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HERACLES,HERAKLES,HERCULES

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ALEISTER CROWLEY MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

ly in the chambers of our houses, in temples of gold and ivory and marble as in these other temples of our bodies, we worthily commemorate them worthy that did of old adore thee and manifest thy glory unto men "lao-tze and siddhartha" and krishna and "tahuti" mosheh "dionysus, mohammed and to mega therion, with these also" hermes "pan" priapus, osiris, and melchizedeck, khem and amoun "and mentu, heracles" orpheus and odysseus; with vergilius "catullus" martialis "rabelais, swinburne and many an holy bard; apollonius tyanaeus" simon magus, manes "pythagoras" basilides, valentinus "bardesanes and hippolytus, that transmitted the light of the gnosis to us their successors and their heirs" with merlin, arthur, kamuret, parzival, and many another, prophet, priest and king, that bore the lance

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE OTO GNOSTIC MASS

thee and manifest they glory unto men (at each name the deacon signs with thumb between index and medius. at ordinary mass it is only necessary to commemorate those whose names are italicized, with wording as is shown) laotze and siddartha and krishna and tahuti, mosheh, dionysus, mohammed and to mega therion, with these also hermes, pan, priapus, osiris and melchizedek, khem and amoun and mentu, heracles, orpheus and odysseus; with vergilius, catullus, martialis, rabelais, swinburne, and many an holy bard; apollonius tyanaeus, simon magus, manes, pythagoras, basilides, valentinus, bardesanes and hippolytus, that transmitted the light of the gnosis to us their successors and their heirs; with merlin, arthur, kamuret, parzival, and many another, prophet, priest and king, that bore the lance

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

b[[hebrew] to mean (1 "to[[footnote(s* see for comparison hosea, xii. 6, where it is so punctuated[[vol. 2, page] 130 the secret doctrine. fall down (i.e. into generation or matter; and (2 "to be, to continue- as a race. the aspirate of the word eua (eva "to be" being[[hebrew] heve (eve, which is the feminine of[[hebrew] and the same as hebe, the grecian goddess of youth and the olympian bride of heracles, makes the name jehovah appear still more clearly in its primitive doublesexed form. finding in sanskrit such syllables as jah and yah, e.g, jah (navi "ganges" and jagan-natha "lord of the world" it becomes clear why mr. rawlinson is so very confident in his works of an aryan or vedic influence on the early mythology of babylon. nor is it to be much wondered at that the alleged ten tribes

BLUE EQUINOX

est they glory unto men (at each name the deacon signs+ with thumb between index and medius. at ordinary mass it is only necessary to commemorate those whose names are italicized, with wording as is shown) laotze and siddartha and krishna and tahuti, mosheh, dionysus, mohammed and to mega therion, with these also hermes, pan, priapus, osiris and melchizedek, khem and liber xv 261 amoun and mentu, heracles, orpheus and odysseus; with vergilius, catullus, martialis, rabelais, swinburne, and many an holy bard; apollonius tyan us, simon magus, manes, pythagoras, basilides, valentinus, bardesanes and hippolytus, that transmitted the light of the gnosis to us their successors and their heirs; with merlin, arthur, kamuret, parzival, and many another, prophet, priest and king, that bore the lance

FAUST

tand unmoved. speak to me then some word of sense! phorkyas who many years of fortune manifold recalls, to him divinest favour seems at last a dream. but thou, so highly favoured, past all bound and aim, sawst midst the living only men inflamed by love, quick kindled to each kind of boldest enterprise. thus thescus, roused by greed, laid hands upon thee first, a man of glorious form, as strong as heracles. helena he bore me off, a ten-year-old and slender and shut me in aphidnus tower in attica. phorkyas but then by castor and by pollux soon released, thou wert engirt by chosen heroes courting thee. helena yet most my secret favour- as i own with joypatroclus, won; he was pelides counterpart. phorkyas thy father wedded thee to menclaus, though, the bold sea-rover and sustainer of his house

HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

acknowledged as the god s son when he made a pilgrimage to the remote temple of amun at siwa oasis. according to some classical writers, alexander and his companions were in danger of dying in the desert when two serpents appeared to lead them safely to siwa. the oracle of amun at siwa was believed to be infallible. the greeks wove it into their own mythology, claiming that the heroes perseus and heracles had consulted amun/zeus there. see also aten; atum; birds; boats; khepri; min; mut; ogdoad of hermopolis; ra references and further reading: j. assmann. egyptian solar religion in the new kingdom: re, amun, and the crisis of polytheism. translated by anthony alcock. london and new york: 1995. g. hart. amun. in a dictionary of egyptian gods and goddesses. london and boston: 1986, 4 17. dei

MICHAEL TSARION ATLANTIS ALIEN VISITATION AND GENETIC MANIPULATION

f gibraltar until its destruction 10,000 years before. intimaeus, plato described atlantis as a prosperous nation out to expand its domain: now in thisisland of atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island andseveral others, and over parts of the continent, he wrote, and, furthermore, the men of atlantis hadsubjected the parts of libya within the columns of heracles as far as egypt, and of europe as far astyrrhenia.plato then tells how the atlanteans made a mistake by attacking greece. they could not withstandthe greeks' military might, and following their defeat, a natural disaster sealed their fate. timaeuscontinues: but afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day andnight of misfortune all your warlike men in a bo

MICHAEL WYNN THE SOUL TRAVELERS

illains and heroes appears to have been inverted; as though retold through the eyes of a modern day satanist. in greek mythology, zeus is the tyrant lord of mount olympus, who is promiscuous, jealous, and a rapist. whereas prometheus, who is azazel and lucifer, is the creator and champion of mankind, highly intelligent, and can easily deceive zeus. i can t believe it s not fiction: zeus and hades heracles (2001) clash of the titans (2010) hidden history [1.6] mythology isn t the only vector by which we can reconstruct history. evidence of a more temporal form exists for those whose tastes are more technical. this evidence involves the manner in which ancient civilizations rose and fell; it also involves what (how much) ancient man knew, and when he came to know it. ancient man, predictably

MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS E

ith courage the many ills which assail him.[10] having punished mankind, zeus determined to execute vengeance on prometheus. he accordingly chained him to a rock in mount caucasus, and sent an eagle every day to gnaw away his liver, which grew again every night ready for fresh torments. for thirty years prometheus endured this fearful punishment; but at length zeus relented, and permitted his son heracles (hercules) to kill the eagle, and the sufferer was released. third dynasty.olympian divinities. zeus[11 (jupiter. zeus, the great presiding deity of the universe, the ruler of heaven and earth, was regarded by the greeks, first, as the god of all aerial phenomena; secondly, as the personification of the laws of nature; thirdly, as lord of state-life; and fourthly, as the father of gods an

her attendant under this form) to hunt her in the chase, and put an end to her existence. after her death she was placed by zeus among the stars as a constellation, under the name of arctos, or the bear. alcmene, the daughter of electryon, king of mycenae, was betrothed to her cousin amphytrion; but, during his absence on a perilous undertaking, zeus assumed his form, and obtained her affections. heracles (whose world-renowned exploits will be related among the legends) was the son of alcmene and zeus. semele, a beautiful princess, the daughter of cadmus, king of phoenicia, was greatly beloved by zeus. like the unfortunate callisto, she was hated by hera with jealous malignity, and the page 35 haughty queen of heaven determined to effect her destruction. disguising herself, therefore, as b

t only persecuted him, but all the family of priam, whose dreadful sufferings and misfortunes during the trojan war were attributed to her influence. in fact, she carried her animosity to such an extent that it was often the cause of domestic disagreements between herself and zeus, who espoused the cause of the trojans. among the many stories of these frequent quarrels there is one connected with heracles, the favourite son of zeus, which is as follows:.hera having raised a storm at sea in order to drive him out of his course, zeus became so angry that he hung her in the clouds by a golden chain, and attached heavy anvils to her feet. her son hephastus tried to release his mother from her humiliating position, for which zeus threw him out of heaven, and his leg was broken by the fall. hera

o him their few remaining days. but "life is sweet" even to old age, and they both refused to make the sacrifice demanded of them. alcestis, page 83 however, who had secretly devoted herself to death for her husband, was seized with a mortal sickness, which kept pace with his rapid recovery. the devoted wife breathed her last in the arms of admetus, and he had just consigned her to the tomb, when heracles chanced to come to the palace. admetus held the rites of hospitality so sacred, that he at first kept silence with regard to his great bereavement; but as soon as his friend heard what had occurred, he bravely descended into the tomb, and when death came to claim his prey, he exerted his marvellous strength, and held him in his arms, until he promised to restore the beautiful and heroic q

she turned into stone whomsoever she gazed upon, till at last, after a life of nameless page 162 misery, deliverance came to her in the shape of death, at the hands of perseus. it is well to observe that when the gorgons are spoken of in the singular, it is medusa who is alluded to. medusa was the mother of pegasus and chrysaor, father of the three-headed, winged giant geryones, who was slain by heracles. graa. the graa, who acted as servants to their sisters the gorgons, were also three in number; their names were pephredo, enyo, and dino. in their original conception they were merely personifications of kindly and venerable old age, possessing all its benevolent attributes without its natural infirmities. they were old and gray from their birth, and so they ever remained. in later times

