the Advaita and Vishistadvaita philosophies included. It would certainly have been a surprise to the late Swami Sivananda – a famous Advaitee still revered today all across India as one of the greatest scholars, experts, and teachers of Vedanta – to be informed by our self-styled scholars that he had been mistaken and ignorant all his life in quite frequently speaking of Mulaprakriti in his writings.

 

But with that, and with Madame Blavatsky vindicated yet again of yet another false charge, we will let the matter drop and go back to Fohat.

 

Whenever a new universal life cycle, or Maha-Manvantara, begins, the ONE Absolute Infinite Divine Principle (most frequently referred to as Parabrahm or Parabrahman in Theosophy) radiates forth from Itself the Logos, which is the Living Universe itself. But the universe doesn’t just appear full and complete all at once. It is an extremely gradual and meticulous process of evolution, from universals to particulars, from the macrocosmic level down to the microcosmic level.

 

The way this all comes about is with the help and assistance of Fohat, which is the direct manifestation or emanation of the Universal Logos itself. (See Understanding the Logos) The Logos is the all-ensouling Light and Life of the Universe. The way the body of the universe – and everything in it – is brought into existence, enlivened, vitalised, and sustained, is by the work of Fohat, the nature and activity of which can only really be described as Universal Electricity.

 

“From the purely occult and Cosmical” perspective, writes HPB, Fohat is “the “Son of the Son,” the androgynous energy resulting from this “Light of the Logos,” and which manifests in the plane of the objective Universe as the hidden, as much as the revealed, Electricity – which is LIFE.”

 

Fohat is described as “the Son of the Son” because it is the direct offspring, so to speak, of the Logos, which is itself the direct radiation from the Absolute. In his “Notes on the Bhagavad Gita,” T. Subba Row speaks of Fohat as being “the one instrument with which the Logos works.”

 

This is further expanded upon throughout “The Secret Doctrine” with such explanations as, “Fohat, running along the Seven Principles of Akasha, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element … and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System” and the statement that in the objective or manifested universe Fohat “is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law.”

 

Also –

 

* “When the “Divine Son” breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and THREE – on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine.”

 

* “In the manifested Universe, there is “that” which links spirit to matter, subject to object. This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat.”

 

* “It is the “bridge” by which the “Ideas” existing in the “Divine Thought” are impressed on Cosmic substance as the “laws of Nature.” Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the “Thought Divine” transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans, the Architects of the visible World.”

 

* “Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life.”The attraction or charge between the sky and the earth intensifies towards an irresistible point of tension and the coils that develop upwards connect with those that descend: now Fohat breaks out and the violet is transformed into the flaming blue and white flash, to which we are accustomed and the voltage difference between the sky and the earth is neutralized.Fohat's invocation/evocation rite is well underway as well as the formation of an antahkarana between heaven and earth.

 

From a geographical perspective, it is interesting to learn from “The Secret Doctrine” that the work of Fohat as regards our own planet is closely linked – via “his four fiery (electro-positive) Sons” with the Equator, the Ecliptic, and the climates of the two Tropics, i.e. the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

 

Also, the North Pole and South Pole – “the two ends of the Egg of Matter” and also referred to esoterically as the head and the feet of Mother Earth – “are said to be the store-houses, the receptacles and liberators, at the same time, of Cosmic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity); from the surplus of which the Earth, had it not been for these two natural “safety-valves,” would have been rent to pieces long ago.”

 

We are also told that the phenomenon of the Northern Lights, called Aurora Borealis, as well as the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights, are intimately connected with Fohat.

 

It would seem strange to think of or look upon something as presumably impersonal as Universal Electricity as a type of Entity, yet “Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity – the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively … the primordial Electric Entity – for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an Entity – electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness.”

 

The mystery deepens when we are reminded that “It is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon matter,” only to then read in the next sentence that “Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the appellation “Cosmic Electricity” sometimes applied to it; but to the commonly known properties of electricity must, in this case, be added others, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that modern science has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by electrical phenomena.”