dent, therefore, that according to the belief of the early greeks, each individual had it in his power, to a certain extent, to shorten or prolong his own existence. the keres, who are frequently mentioned by homer, were the goddesses who delighted in the slaughter of the battle-field. ate. ate, the daughter of zeus and eris, was a divinity who delighted in evil. having instigated hera to deprive heracles of his birthright, her father seized her by the hair of her head, and hurled her from olympus, forbidding her, under the most solemn imprecations, ever to return. henceforth she wandered among mankind, sowing dissension, working mischief, and luring men to all actions inimical to their welfare and happiness. hence, when a reconciliation took place between friends who had quarrelled, ate w

she is often depicted pouring out nectar from an upraised vessel, or bearing in her hand a shallow dish, supposed to contain ambrosia, the ever youth-renewing food of the immortals. in consequence of an act of awkwardness, which caused her to slip while serving the gods, hebe was deprived of her office, which was henceforth delegated to ganymedes, son of tros. hebe afterwards became the bride of heracles, when, after his apotheosis, he was received among the immortals. juventas. juventas was the roman divinity identified with hebe, whose attributes, however, were regarded by the romans as applying more particularly to the imperishable vigour and immortal glory of the state. in rome, several temples were erected in honour of this goddess [157] ganymedes. ganymedes, the youngest son of tros

uilt after the manner considered most acceptable to the particular divinities to whom it was consecrated; for just as trees, birds, and animals of [190]every description were held to be sacred to certain deities, so almost every god had a form of building peculiar to himself, which was deemed more acceptable to him than any other. thus the doric style of architecture was sacred to zeus, ares, and heracles; the ionic to apollo, artemis, and dionysus; and the corinthian to hestia. in the porch of the temple stood a vessel of stone or brass, containing holy water (which had been consecrated by putting into it a burning torch, taken from the altar, with which all those admitted to take part in the sacrifices were besprinkled. in the inmost recess of the sanctuary was the most holy place, into

times, the victim was laid upon the altar and burned whole; but after the time of prometheus portions only of the shoulders, thighs, entrails &c, were sacrificed, the remainder becoming the perquisites of the priests. page 224 the officiating priests wore a crown composed of the leaves of the tree sacred to the deity they invoked. thus when sacrificing to apollo the crowns were of laurel; when to heracles, of poplar. this practice of wearing crowns was, at a later period, adopted by the general public at banquets and other festivities. on occasions of special solemnity the horns of the victim were overlaid with gold, and the altars decked with flowers and sacred herbs. the mode of conducting the sacrifices was as follows:.all things being prepared, a salt cake, the sacrificial knife, and t

gos; but feeling loath to occupy the throne of one whose death he had caused, he exchanged kingdoms with megapenthes, king of tiryns, and in course of time founded the cities of mycena and midea. the head of the medusa he presented to his divine patroness, pallas-athene, who placed it in the centre of her shield. many great heroes were descended from perseus and andromeda, foremost among whom was heracles, whose mother, alcmene, was their granddaughter. heroic honours were paid to perseus, not only [210]throughout argos, but also at athens and in the island of seriphus. ion. ion was the son of creusa (the beauteous daughter of erechtheus, king of athens) and the sun-god phoebus-apollo, to whom she was united without the knowledge of her father. fearing the anger of erechtheus, creusa place

PHILIP NEIL MYTHS LEGENDS EXPLAINED

n giving the gift of knowledge to humankind is found in every mythology. greek prometheus, aboriginal ancestors, mandan lone man, aztec quetzalcoatl, polynesian maui all are revered for teaching us how to live in the world. alongside such figures stand the heroes who teach us by their example their bravery, virtues, persistence and, sometimes, their flaws. the exploits of the greek heroes such as heracles and theseus, who are half-human, half-divine (see pp. 50 51, 54 55) offer a pattern after which the wholly human can model themselves. the indian story of rama (see pp. 114 15, still inspires the devotion of all hindus, and his story has even been adopted as the national epic of buddhist thailand. the celtic hero king arthur (see pp. 80 81, 84 85) is the center of similar legends, in whic

n of the egypt they knew. they were sustained triptolemus, culture hero triptolemus, who taught mankind how to use the plow, stands between the two goddesses of the eleusinian mysteries, demeter, and persephone. demeter is handing him a golden ear of grain (now lost. this marble relief of the second half of the fifth century bc was found at eleusis, probably in the temple of triptolemus. the hero heracles this greek vase shows heracles killing the stymphalian birds, the sixth of his 12 labors (see pp. 50-51) in which he killed or captured several ogres and monsters. before performing the last of his labors heracles had to be initiated into the eleusinian mysteries. on his death, he ascended to olympus to live with the gods. introduction 11 in this belief by the daily rebirth of re, the sun

ood man upright, his head held high with his gaze to the stars. chained to a rock by zeus, prometheus was doomed to 30,000 years of agony. he escaped the full term, however, by warning zeus of the oracle that foretold that any son borne to the sea nymph thetis, with whom zeus was in love, would be greater than his father (later, she married a mortal and gave birth to achilles, see p. 63) freed by heracles (see pp. 50 51, with zeus consent, prometheus joined the immortals on mount olympus by swapping his own mortality with the immortality of the centaur cheiron (see p. 39, who, accidentally wounded by heracles, was doomed to an eternity of suffering and wished to die. prometheus prometheus gave humankind the gift of thought, and the secrets of many skills, including how to navigate and how

unt pelion. unlike the gentle and intelligent cheiron, the centaurs were uncivilized and brutish. apollo taught cheiron archery, medicine, and music; he, in turn, tutored apollo s son asclepius, as well as the hero jason and his own great-grandson achilles (see pp. 52 53 and p. 63. cheiron was an immortal, but ceded his immortality to prometheus (see pp. 24 25) to escape an eternity of pain after heracles accidentally wounded him (see p. 51. zeus granted him the lesser immortality of the skies, where he is the constellation centaurus. king midas 40 a vain boast the god pan, playing his pipes to a group of impressionable nymphs on mount tmolus, boasted that his music was better than that of the god of music, apollo. apollo challenged him to a contest, with the mountain god as judge. king mi

hly shut her away behind closed doors in order to save his own life. the sons of zeus and europa z eus and europa (see below) had three sons: minos (see p. 56, hadamanthys, and sarpedon. minos, who had been made heir to the cretan throne by his stepfather asterion, quarreled with his brothers and drove them from the island. as zeus sons, they both became kings elsewhere. rhadamanthys also tutored heracles (see pp. 50 51) and is said to have married heracles mother alcmene after her husband died. both rhadamanthys who was a wise lawmaker and minos who received new laws for the greeks from his father zeus every nine years became judges in the underworld when they died. 45 zeus and dana surprised servant dana s handmaiden drops her spinning as zeus appears through the roof as a shower of gold

smiling grimly, perseus withdrew it from its bag and immediately polydectes was turned to stone. perseus perseus was one of the great greek heroes and, in his youth, accomplished daring deeds. of royal blood, he did not wish to succeed to the throne of argos after the death of his grandfather (see p. 45, so ruled tyryns and mycenae instead. here, he founded the family of the perseids, from which heracles was descended (see pp. 50 51. when perseus first set off to find the gorgon medusa, he was told by athena to seek out the three graiae, the gorgons sisters. the graiae, hideous old hags with just a single eye and tooth between them, would tell perseus how to find the stygian nymphs who would help him to overcome medusa. when the graiae refused to help him, perseus snatched their single ey

ed the greeks. however, athena withdrew her support after the fall of troy when the trojan princess and prophetess cassandra was violated in one of her shrines. the only greek she continued to protect was odysseus (see pp. 64 65. hera, queen of heaven hera, queen of heaven, was the goddess of marriage. her own was a stormy one, and she often figures as a jealous and vengeful wife. for persecuting heracles (see pp. 50 51, zeus hung her from olympus by the wrists, with anvils tied to her ankles. god of love eros (cupid, the impish god of love, often accompanies aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love. aphrodite aphrodite stands naked with athena and hera before paris. they had all agreed to abide by paris decision, and hermes allowed him to set the rules so paris required all three goddesses t

era offered riches and earthly dominion; athena wisdom and victory in battle; and aphrodite offered him helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. toward the end of the war paris was fatally wounded by philoctetes, a greek who had been called from the island of lemnos after a captured trojan prophet revealed that troy would never fall without his aid. armed with a bow that had once belonged to heracles (see p. 50, philoctetes shot paris with arrows dipped in the poison of the hydra. knowing he was in great danger paris returned to mount ida where he begged his former wife oenone to heal him. but oenone, so long abandoned, refused and paris died. she then killed herself out of grief. the judgme nt of paris by peter paul rubens (1577 1640) paris, with hermes leaning on the tree behind him

resulted in the birth of numerous gods and heroes. europa (mortal) ariadne phaedra minotaur (half-bull, half-man) x bull of poseidon king minos m pasipha leto (titan) callisto (nymph) maia (nymph) alcmene (mortal) dana (mortal) leda (mortal) dione (goddess) themis (titan) mnemosyne (titan) metis (sea nymph) semele (mortal) apollo x coronis (nymph) artemis diana hermes mercury m daughter of dryops heracles hercules m hebe perseus m andromeda ares x pan faunus arco asclepius dionysus bacchus aphrodite x anchises helen m menelaus (mortal) x paris clytemnestra m agamemnon castor polydeuces pollux fates athena minerva aeneas eros cupid the nine muses cadmus m harmonia (mortal (goddess) theseus m ariadne m phaedra demeter ceres poseidon neptune x aethra (mortal) hades pluto hestia vesta hera jun

m andromeda ares x pan faunus arco asclepius dionysus bacchus aphrodite x anchises helen m menelaus (mortal) x paris clytemnestra m agamemnon castor polydeuces pollux fates athena minerva aeneas eros cupid the nine muses cadmus m harmonia (mortal (goddess) theseus m ariadne m phaedra demeter ceres poseidon neptune x aethra (mortal) hades pluto hestia vesta hera juno m persephone proserpine hebe m heracles hercules ares eileithya mars zeus jupiter aristaeus m autono actaeon gaia x uranus titans giants other sea nymphs cyclopes leto eos helios selene luna epimetheus m pandora mnemosyne coeus x phoebe themis crius thea x hyperion prometheau1 the order of phosphorus introduction booklet 2003 2 the order of phosphorus 2003 succubus publishing for the order of phosphorus members only. the purpos

STEINER RUDOLF CHRISTIANITY AS MYSTICAL FACT

ictorial illustrations means that the same myths may give expression to 74 christianity as mystical fact a variety of spiritual events. hence it is not a contradiction when interpreters of myth relate a particular story now to one and now to another spiritual fact. from this point of view we can follow a thread through the multiplicity of the greek myths. to begin with we may consider the saga of heracles. a new light is thrown upon the twelve labors imposed on the hero, deepening their significance, when we notice that before the culminating, most difficult labor he has himself initiated in the mysteries of eleusis. in the service of eurystheus, king of mycenae, he has to descend into the underworld and bring back with him the hell-hound cerberus. to enable him to descend into hell, herac

underworld and bring back with him the hell-hound cerberus. to enable him to descend into hell, heracles has to be initiated; the role of the mysteries was to lead a person through the death of the perishable nature, that is, into the underworld. and through initiation, his eternal part was redeemed from the power of death. thus it was that the mystes overcame death, and it is as an initiate that heracles overcomes the dangers of the underworld.81 the voyage of the argonauts can be similarly interpreted. phrixus and his sister helle, children of a boeotian king, suffered badly at the hands of their stepmother. the gods sent them a ram with a golden fleece, which carried them away through the air. as they flew over the strait between europe and asia, helle fell in and was drowned which give

asia, helle fell in and was drowned which gives the strait its name, hellespont. phrixus however reached the king of colchis on the eastern shore of the black sea, where he sacrificed the ram to the gods and gave its fleece to king aeetes. he caused it to be hung up in a grove and guarded by a terrible myth and mysteriosophy 75 dragon. it was the greek hero jason, in company with the other heroes heracles, theseus, orpheus, and so on, who undertook to fetch the fleece from colchis. aeetes laid upon jason severe conditions for the attainment of the fleece; but medea, the king s daughter, was skilled in magic and came to his aid. he harnessed two fire-breathing bulls and ploughed a field, sowing it with dragon s teeth. when these sprang up into armed men, on medea s advice he threw a stone a

f, that is, dedicates himself to death. prometheus meanwhile bears his suffering with unflinching patience, for he knows that zeus will be dethroned by the son of a mortal woman unless he himself becomes her husband. it was important for zeus to know this mystery; he sent the messenger-god hermes to prometheus to inquire about it, but prometheus refused to say anything. at this point the sagas of heracles and of prometheus are connected: in the course of his wanderings, heracles reaches the caucasus. he slays the eagle that gnawed at prometheus liver. and the centaur chiron, who cannot die, though he suffers from an incurable wound, sacrifices himself for prometheus. the titan is thereupon reconciled with the gods. 78 christianity as mystical fact the titans here are the force of will, a f

ached only when we withdraw into solitude to seek our destiny. but we have a secret. it consists in this: the divine power zeus must be married to a mortal, that is, a consciousness bound to a physical human body, so as to beget a son human wisdom, the logos, who will set free the god. in this way consciousness achieves immortality. but the secret must not be betrayed until the coming of a mystes heracles who overcomes the power that threatens him constantly with death. the centaur, a creature that is half animal, half human, has to sacrifice itself to redeem him: this is human nature itself, half animal and half spirit, which must die in order that the purely spiritual human being may be released. myth and mysteriosophy 79 the gifts spurned by prometheus, the human will, are taken up by e

mysteriosophy 79 the gifts spurned by prometheus, the human will, are taken up by epimetheus cleverness or shrewdness. but he gains nothing from them except troubles and sorrows. the rational mind clings to the inessential and perishable. only one thing remains behind: the hope that even from the perishable the eternal may one day be born. the thread that runs through the sagas of the argonauts, heracles, and prometheus can also be traced through homer s odyssey. the use of such a method of interpretation may seem forced, but on closer consideration of all that has been said, even the strongest doubts must be dispelled. in the first place, it is a surprise to hear it said of odysseus that he made a descent into the underworld (nekyia, book xi. whatever theories we may hold about the autho

uthor of the odyssey, it is impossible to accept that he portrayed the descent of a mortal into the underworld without thereby relating him to the meaning of the descent in greek thought namely the conquest of transitoriness and the awakening of the eternal in the soul. odysseus feat must be presumed to achieve this, and his experiences thus take on a profounder significance, just as did those of heracles; they become a description of something that does not belong to the world of sense perception, but rather to the inner development of the soul. that is why the narrative course of the odyssey is not adapted to external events, but the hero voyages in enchanted ships, and geographical distances are handled in the most arbitrary fashion; the real and perceptible are not the point. it is eas

ows the hero mastering the purely physical power in human nature and taming it. then his killing of the nine-headed hydra, conquering it with firebrands and dipping his arrows in its gall, which made them unerring, shows him overcoming the lower, sense-derived knowledge by means of the fire of the spirit: by conquering it he gains the power of seeing lower things in the light of spiritual vision. heracles captures the hind of artemis, the divine huntress: he hunts down all that wild nature can offer to the human soul. the other labors may be similarly interpreted the aim here was only to establish the general principle that they point to a process of inner development (r.st) for heracles as the type of a certain process of initiation, see further steiner, egyptian myths and mysteries, pp

mis, the divine huntress: he hunts down all that wild nature can offer to the human soul. the other labors may be similarly interpreted the aim here was only to establish the general principle that they point to a process of inner development (r.st) for heracles as the type of a certain process of initiation, see further steiner, egyptian myths and mysteries, pp. 36 39. there were no mysteries of heracles, but he was regarded as in some sense the archetypal initiate at eleusis: burkert, ancient mystery cults, p. 76. 82. steiner considered the promethean myth to be the expression of an archaic mystery that had been betrayed the so-called vulcan mysteries: see an outline of occult science (anthroposophic press, hudson, ny, 1984, pp. 195ff. 83. there is an instructive account of the layout of

18276066 GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 1

whom as yet we know nothing but the bare name (see suppl. on the question as to the sense of the word itself, i set aside the notion one might stumble on, that it is merely a fondling form of paltar, balder, for sucli forms invariably preserve the initial of the complete name; we should expect palzo, balzo, but not phol.2 nor does the ohg. ph seem here to be equivalent 1 greek tradition tells of herakles and zeus (jyaa-l rhv 'upakxea 8i\l/(i nore karaxivra ev^aadai to au irarpx 67rtsel at aiir^ fiikpav \ifiaba. 6 be fii] 6e\av avtuv kntatpv^eadal, pl'^as kepavvov avibu>k fiikpav \i[3uba, fjv 6ea(tdp(vos 6 hpakxfjs kol o"ka/'as els to ifkovaiuitepov iivoirjcte (fiepeadai (scholia in 11. 20, 74. this sprin' was scamander, and the xt/sa 'hpakxijos may be si-t]>y the side of pf(jlesljruniio a

came to give then- name to an earthly and a heavenly street, we do not know. chaucer perhaps could still have told us, but he prefers to harp at the greek mythus. phaethon, also the son of a god, when he presumed to guide his father's sun-chariot, burnt a broad streak in the sky, and that is the track we call the milky way. the more conmion view was, that here, indignant at the bantling hermes or herakles being put to her breast, spilt her milk along the sky, and hence the bright phenomenon. jsto doubt, among other nations also, fancy and fable have let the names of earthly and heavenly roads run into one another^ a remarkable instance of this is found in one of our national traditions; and that will bring us round to irmin again, whom we almost seem to have lost sight of^ i limit myself t