 

Then further on we discover that “Each world has its Fohat, who is omnipresent in his own sphere of action. But there are as many Fohats as there are worlds, each varying in power and degree of manifestations. The individual Fohats make one Universal, Collective Fohat – the aspect-Entity of the one absolute Non-Entity, which is absolute Be-Ness, “SAT.” Millions and billions of worlds are produced at every Manvantara – it is said. Therefore there must be many Fohats, whom we consider as conscious and intelligent Forces. This, no doubt, to the disgust of scientific minds.”

 

It must be remembered though that although being imbued with and expressing sufficient intelligence and power as to be considered an Entity, Fohat is most definitely not some type of anthropomorphic deity or personal spiritual being.

 

“While science speaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind force, and senseless motion, the Occultists point to intelligent LAW and sentient LIFE, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal god at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him whom the Christians call the “Messengers” of their God, and we, the “… primordial Sons of Life and Light”.”

 

We said earlier that Fohat is the direct manifestation or resultant emanation of the one Universal Logos. Then how can it also be said that Fohat is the emanation of Powers (plural) who are the “primordial Sons of Life and Light”?

 

The answer is this: the one Logos is in fact the unified and collective aggregate of Seven Primordial Rays, called “the Primordial Seven” in the Stanzas of Dzyan on which the teaching in “The Secret Doctrine” is based. This is symbolised as the Central Spiritual Sun being comprised of Seven Rays which radiate forth from it in order to make the universe what it is. The Primordial Seven are also called the seven Dhyani Buddhas or seven chief Dhyan Chohans. Admittedly such things are almost entirely beyond our proper comprehension but if we can at least grasp the basics of them at a simple level we may be able to eventually get somewhere with the help of our applied spiritual intuition and elevated thought.

 

This explains why in the second volume (“Anthropogenesis”) of “The Secret Doctrine” we read of the fact that the Logos “acts only mediately through FOHAT, or Dhyan-Chohanic energy” and of “the universal guiding FOHAT, rich with the Divine and Dhyan-Chohanic thought.”

 

The fifth Stanza from the Secret Book of Dzyan in the first volume of “The Secret Doctrine” is almost entirely about Fohat. Following on from the fourth Stanza which is titled “The Septenary Hierarchies” it is in its turn titled “Fohat: The Child of the Septenary Hierarchies.” We quote its first five shlokas or verses below. Some of it will now make sense in light of what we’ve already looked at in this article and the understanding of the rest of it can be gained from personally reading and studying the book, which is always the best way of acquiring knowledge and understanding, rather than depending on others.

 

1. THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND.

 

2. THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL. THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT, THE SWIFT SON OF THE DIVINE SONS WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA, RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. FOHAT IS THE STEED AND THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER. HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS; TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE, AND THE SEVEN BELOW. HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE SPARKS, AND JOINS THEM.

 

3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLNGS, AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE, AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE – THE CENTRAL WHEEL.

 

4. FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIXTH TO THE SEVENTH – THE CROWN; AN ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE, AND THE LIPIKA IN THE MIDDLE WHEEL. THEY SAY: THIS IS GOOD, THE FIRST DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST IS NOW THE SECOND. THEN THE “DIVINE ARUPA” REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYA LOKA, THE FIRST GARMENT OF THE ANUPADAKA.

 

5. FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE, FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES AND THEIR ARMIES.

 

One thing which is always important to bear in mind, especially for those of us who have grown up with or acquired the habit of interpreting spiritual texts and phrases literally is that Eastern spiritual teachings are abundant with symbolic, allegorical, and figurative terms and illustrations. HPB always emphasised that we should be careful not to mistake the word for the thing. Thus the “Dragon of Wisdom” in no way means any type of actual dragon but rather is a special symbolic term for the Universal Logos. Similarly, Fohat (whose initial activity is akin to a “fiery whirlwind”) “lifting his voice” does not refer to Fohat as some type of anthropomorphic entity shouting out a command but has reference to the metaphysical power of sound in the construction of the universe…and so on.

 

Further esoteric terminology in “The Secret Doctrine” speaks of the Seven Brothers of Fohat who are also at the same time the Seven Sons of Fohat.