an battle-song the praise of hercules is sounded first, victims are slain to him as to the highest gods, to him a wood is consecrated. of pillars, even widukind still knows something, by his speaking of hirmin's effigies columnarum (pi, not columnae. was the plural irmansuli (p. 115) more exact than irmansul, and had the image several pillars? did tlie roman in liis hermin and herminones think of herakles and hercules, whose name bore plainly on its face the root "hpa, hera? was that why he retained the aspirate in herminones and hermunduri, and not in arminius? an approximation of sound in the names of the two heroes, roman and german, may surely be presupposed. the position of herculis silva and columnae does not indeed agree with that of the herminones, but the worship of such a hero wa

ar, i.e, jupiter (as zeuss does, p. 25, i hercules. ulysses. 365 see no other ground than tliat the norse thorr, like hercules, performs iuuuniurable heroic deeds, hut these may equally be placed to the credit of irmin, and irniin and the thundergod have nothing else in common. yet, in favour of 'hercules' being donai, we ought perhaps to weigh the as. sentences quoted on p. 161, note; also, that herakles was a son of zeus, and a foe to giants. i had thought at one time that hercules might stand for sahsnot, seaxneat, whom the formula of renunciation exalts by the side of thunar and wodan; 1 thought so on the strength of' hercules saxanus' whose surname might be explained by saxum= sahs. but the inscriptions in which we meet with this hercules saxanus extend beyond the bounds of germany, a

he end reabsorbed into the god, e.g, krishna becomes vishnu, there remains in greek and german heroes an irreducible dross of humanism, which brings them more into harmony with the historical ingredients of their story. our hero-legend has this long while had no consciousness remaining of such a thing as incarnation, but has very largely that of an apotheosis of human though god-descended virtue. herakles can never become one with zeus, yet his deeds remind us of those of his divine sire. some traits in theseus allow of his being compared to herakles, others to apollo. hermes was the son of zeus by maia, amphion by antiope, and the two brothers, the full and the half-bred, have something in common. in teutonic hero-legend, i think, echoes of the divine nature can be distinguished still mor

elves now to gods and now to heroes, bring about various approximations between these two. we have seen how in the genealogy of inguio, first osinn, then niorgr and freyr interweave themselves: niorsr and hadding seem identical, as do heimdall and rigr, but in niorsr and heimdall the god is made prominent, in hadding and rigr the hero. irmin appears connected with wuotan and zio, just as ares and herakles approach each other, and odysseus resembles hermes. baldr is conceived of as divine, baildceg as heroic. in siegfried is u])ove, p. 128; he also says^ denm eiise delirantes. albericus tr. font. 1, 23 utter a.d. 274) expresses himself thus' in hac generatione decima ab incarnatione domini regnasse invenitur quidam mercurius in gottlandia insula, quae est inter daciam et russiam extra roman

ALICE BAILEY THE LABOURS OF HERCULES

esire to spiritual achievement that the end may be visioned from the beginning and intelligent cooperation with soul purpose take the place of blind endeavor? when this comes about, the pilgrim can proceed upon his way with his face turned towards the light, and irradiated with joy. the story of the dramatic experiences of that great and ancient son of god, hercules- 6- the labours of hercules or herakles, will be found to give us just such a synthetic picture. it leaves untouched no phase in the life of the aspirant and yet links him up with cosmic enterprise. its theme will be found to be so inclusive that all of us, struggling in our present modern life, can make application to ourselves of the tests and trials, the failures and achievements of this heroic figure, who strove, centuries

ar in my own universe and am therefore born by my power and thought and will (the bhagavad gita, as compiled and adapted by yogi ramacharaka [14] hercules the disciple- the myth he stood before his teacher. dimly he understood that a crisis was upon him, leading to change of speech, of attitude and plan. the teacher looked him o'er and liked him well "your name" he asked and waited for an answer "herakles, the answer came "or hercules. they tell me that it means hera's rare glory, the radiance and effulgence of the soul. what is the soul, o teacher? tell me truth "that soul of yours, you shall discover as you do your task, and find and use the nature which is yours. who are your parents? tell me this, my son "my father is divine. i know him not, except that, in myself, i know i am his son

zodiacal signs. he, therefore, represents every disciple who seeks to tread the path and demonstrate his control over the forces of his nature, and he likewise represents the point at which humanity now finds itself. his early name was alkeides, which was changed to hercules after he had undergone a strange experience, and before he started forth upon his labors. the name hercules was originally herakles, which signifies "the glory of hera. hera represents psyche, or the soul, so his name embodied his mission, which was to manifest forth in active work on the physical plane the glory and the power of his innate divinity. one of the ancient scriptures of india says "by mastery of the binding life comes radiance" and it was this mastery of the imprisoning form which was the glorious consumm

iction of a particular group of believers. when hercules had recovered from his insanity, as he fortunately did, we are told that a new name was given to him, that a new abode was assigned to him and that the twelve labors were laid upon him for fulfilment. we are told that these words were spoken to him "from this day forth thy [23] name shall no more be alkeides- 17- the labours of hercules but herakles. in tirjus shall thou make thy abode, and there, serving, thou shalt accomplish thy labors. when this shall be accomplished then thou shalt become one of the immortals (greek and roman mythology, vol. i, fox) having recovered his sanity, the focus of his life was changed. he no longer lived down where he lived before. the name of the soul became his name, and he was constantly reminded th

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

ction to "prometheus bound" p. 152[[vol. 2, page] 413 the travesty of prometheus. instead of "an untainted mind, heaven's first gift (aeschylus, there was created the eternal vulture of the ever unsatisfied desire, of regret and despair coupled with "the dreamlike feebleness that fetters the blind race of mortals (p. 556, unto the day when prometheus is released by his heaven-appointed deliverer, herakles. now christians- roman catholics especially- have tried to prophetically connect this drama with the coming of christ. no greater mistake could be made. the true theosophist, the pursuer of divine wisdom and worshipper of absolute perfection- the unknown deity which is neither zeus nor jehovah- will demur to such an idea. pointing to antiquity he will prove that there never was an origina

BLUE EQUINOX

the whole of the secret knowledge of all oriental orders; and its chiefs are initiates of the highest rank, and recognized as such by all capable of such recognition in every country in the world. in more remote times, the constituent originating assemblies of the o.t.o. included such men as: fohi hippolytus laotze merlin siddartha arthur krishna titurel tahuti amfortas ankh-f-n-khonsu percivale herakles mosheh orpheus odysseus vergilius mohammed catullus hermes liber lii 199 martialis pan apollonius tyan us dante simon magus carolus magnus manes william of schyren basilides frederick of hohenstaufen valentinus roger bacon bardesanes jacobus burgundus molensis king wu ko hsuen christian rosenkreutz osiris ulrich von hutten melchizedek paracelsus khem michael maier menthu jakob boehme joha

DAVID ICKE CHILDREN OF THE MATRIX

the sun, as we see above in sargon's very title. the heru of the pygmy people, hul-kin of the indians, helios of the greeks, and hurki of the akkadian/chaldeans of mesopotamia probably come from the same source and all relate to a sun god of the horus mould. in the same way, the mayans of central america had a god called hurakan and the tibetans had the deity, heruka, which later evolved into the herakles and hercules of the greeks, a society that was founded on the sumerian (atlantean) knowledge and beliefs. hercules fought a shape-shifting "river god" called achelous. the word hurricane can be traced to the same "storm god" symbolism, as the writer and researcher, acharya, points out in her superb work, the christ conspiracy (adventures unlimited, kempton, illinois, 1999. i know all this

GILBERT THE MAGICAL MASON

for mercury presided over a man's sleeping hours (homer in hymn xiv. some persons also carried out this200themagical masonprocedure in their own homes.theeating of fish was said to make dreams obscure and meaningless or deceptive. when a dream seemed to be of doubtful meaning, a soothsayer calledmanteiswas consulted, who said he must appeal according to circumstances to zeus, apollo hestia or to herakles, forlightuponthe matter, and then he gave an explanation 'themagic of chaldea professed and practised the artofinterpretation of dreams, and so indeed did the priests of almost' allthegreat religions of asia. a belief in dreams as havingconcealedbutdiscoverable meaning has existed down topresentday-itis a notion that very few persons are quite, without.thecontinued large sale of several d

GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 3

ase' horn with helmet on' such seyers-hicbn foretells the future hero. conf. bulenger 3, 30 on amniomantia, i.e. diviuatio per amnium seu memhranam tertiam embryouis- disenchanting or defensive shirts have their counterpart in bewitching banefid ones. in a servian song (vuk 3, 30, 1. 786) a gold shirt is neither spun nor woven, but knitted, and a snake is worked into the collar. the shirt sent to herakles, drenched in dragon's blood, is well known. 8 iibel ovgen, parz. 407, 8 are spiteful eyes; whereas' ein boesez ouge' 71, 16 is a weak, sore eye. 1100 magic' some evil eye lias been at it; to look at a beast with sbarp eyes. in virgil's eel. 3, 103' nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos' the renner 18014 says, tlie glance of the eye kills snakes, scares wolves, hatches ostrich-egg

nowledge is derived; our wuotan, where he touches apollo rather than hermes, represents him in the capacity of healer too (p. 149; with artemis and athena skilled in leechcraft, we may here match our holda and frouwa, replaced by ^lary in later legend. a special god of physic, asmepios or aesculapius, is apollo^s son and a mere emanation of him. of divine heroes, those who practised this art were herakles, prometheus the giver of wholesome fire, and chiron: to set by the side of these, we have the norse mhnir, our own wate and wieland, after whom a healing plant wielands-wurz is named, and whose skill in smith-work resembles that of prometheus; couf. chap. xxxvii. as homer celebrates paeo)i's and machaon's knowledge of medicines and wounds, so the gudrunlied says of wale: si hgeten in laug

GRIMM TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 2 1883 COMPLETE

st (thirst) retains the s, and so does our durs (giant) and the on. furs by the side of the adjective jmrr (dry. so that paurs, purs, durs signify either fond of wine, thirsty, or drunken, a meaning which makes a perfect pair with that we fished out of itans, iotunn. the two words for giant express an inordinate desire for eating and drinking, precisely what exhibits itself in the homeric cyclop. herakles too is described as edax and bibax, e.g. in euripides s alcestis; and the on. giant suttungr (ssem. 23. sn. 84) apparently stands for suptungr (finn magn. p. 738, where we must presuppose a noun supt= sopi, a sup or draught. now, as the jutes, a teutonic race, retained the name of the former inhabitants whom they had expelled, 1 these latter being the real lotnar or itanos; so may the fur

oul in exchange; but he must have done before the cock crows, else the peasant is free, and the devil has lost his pains. the work is very near completion, one tile alone is wanting to the roof, when the peasant imitates the 1 herod. 4, 82: i%vos hpa/cx^os (palvovcrt ev tr^rprj ei>e6v, rb olke /uv /s^art dvdpbs, zen 8 to /meyaoos ditnjxv, trapa rbv tvpyv trora^toj, in scythia (footprint of herakles in stone, like a man s, but two cubits long) 548 giants. crowing of a cock, and immediately all the cocks in the neigh bourhood begin to crow, and the enemy of man loses his wager. there is more of the antique in a norrland saga: l king olaf of norway walked twixt hill and dale, buried in thought; he had it in his heart to build a church, the like of which was nowhere to be seen, but the

HANDBOOK OF EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

has heryshef appear to the hero meryra to ask for his help in a fight against a divine falcon. in a later text, an egyptian priest living among the persians claims to have been summoned back to egypt by a dream-vision of heryshef. the priest credits heryshef with helping alexander the great to conquer the persians. when the greeks settled in egypt, they identified heryshef with their deified hero herakles (hercules. see also banebdjedet; osiris references and further reading: h. kees. heracleopolis and the fayum. in ancient egypt: a cultural topography. london: 1961, 212 230. primary sources: ct 420; bd 175; stela of somtutefnakht hippopotamus goddesses the male hippopotamus was feared by the egyptians as a destructive force, but the female hippopotamus was respected as a fierce protector

a prince who vanquished dangerous animals with his bow or curved sword. this was a forerunner of the type of magical stela known as a cippus. on these, the naked horus child tramples on crocodiles and squeezes the life out of other dangerous creatures such as snakes, lions, and antelopes (see figure 16. when the greeks saw such objects, they identified horus the child/harpokrates with the infant herakles (hercules) who strangled two snakes that attacked him in his cradle. in the roman period, harpokrates became a popular amuletic symbol, often carved on magical gems. he was revered as a god of dawn, which was thought to be the most effective time to perform magical spells. plutarch (c. 46 126 ce) thought that harpokrates was a second son of isis who had been born prematurely with deformed

LEADBEATER C W THE HIDDEN LIFE IN FREEMASONRY 2E

e or noble. there is a variant khri, which under certain circumstances becomes khris. this would suggest some possible connection with krishna and christ. there are certain passages in the book of job where he speaks of the orb of the sun, and the word he uses is khris. it is on record that hiram, king of tyre, was the first man who offered the sacrifice of fire to the khur, who afterwards became herakles. plutarch tells us that the persians of his day called the sun kuros, and he connects it with the greek word kurios, which means lord, which we find in the church service as gkyrie eleison h. khur is also connected with the egyptian name horus, who was also her-ra and haroeris, names of the sun-god. the hebrew word aoor also means light or fire or the sun, and from that we get khurom, whi

LEADBEATER CW GLIMPSES OF MASONIC HISTORY

and was again colonized by the atlanteans, who restored the splendour of the egyptian temples and established once more the hid-den mysteries which had been celebrated in the great pyramid. this empire lasted up to the time of the aryanization of egypt in 13,500 b.c; it was ruled by a great dynasty of divine kings, among whom were many of the heroes whom greece later regarded as demigods, such as herakles of the twelve labours, whose tradition was handed on to classical times. 55. it was to this people about 40,000 b.c. that the world teacher came forth from the white lodge, bearing the name of tehuti or thoth, called later by the greeks hermes; he founded the outer cult of the egyptian gods and restored the mysteries to the splendour of byegone days. 56. he came to teach the great doctrin

PROMETHEUS

prometheus was one of the titans who was given the task of creating mankind by zeus. he felt great compassion for his creations and stole fire from heaven and cheated the gods in the apportionments of the sacrifice to aide them. this incurred the wrath of zeus who had him chained to mount caucasus and sent the gigantic kaukasian eagle to feed on his ever-regenerating liver. many generations later herakles freed him from this torture. parents (1) iapetos& klymene (theogony 507, works& days 54, hyginus fab 142 (2) iapetos& asia (apollodorus 1.8 (3) iapetos (quintus smyrnaeus 10.190, diodorus siculus 5.67.1 (4) themis (prometheus bound 8& 211& 873) offspring (1) deukalion (by pronoia (catalogues of women frag 1 (2) deukalion (apollodorus 1.45 (3) aidos (pindar olympian 3 "now iapetos took to

went up with her into one bed. and she bare him. clever prometheus, full of various wiles. and ready-witted prometheus he [zeus] bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long- winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. that bird herakles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled alkmene, slew; and delivered the son of iapetos from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction- not without the will of olympian zeus who reigns on high, that the glory of herakles the theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth. this, then, he regarded, and honoured his famous son; though he was angry, he ce

wroth the sea-maids [nereides] were, remembering how that zeus, moved by his prophecies, unto peleus gave thetis to wife, a most unwilling bride. then cried in wrath to these kymothoe 'o that the pestilent prophet [prometheus] had endured all pangs he merited, when, deep-burrowing, the eagle tare his liver aye renewed -quintus smyrnaeus 5.334 "and there [depicted on the shield of eurypylos son of herakles, at the world's end, were kaukasos' long glens, where herakles, rending prometheos' chains, and hurling them this way and that with fragments of the rock whereinto they were riveted, set free the mighty titan. arrow-smitten lay the eagle of the torment there beside -quintus smyrnaeus 6.269 "there [depicted on the quiver of herakles] was the titan iapetos' great son [prometheus] hung from

in a stalk of giant fennel to escape the notice of zeus. when zeus found out, he ordered hephaistos to rivet the body of prometheus to mount kaukasos, a skythian mountain, where he was kept fastened and bound for many years. each day an eagle would fly to him and munch on the lobes of his liver, which would then grow back at night. that was the price that prometheus paid for stealing fire, until herakles set him free later on. now prometheos had a son deukalion and was married to pyrrha, the daughter of epimetheus and pandora, the first woman created by the gods. when zeus was ready to obliterate the bronze generation of men, prometheus advised deucalion to fashion an ark, which he then outfitted with provisions and launched himself with pyr rha aboard. zeus presently flooded most of hell

k, which he then outfitted with provisions and launched himself with pyr rha aboard. zeus presently flooded most of hellas with a great downpour of rain from the sky, destroyed all the people except for a few who took refuge on high mountains nearby -apollodorus 1.45-46 "there they [the kentauroi] took refuge with kheiron, who, after the lapiths had driven him from mount pelion, settled on malea. herakles let loose an arrow at the kentaroi as they huddled round kheiron, which penetrated the arm of elatos and landed in kheiron s knee. in horror herakles ran to him, pulled out the arrow and dressed the wound with a salve that kheiron handed him. the festering wound was incurable, however, and kheiron moved into his cave, where he yearned for death, but could not die because he was immortal