 

“Fohat, the constructive Force of Cosmic Electricity, is said, metaphorically to have sprung like Rudra from Brahma “from the brain of the Father and the bosom of the Mother,” and then to have metamorphosed himself into a male and a female, i.e., polarity, into positive and negative electricity,” says HPB, continuing, “He has seven sons who are his brothers; and Fohat is forced to be born time after time whenever any two of his son-brothers indulge in too close contact – whether an embrace or a fight.”

 

She adds that “The Seven “Sons-brothers,” however, represent and personify the seven forms of Cosmic magnetism called in practical Occultism the “Seven Radicals,” whose co-operative and active progeny are, among other energies, Electricity, Magnetism, Sound, Light, Heat, Cohesion, etc.”

 

Just as the One Logos is actually the unified and collective aggregate of the Seven Primordial Rays, so Fohat is itself the unified and collective aggregate of the Seven Radicals. Thus in their noumenal state they are his Brothers and in their phenomenal state they are his Sons. The Seven Brothers are cosmic electricity as CAUSE; the Seven Sons are cosmic electricity as EFFECT.

 

Although the Tibetan term “Fohat” is the term used by the Masters and H.P. Blavatsky, nevertheless Fohat is seemingly nothing other than Kundalini.

 

HPB describes Kundalini as being “a fiery electro-spiritual force,” the “Fohatic power” which underlies everything visible and invisible. In “The Voice of the Silence” it is called “The World’s Mother,” the Mother of the World and Mother of the Universe. T. Subba Row says of Kundalini that it is “the power or Force which moves in a curved path. It is the Universal Life-Principle manifesting everywhere in nature. This force includes the two great forces of attraction and repulsion. Electricity and magnetism are but manifestations of it.”

 

HPB says of Fohat that “The ancients represented it by a serpent, for “Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither” (in zigzags).” And by what illustrative symbol has Kundalini always been represented? A serpent.

 

Kundalini is the active power of the Universal Logos. It is the Mother of the manifested Universe. It is omnipresent universal Life, universal Fire, universal Electricity. Kundalini, it seems, is Fohat and Fohat is Kundalini.

 

It should be added here, however, that the practice known as Kundalini Yoga is potentially highly dangerous on all levels – physical, psychological, and spiritual – and that Theosophy always warns people against trying to do things to or with the power of the Kundalini within themselves. The Masters have stated emphatically that this Force can kill just as easily as it can create.

 

There is no need whatsoever for us to be messing about with our Kundalini and those who do so are almost always doing so with selfish motives such as attempting to acquire psychic or spiritual powers or to be able to have amazing spiritual experiences or sensations of bliss for themselves. Desire is the cause of all suffering, as the Lord Buddha always taught, and the desire for spiritual experiences is just as detrimental to the soul as the desire for sensual and carnal experiences. Even mainstream psychiatrists are now beginning to note the increasing number of people becoming seriously mentally ill, often with schizophrenia or similar conditions, as a result of trying to awaken their Kundalini.

 

It is almost impossible to adequately express in any way such lofty spiritual concepts in words and language which is no doubt one reason why many esoteric texts use symbols instead. “The Secret Doctrine” says far more about Fohat than can be expressed in an article like this but it is hoped that this attempt to provide a general overview of the topic has been interesting, inspiring, and thought provoking for you who have read it.

 

“Manvantaric impulse commences with the re-awakening of Cosmic Ideation (the “Universal Mind”) concurrently with, and parallel to the primary emergence of Cosmic Substance – the latter being the manvantaric vehicle of the former – from its undifferentiated pralayic state. Then, absolute wisdom mirrors itself in its Ideation; which, by a transcendental process, superior to and incomprehensible by human Consciousness, results in Cosmic Energy (Fohat). Thrilling through the bosom of inert Substance, Fohat impels it to activity, and guides its primary differentiations on all the Seven planes of Cosmic Consciousness … Aryan antiquity called them the Seven Prakriti, or Natures, serving, severally, as the relatively homogeneous basis, which in the course of the increasing heterogeneity (in the evolution of the Universe) differentiate into the marvellous complexity presented by phenomena on the planes of perception.” – H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

 

blavatskytheosophy.com/fohat-the-cosmic-electricity/

 

Fohat (Tib.) A term used to represent the active (male) potency of the Sakti (female reproductive power) in nature. The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daiviprakriti, primordial light: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant

At the beginning of a manvantara the Wisdom-aspect of the Absolute radiates the Pre-Cosmic Ideation, which manifests as the Cosmic Ideation. The latter eventually gives rise to Fohat. In Mme. Blavatsky's words:

 

Absolute wisdom mirrors itself in its Ideation; which, by a transcendental process, superior to and incomprehensible by human Consciousness, results in Cosmic Energy (Fohat).[6]

Fohat is the active power through which the plan for the new universe present in the Logos is manifested objectively, thus providing a bridge between the subjective spirit and the objective matter:

 

But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested Universe, there is “that” which links spirit to matter, subject to object.

This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the occultists Fohat. It is the “bridge” by which the “Ideas” existing in the “Divine Thought” are impressed on Cosmic substance as the “laws of Nature”. Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all manifestation, the “Thought Divine” transmitted and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans, the Architects of the visible World. . . . Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life.

It is also the cause for the differentiation of the primordial matter into the seven planes

 

Thrilling through the bosom of inert Substance, Fohat impels it to activity, and guides its primary differentiations on all the Seven planes of Cosmic Consciousness.

In the phenomenal and Cosmic World, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. Fohat, running along the seven principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar System.

Fohat manifests in different ways on each plane:

 

On the earthly plane his influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of things -- from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy -- the plan in the mind of nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods; the "Word made flesh," on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and human ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or -- Electricity.

Since Fohat acts as the power of attraction between atoms, it is seen as the Divine Love:

 

Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros), the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE absolute, into union with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the MONAD, and in Nature the first link between the ever unconditioned and the manifested.

Interestingly, Fohat is seen as an entity (without implying anthropomorphism). Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

 

Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action of which resembles --on an immense scale-- that of a living Force created by WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity -- the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes respectively.

According to Mme. Blavatsky the swastika is the symbol for the activity of Fohat:

The "secret formula" constituting free energy, the "Living Fire", was named under the code name of "Vril" (name probably derived from virile Latin) by the English novelist and philosopher Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803/1873) * in his novel The Coming Race ("The Coming Race") published in 1871.

Few world-symbols are more pregnant with real occult meaning than the Swastica. It is the emblem of the activity of Fohat, of the continual revolution of the “wheels”, and of the Four Elements, the “Sacred Four”. One initiated into the mysteries of the meaning of the Swastica, say the Commentaries, “can trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos and the whole period of Sandhya.” Also “the relation of the Seen to the Unseen”, and “the first procreation of man and species”

 

theosophy.wiki/en/Fohat

   

Foto von Internet

 

2 Album Esoteric - Ezoteryka www.flickr.com/photos/arjuna/sets/72157618155449407/

What path? "I am the path," said the Lord, which is the light and the life. Christ is not a person. So when we read that Master Jesus said "I am the path," he was not talking about his personality or his physical body; it was Christ talking through Master Jesus. He said, 'I, the light of the cosmos, am the path.' Work with the light, which is the light of life. The Demiurge, the creator, the Cosmocreators are a manifestation of that light, but the Demiurge works mechanically, karmically in the wheel of Samsara. We are the outcome of that Demiurge. We are machines that transform the light of the cosmos for the benefit of this planet. Symbol of: Matrimony, the Seven Bodies, Sexual Waters, Gold of the Bodies. Gnostics understand that Master Jesus is the expression of that light in the human level. Krishna, Mohammed and Quetzalcoatl are expressions of that light in the human level, since the light is not an individual. Christ is not an individual but a universal energy, in an Abstract and in a concrete manner. So when we talk about Christ and we see the firmament, the Ayocosmos, we see the light, we see the Lord Christ.

A rainbow is a seven coloured bridge of light that links two points on the earth with the sky.Llanos... Llanos... Llanos...

Help me, Lla... ma... dor... Lla... ma... dor...

Lla... nos... Lla... nos... Lla... nos...