the kentaroi as they huddled round kheiron, which penetrated the arm of elatos and landed in kheiron s knee. in horror herakles ran to him, pulled out the arrow and dressed the wound with a salve that kheiron handed him. the festering wound was incurable, however, and kheiron moved into his cave, where he yearned for death, but could not die because he was immortal. prometheus thereupon proposed herakles to zeus, to become immortal in place of kheiron: and so kheiron died -apollodorus 2.83-87 "then after proceeding through libya to the sea beyond, he appropriated the goblet from helios [for the trip from libya to the kaukasos mountains. when he [herakles] reached the mainland on the other side he killed with an arrow the eagle on the kaukasos, the product of ekhidna and typhon that had be

e goblet from helios [for the trip from libya to the kaukasos mountains. when he [herakles] reached the mainland on the other side he killed with an arrow the eagle on the kaukasos, the product of ekhidna and typhon that had been eating the liver of prometheus. then he selected for himself a restraining bond of olive, and released prometheos; and he offered zeus kheiron, who was willing to die in herakles place. prometheus advised herakles not to go after the apples himself, but rather to relive atlas of the celestial sphere and dispatch him. so when herakles reached atlas among the hyperboreans, he remembered prometheus advise and took over the sphere -apollodorus 2.119-120 "some say that, when zeus was eager to have sex with thetis, prometheus told him that his son by her would take over

e protector of mankind [prometheus. callimachus frag 551 "the mountains which the greeks named kaukosos, which is more than thirty thousand stadia distant from india; and here it was that they laid the scene of the story of prometheus and of his being put in bonds; for these were the farthermost mountains towards the east that were known to writers of that time. and the expedition of dionysos and herakles to the country of the indians looks like a mythical story of later date, because herakles is said to have released prometheus one thousand years later. prometheus was bound at the ends of the earth on the kaukasos -strabo 11.5.5 in the akademia [outside athens] is an altar to prometheos, and from it they run to the city carrying burning torches. the contest is while running to keep the to

er has. if his torch also goes out, then the third man is the victor. if all the torches go out, no one is left to be the winner. pausanias 1.30.2 "for aras, they say, was a contemporary of promethe us, the son of iapetus, and three generations of men older than pelasgus the son of arcas -pausanias 2.14.4 [in the temple of zeus at olympia are paintings] prometheus still held by his chains, though herakles has been raised up to him. for among the stories told about herakles is one that he killed the eagle which tormented prometheus in the kaukasos, and set free prometheus himself from his chains. pausanias 5.11.6 at panopeus [in phokis] there is by the roadside a small building of unburnt brick, in which is an image of pentelic marble, said by some to be asklepios, by others prometheus. the

ry goes) stood his trial for theft -plato protagoras 320c-322a "and asia [was named] after the wife of prometheus; yet the lydians claim a share in the latter name, saying that asia was not named after prometheus' wife asia -herodotus the histories 4.45.3 and zeus, when prometheus had taken fire and given it to men, put him in chains and set an eagle at his side which devoured his liver. but when herakles saw him suffering such punishment because of the benefit which he had conferred upon men, he killed the eagle with an arrow, and then persuading zeus to cease from his anger he rescued him who had been the benefactor of all. diodorus siculus 4.15.2 to iapetos was born prometheus, of whom tradition tells us, as some writers of myths record, that he stole fire from the gods and gave it to m

SCHLAGER NEIL WORLD RELIGIONS REFERENCE LIBRARY

oman religion and philosophy painting, such as the birth of venus by sandro botticelli (1444 1510) would have lacked for inspiration. mythical themes were the subject for painters from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries. the myths of ancient greece and rome have inspired operas, novels, and cartoons for children. the first superhero, hercules, was a roman adaptation of the greek hero herakles. from computer games using mythical characters, to company names such as nike (named for the greek goddess of victory, greek myths continue to have an impact on modern life. the philosophy that came out of ancient greece and rome had a resounding impact in all spheres of thought, not only in the west but also in the near east, where muslim scholars preserved the tradition after the fall o

STEINER RUDOLF CHRISTIANITY AS MYSTICAL FACT

he initiation-rites of the most archaic societies. 3. see aristotle, nicomachean ethics iii, i. 4. plutarch, a fragment preserved in stobaeus, anthology iv.52.49; it is translated in m. w. meyer s book, the ancient mysteries: a sourcebook (harpersanfrancisco, san francisco, 1987, p. 8. 5. descent into the underworld figures in many of the mysteries, whether in the legends of their heroes (such as herakles or theseus, or in the symbolic enactments, for example, in the creation festival at new year in ancient babylon. there the initiate-king died and entered the dark interior of the worldmountain, but later returned and ascended the ziggurat, or pyramid with its seven levels, and received cosmic symbols of power. he was identified in the rites with the creator-god marduk, who had also died b

WALLIS BUDGE E A LEGENDS OF THE EGYPTIAN GODS

e sea, which is proved by the sea-shells which are dug out of the mines, and are found on the tops of the hills. the nile year by year creates new land, and thus drives away the sea further and further, i.e, osiris triumphs over typhon [fourth explanation of the story [sec. xli. osiris is the moon, and typhon is the sun; typhon is therefore called seth,[fn#342] a word meaning "violence "force &c. herakles accompanies the sun, and hermes the moon. in sec. xlii. plutarch connects the death-day of osiris, the seventeenth of hathor, with the seventeenth day of the moon's revolution, when she begins to wane. the age of osiris, twenty-eight years, suggests the comparison with the twenty-eight days of the moon's revolution. the tree-trunk which is made into the shape of a crescent at the funeral

18276066 GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 1

n aspectu, hist. 5, 17, of the diis patriis to whom the captured signa eomana were hung up (ann. 1, 59; when he distinguishes between penetrates germaniae deos or dii penatcs (ann. 2, 10. u, 16, communes dii (hist. 4, 64, and conjugalcs dii (germ. 18; when he even distinguishes individual gods, and tries to suit them with eoman names, and actually names (interpretatione eomana) a mars, mercurius, hercules, castor and pollux, isis, nay, has preserved the german appellations of the deus terra editus and of his son, and of a goddess, the terra mater; how is it possible to deny that at that time the germans worshipped veritable gods? how is it possible, when we take into account all the rest that we know of the language, the liberty, the manners, and virtues of the germani, to maintain the not

serving barbarous vocables, to do a service to posterity. at the same time they did not go arbitrarily to work, but evidently with care. caesar's sol, luna and vulcan are perhaps what satisfies us least; but tacitus seems never to use the names of roman deities, except advisedly and with reflection. of the gods, he names only mercury and mars (germ. 9. ann. 13, 57. hist. 4, 64; of deified heroes, hercules, castor and pollux (germ. 9, 43; of goddesses, 120 gods. isis (germ. 9, the terra mater by her german name (germ. 40, and the mater deum (germ. 45. incompatible deities, such as apollo or bacchus, are never compared. what strikes us most, is the absence of jupiter, and the distinction given to mercury, who was but a deity of the second rank with the eomans, a mere god of merchants, but he

. 40, and the mater deum (germ. 45. incompatible deities, such as apollo or bacchus, are never compared. what strikes us most, is the absence of jupiter, and the distinction given to mercury, who was but a deity of the second rank with the eomans, a mere god of merchants, but here stands out the foremost of all: deorum maxime mercurium colunt: to him alone do human sacrifices fall, while mars and hercules content themselves with beasts. this prominence of merciiry is probably to be explained by the fact, that this god was worshipped by the gauls likewise as their chief divinity, and was the most frequently portrayed (deum maxime mercurium colunt, hujus sunt plurima simulacra, caes. b. gall. 6, 17^ and that the looks of the eomans, when directed towards germany, still saw gaul in the foregr

and mercurius in statues (p.lll, precisely as tacitus names the german ones together (ann. 13, 57. the omission of jupiter is obviously accounted for, by his worship yielding the precedence to that of mercury in those nations which tacitus knew best: we shall see, as we go on, that the northern and remoter branches on the contrary reserved their highest veneration for the thunder-god. on isis and hercules i shall express my views further on. whom we are to understand by the dioscuri, is hard to guess; most likely two sons of woden, and if we go by the statements of the edda, the brothers baldr and hermosr would be the most fitting. this adaptation of classical names to german gods became universally spread, and is preserved with strict unanimity by the latin writers of the succeeding centu

ellant; though otherwise woden greatly resembles mars (v. infra. gregory of tours (supra, p.l07) makes saturn and jiqnfcr, and again 3iars mcrciwufsqne the gods whom the heathen chlodovich adored. in 1, 34 he expresses himself in more general terms: privatus, gabalitanae urbis episcopus. daemoniis immolare compellitur a chroco alamannorum rege (in the third cent. widekind of corvei names mais and hercules as gods of the saxons (see p. ill; and that little addition to the corvei annals (see p.lll) couples together the greek and latin denominations aris and mars, ermis and jmercurius. the indiculus paganiarum reckons up, under 8: de sacris mcrcurii vel jovis; under 20: de feriis quae faciunt jovi vel mcrcurio. so that the thunder-god, of whom tacitus is silent, is in other quarters unforgott