That Being came to me; he is a solar man. He is a Being that incarnated the three aspects of his Glorian – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, within himself. When he presented himself before me in the astral light, he showed me his whole luminous body, his aura was precisely like a mixture of rays of a rainbow, shining gloriously. Before my sight, such a Being was so intense and beautiful, that I experienced what the Apostles experienced there in that scripture, when they saw Jesus, showing his glory. The vision was so beautiful that I cannot describe the beauty of the body of light of that Being; his body of light was so beautiful that overwhelmingly astounded I returned to my body, frightened. But not frighten as when we see a spooky thing. Frighten in the sense that I was shocked, I was caught unaware, since I never imagined that I was going to see such a divine beauty.

This bridge between two points on the Earth extending into the sky is a symbol of a spiritual kind of matrimony. The seven colours are the seven bodies that are formed through light moving through the evaporated humidity (transmuted sexual energy).

There is also the legend of the Leprechauns where at the end of a rainbow one will find a pot of gold. Indicating the end of the Great Work and the gold of the Being.If we do not take advantage of the opportunity that the Demiurge is given us, that is, the work that every single person does in this natural workshop by being a machine in order to transform the cosmic light to feed the planet through the Cosmic-Common-Trogoautoegocrat, then we will lose the chance of working with the Christic light. To do that we have to fight against the laws of the Demiurge, or Demiurgos. Such laws are the mechanical, karmic laws of nature. And this is precisely the Great Work, because it is not easy.

 

The symbol of the rainbow is very esoteric. Master Samael spoke about it as being a symbol of a vow made between the human being and the heavens above. It is also a symbol of esoteric triumph Master Samael says.

 

Master Samael says that it also represents the Mercury and the colours of the Great Work.

We can add a few extra things here, and I must say that these points do not at all come from me but from a very interesting experience that a fellow Gnostic missionary in Spain had with my marvelous missionary where in the dream he related to her the following points regarding a rainbow.. Master Samael Aun Weor explains in The Perfect Matrimony that when the couple is united sexually, they are surrounded by tremendous Christic lights, and if they know sexual Alchemy, if they perceive that light and transmute it, if they withdraw from the sexual act without ejaculating the semen, then that light remains within them. Yet unfortunately, when they reach the orgasm, the spasm of the animals, then a short circuit occurs and the Christic light disappears. Thus, their cosmic currents merge with the universal currents of Hell, and instead, a bloody infrared light, the Luciferian Klipothic forces of evil, the fatal magnetism of desire, which is called Lilith, emerges in the psyche of the couple. This is why we state that this humanity is the great whore, the child of Lilith, desire. Yes, people are worshiping Lilith, desire; they compose songs and poems to that bloody infrared light ray of desire.

However if you want to read a nice poem of Christic light, then read the Bible, read the Pistis Sophia, read the Bhagavad-Gita, read the Koran. Those are scriptures written in code that worship the ultraviolet light. Remember the third, the sixth, and the ninth hours are a process of the light through the hours of Apollonius. Christ is the light in them, so do not be afraid of the light.

For Elohim, who said "Let light [Christ] shine out of darkness," has shone it in [Tiphereth] our hearts, to give the light of Gnosis, the splendour of Elohim, [as the sun] in the face of Jesus Christ. – 2 Corinthians 4: 6. And that light is Christ. Therefore, any Being that is transformed through the light, that takes the path of the light, becomes a Christ, a Christified One. So, Master Samael Aun Weor is a Christ, because the Christic light transformed him, through the alchemical work. Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha are each also Christ because they transformed themselves through the Christic light.

When Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, his face was shining [like the sun] from speaking with אהיה Eheieh (the light of the world), but he didn't know it. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone (as the sun); and they were afraid to come near him. – Exodus 34: 29,30

Why were they afraid to come near him? Because אהיה Eheieh (the light of the world) the Lord, Christ was shinning through him. אהיה Eheieh (the light of the world) Christ sent him to Egypt, to liberate all the parts of Israel. Thus, אהיה Eheieh (the light of the world) was there within him.

When I utter this word אהיה Eheieh, the Rune Ehe comes to my mind; remember that we talked about the Rune Ehe, which is the rune of matrimony. Rune Ehe is the way through which we work with the light. Rune Ehe is the way through which אהיה אשר אהיה Eheieh Asher Eheieh manifests his glory to men. There is no other way to transform the light if it is not through Ehe, which is the Rune of matrimony, which is the sexual act. Ehe is the very sexual act of that light.

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