it does not follow from this, that thorr was thouglit the greatest, for eyvindr was actually dedicated to osinn. in fornm. sog. 5, 249, styrbiorn sacrifices to thorr, and eirekr to oc5inn, but the former is beaten. thorr tok^ so in an as. homily de temporibus anticliristi, in wheloc's bedap. 495, are eiimnerated' tlior and eotstven \c li,'vseue men hciiai^ swise; and before that' erculus se ent (hercules ^igas) and apouinis (apollo, j^e hi mterne god leton. the preacher was thinking of the greek and the norse deities, not of the saxon, or he vould have said thunor and woden. and in other cases, where distinctly norse gods are meant, as. writers use the norse form of name. f]\lagnusen3 lex. p. 919. 11 162 wodan. jolaveizlu fra haraldi, cnn offinn tok fra halfdani, fornm. sog. 10, 178. in t

attached to our word vorgdnger (now= predecessor. more complete as. 232 paltae. genealogies would perhaps name a forscta or forsete as baeldseg's son^ forseti, fosite are a proof of the extent of balder's worship. if we may infer from pholesouwa and baldrshagi that the god loved isles and' eas' helgoland is a case iu point, where the flocks of his son grazed; and so is perhaps the worship of the hercules-pillars, which, following tacitus, we might fix on some other island near it^ 1 later writers have turned fosete into a goddess foseta, phoseta, fosta, to approximate her to the roman vesta; maps of helgoland, in which are found marked a' templum fostae vel phosetae' of tlie year 768, and a' templuin vestae' of 692, were made up in major's cimbrien (plon, 1692, conf. wiebel's programm iib

halennia; their plural number appears to indicate nymphs rather than a goddess, yet there also hangs about them the notion of a mother [see ch. xyi, the walacliuriun. 3 (isis. the account in tacitus of the goddess isis carries us much farther, because it can be linked with living traditions of a cultus that still lingered in the mid. ages. immediately after mentioning tlie worship of j\iercurius, hercules, and mars, he adds (cap. 9: i'ars suevorum et isidi sacrificat. unde causa et origo peregrine 1 anti. iior. sjjec. 3, ilafn. 1782. coiif. fiedler, gesch. nndalt. des nnteru germanieiis, 1 'j2(3. 8teiner's cod. inscr. l^heiii no. 632. gotfr^'chiitze, in his essay de dea hludana, lips. 1748, perceived the value of the stone, but could not discern the bearings of the matter- montfaucon ant

alue of the stone, but could not discern the bearings of the matter- montfaucon ant. expl. 2, 443. vrcdii hist. flandr. 1, xliv. mem. de i'acad. celt. 1, 199 245. mone, heidenth. 2, 346. 17 258 goddesses. sacro, parum comperi, nisi quod signuin ipsuni, in modnm lihurnae figuratum, docet advectam religionem. the importation from abroad can hardly consist in the name ids, seeing that mercury, mars, hercules, names that must have sounded equally un- german, raised no difficulty; what looked foreign was the symbol, the figure of a skip, reminding the writer of the eoman navigium isidis. when spring had set in, and the sea, untraversed during winter, was once more navigable, the greeks and eomans used to hold a solemn procession, and present a ship to isis. tliis was done on the fifth of march

nd all round it, past the pelasgian to the pythian, and lastly to the citadel. the people followed in solemnly ordered procession^ we must not omit to mention, that aventin, after transforming the tacitean isis into a frau eiscii, and making iron (eisen) take its name from her, expands the account of her worship, and in addition to the little ship, states further, that on the death of her father (hercules) she travelled through all countries, came to the german king schwab, and staid for a time with him; that she taught him the forging of iron, the sowing of seed, reaping, grinding, kneading and baking, the cultivation of flax and hemp, spinning, weaving and needle work, and that the people esteemed her a holy woman.2 we shall in due time investigate a goddess zisa, and her claims to a con

ALEISTER CROWLEY ACROSS THE GULF

appeared) differed in one point from that to which i was accustomed. thus, it was not death to intrude upon the ceremony save only for the profane. priests of a certain rank of initiation might if they pleased behold it. i, therefore, wishing to see again that marvellous glowing of the veil, disclosed a sufficient sign to the high priest. thereat was he mightily amazed; and, from the foot judging hercules, began to think that i might be some sacred envoy to inspector from the gods themselves. this i allowed him to think; meanwhile we went forward into the shrines and stood behind the pillars, unseen, in the prescribed position. now it chanced that the high priestess herself had this day chosen to perform the rite. this was a woman tall and black, most majestic, with limbs strong as a man s

ALEISTER CROWLEY BOOK OF LIES

ka.com 47 [49] 20 kappa-epsilon-phi-alpha-lambda-eta kappa samson the universe is in equilibrium; therefore he that is without it, though his force be but a feather, can overturn the universe. be not caught within that web, o child of freedom! be not entangled in the universal lie, o child of truth! book of lies get any book for free on: www.abika.com 48 [50] commentary( kappa) samson, the hebrew hercules, is said in the legend to have pulled down the walls of a music-hall where he was engaged "to make sport for the philistines, destroying them and himself. milton founds a poem on this fable. the first paragraph is a corollary of newton's first law of motion. the key to infinite power is to reach the bornless beyond. book of lies get any book for free on: www.abika.com 49 [51] 21 kappa-eps

ALEISTER CROWLEY LIBER 777

ion cups. 11 the prince of the chariot of fire. rules 20 d to 20 f, including most of leo minor. the prince of the chariot of the waters. 20 g to 20 h 23 the queen of the thrones of flame. 20 l to 20 a, including part of andromeda. the queen of the thrones of the waters. 20 c to 20 d 31 the lord of the flame and the lightning. the king of the spirits of fire. rules 20 h to 20 i, including part of hercules. the lord of the waves and the waters. the king of the hosts of the sea. 20 k to 20 l, including most of pegasus. 32 bis the princess of the shining flame. the rose of the palace of fire. rules one quadrant of heavens round n. pole. the princess of the waters. the rose of the palace of the floods. rules another quadrant 31 bis the root of the powers of fire (ace) the root of the powers of

ALEISTER CROWLEY MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

:aleph (an ox: 1 :air (the con :the free breath. the (the babe: english a: dition of: svastika. the holy in the egg: more or: all life: ghost. the virgin's on the lo: less: the impar: womb. parzial as "der tus, bacchus: tial vehicle: reine thor" who knows diphues: sexually: nothing. horus. etc: undevelop: christ-bacchus as the: ed. life: innocent babe, pursued: i.e. the: by herod-here: organ of: hercules strangling: possible: the serpents. the: expression: unconscious self not: yet determined in any: direction: the devil :xv :ayin (an: 70:capricornus :parzival in black armour (baphomet: eye) en (an earthy: ready to return to throned: glish a, or: sign ruled: montsalvat as redeemeradored by: o more or: by saturn: king: horus come to male& fe: less: the: mars exalt: full growth. christmale

asta, circe, etc, are symbols of this force which tempts the hero. he may take her as his servant< when he has mastered her, so as to heal his father (amfortas, avenge him (osiris, or pacify him (jehovah. but in order to grow to manhood, he must cease to depend on her, earning the lance (parzival, claiming his arms (achilles, or making his club (hercules<three remain for a time as neuters among woman, prevented from living the male life, and wander in the waterless wilderness like krishna, jesus, oedipus, chi. tau. lambda- until the hour when, as the "king's son" or knight-errant, he must win the princess, and set himself upon a strange throne. almost all the legends of heroes imply this formula in strikingly similar

e. it is necessary for us to consider carefully the problems connected with the bloody sacrifice, for this question is indeed traditionally important in magick. nigh all ancient magick revolves around this matter. in particular all the osirian religions- the rites of the dying god- refer to this. the slaying of osiris and adonis; the mutilation of attis; the cults of mexico and peru; the story of hercules or melcarth; the legends of dionysus and of mithra, are all connected with this one idea. in the hebrew religion we find the same thing inculcated. the first ethical lesson in the bible is that the only sacrifice pleasing to the lord is the sacrifice of blood; abel, who made this, finding favour with the lord, while cain, who offered cabbages, was rather naturally considered a cheap sport

he book of the law is this writing. to this lamen the master therion gave life by devoting his own life thereto. we may then regard this talisman, the law, as the most powerful that has been made in the world's history, for previous talismans of the same type have been limited in their scope by conditions of race and country. mohammed's talisman, allah, was good only from persia to the pillars of hercules. the buddha's, anatta, operated only in the south and east of asia. the new talisman, thelema, is master of the planet. but now observe how the question of the magical link arises! no matter how mighty the truth of thelema, it cannot prevail unless it is applied to any by mankind. as long as the book of the law was in manuscript, it could only affect the small group amongst whom it was ci

ose unworthy who have profaned the sacrament have but eaten and drunken damnation to themselves. one may bring down stolen fire in a hollow tube from heaven, as the master therion indeed has done in a way that no other adept dared to do before him. but the thief, the titan, must foreknow and consent to his doom to be chained upon a lonely rock, the vulture devouring his liver, for a season, until hercules, the strong man armed by virtue of that very fire, shall come and release him. the teitan<alpha-nu= 300+5+10+300+1+50= 666- whose number is the number of a man, six hundred and three score and six- unsubdued, consoled by asia and panthea, must send forth constant showers of blessing not only upon man whose incarnation he is, but upon the tyrant and the persecutor

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE OLD AND NEW COMMENTARIES TO LIBER AL

wn true nature because public opinion, or mediaeval morality, or religious prejudice would wish he were otherwise. the oyster stays shut in his shell for all darwin may say about his "low stage of evolution, or puritans about his priapistic character, or idealists about his unfitness for civic government. the advocates of homosexuality "primus inter pares, john addington symonds- hammer away like hercules at the spiritual, social, moral, and intellectual advantages of cultivating the caresses of a comrade who combines apollo with achilles and antinous at the expense of escaping from a chimaera with circe's head, cleopatra's body, and cressida's character. why can't they let one alone? i agree to agree; i only stipulate to be allowed to be inconsistent. i will confess their creed, so long a

which is the first matter of that great work wherein our race shares the divine prerogative of creating man in its own image, male and female. it is evidently of minor importance whether the will to create be consciously formulated. lot in his drunkenness served the turn of his two daughters, no less than jupiter, who prolonged the night to forty-eight hours in order to give himself time to beget hercules. man is in actual possession of this supreme talisman. it is his "pearl of great price" in comparison with which all other jewels are but gew-gaws. it is his prime duty to preserve the integrity of this substance. he must no allow its quality to be impaired either by malnutrition or by disease. he must not destroy it like origen and klingsor. he must not waste it like onan. but physiology

c sense, come this earth, a chilled spark of him, and all our light and life. his vice-regent and representative in the animal kingdom is his cognate symbol the phallus, representing love and liberty. ra-hoor-khuit, like all true gods, is therefore a solar-phallic deity. but we regard him as he is in truth, eternal; the solar-phallic deities of the old aeon, such as osiris "christ, hiram, adonis, hercules &c, were supposed, through our ignorance of the cosmos, to 'die' and rise again. thus we celebrated rites of 'crucifixion' and so on, which have now become meaningless. ra-hoor-khuit is the crowned and conquering child. this is also a reference to the 'crowned' and conquering 'child' in ourselves, our own personal god. except ye become as little children, said 'christ, ye shall not enter

e pillars of the world! for your time is nigh at hand" the old comment 71. a final pronouncement of his attributes. i do not know the exact meaning of v.71 (later, autumn 1911. yes: i do) this is a clear statement as to the war which was to come, and did come, in 1914 e.v. i now (an xix sol in libra) no longer agree with the above paragraph. i think "the pillars of the world" mean "the pillars of hercules- about the straits of gibraltar. and i think the really big war will start "there. p.s. an (sept. 8 '37, e.v) can "twin warriors" imply a "civil" war? the spanish troubles started in s. spain and morocco. al iii,72 "i am the lord of the double wand of power; the wand of the force of coph nia-but my left hand is empty, for i have crushed an universe& nought remains" the old comment 72. cop

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQ I 1

cco from a metal box, he bit off a quid and, chewing it, spat it on my leg, and the pain vanished. he did not spend an hour racking through the dictionary of his brain to find a suitable "itis" whereby to allay the inflammation, and then, having carefully classified it with another, declared the pain to be imaginary and myself to be an hysterio-monomaniac suffering from apiarian illusions! to-day hercules is a sun-myth, and so are osiris and baal; and no may can raise his little finger without some priapic pig shouting "phallus. phallus! i see a phallus! o what a phallus" away with this church-spire sexuality, 188 these atavistic obstetrics, these endless survivals and hypnoid states, and all these orchitic superficialities! back to the fruits of life and the treasure-house of mystery! let

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQ I 5

s against his will, not only in the whole, but in every part thereof, even as a fly that walketh upon a beryl-stone. and the tablet blazeth ever brighter till it filleth the whole aire. and behold! there is is one god therein, and the letters of the stars in his crown, orion, and the pleiades, and aldebaran, and alpha centauri, and cor leonis, and cor scorpionis, and spica, and the pole-star, and hercules, and regulus, and aquila, and the ram's eye. and upon a map of the stars shalt thou draw the sigil of that name; and because also some of the letters are alike, thou shalt know that the stars also have tribes and nations. the letter of a star is but the totem thereof. and the letter representeth not the whole nature of the star, but each star must be known by itself in the wisdom of him t

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 3

n the hand. such warfare is only for the great_ the greatest; yet we shall see that this is the warfare that p. eventually waged. and where the strong have trod the weak may "dare" to follow. this path must necessarily be a difficult one; illusions and delusions must be expected, temptations and defeats encountered with equanimity, and fears and terrors passed by without trembling. the labours of hercules are a good example of the labours the aspirant, who would be an adept, must expect. however, there is not space here, nor is this the place, to enter into the twelve mystic works of this man who became a god. yet let us at least note three points_ that the tenth labour was to slay geryon, the "three-"headed and "three-"bodied monster of gades; that the eleventh was to obtain apples from t

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 4

from her lips. 27 i the juggler "and he well deserves it "oh! it must have been ripping. i do wish i had been there. the horse- whip, and the monkey. he is such a silly fellow, poor 'cheval hongre "ah, yes! the new nickname "don't you think that it fits him "oh, yes" the silent man of the party moved uneasily in his armchair. he was slow of cogitation "like the waistcoat of the late nessus fitted hercules, eh, what" he suggested "a fool "hercules "no, lionel. and, er. yes, hercules also. tabard reminds me of that bible chap "potiphar's joseph" the silent man exclaimed triumphantly "wrong again, bernard. i meant mary's joseph" the silent man threw his cigar over the fender. ii la papesse lionel tabard had been horse-whipped by a woman; he had received- to taken- no compensation. this i attr

ht; they are sure that, even if they go into a cave and close the door and simply think five true thoughts and then pass away, these five thoughts of theirs will live through eternity (vivek nanda "karma yoga" udbodhan edition, pp. 164, 165) 13 or the unconsciously known. 14 deussen "ibid, p. 76. 15 "rigveda (griffiths, i. 164. 46 "you may call the creator of all things by different names: liber, hercules, mercury, are but different names of the same divine being (seneca, iv, 7. 8. 16 "ch ndogya upanishad" 6. 1. 3. also of "form" 17 that is to say, when he gains knowledge. 18 this is the meaning of "nequaquam vacuum" 19 modern materialism receives many a rude blow at the hands of gustave le bon. this great frenchman writes "these fundamental dogmas, the bases of modern science, the researc

ALICE A BAILEY01 THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE ATOM

effect upon it? this may be but a speculation, but it has its points of interest. if we study astronomical books, and seek to ascertain whether astronomers say that this is so, we shall meet with a vast amount of contradictory opinion; we shall find that some astronomers say that within the pleiades is a central point around which our solar system revolves; others say that in the constellation of hercules is the point of magnetic attraction for our solar system. on the other hand, you will find this flatly contradicted. we shall find some astronomers talking about "star-drift" and saying that the drift or trend, of certain stars is in a specific direction; others argue that the distances are so vast that it is impossible to determine whether certain systems are following a definite orbit o

ALICE A BAILEY05 THE LIGHT OF THE SOUL

our system are the reflections and agents. 2. the path of our sun in the heavens and the twelve signs of the zodiac through which our sun apparently passes. therefore it will be apparent that this sutra is the key to the purpose of the seven and the twelve upon which all our creative processes are built- 167- the light of the soul copyright 1998 lucis trust 3. the meaning of the twelve labours of hercules in their relation to man, the microcosm. 4. the purpose of our planet, gained by the adept through an understanding of the triplicity formed by: a. the pole star, b. our earth planet, c. the great bear. other meanings are available to those who hold the key, but the above will suffice to show the deep, though esoteric significance attached to these brief words. 29. by concentrated attenti

ALICE A BAILEY10 FROM BETHLEHEM TO CALVARY

wings as a woman suckling a child the type of all future madonnas with their divine babes, showing the origin of the symbol. devaki is likewise figured with the divine krishna in her arms, as is mylitta, or istar, of babylon, also with the recurrent crown of stars, and with her child tammuz- 40- from bethlehem to calvary copyright 1998 lucis trust on her knee. mercury and aesculapius, bacchus and hercules, perseus and the dioscuri, mithras and zarathustra were all of divine and human birth."41 it is apposite to recall that the cathedral of notre dame in paris is built upon the ancient site of a temple of isis, and that the early church very frequently availed itself of a so-called heathen opportunity to determine a christian rite or a day of sacred remembrance. even the establishing of chr

e writer who seeks to prove this continuity "at the time of the life or recorded appearance of jesus of nazareth and for some centuries before, the mediterranean and neighbouring world had been the scene of a vast number of pagan- 109- from bethlehem to calvary copyright 1998 lucis trust creeds and rituals. there were temples without end dedicated to gods like apollo or dionysus among the greeks, hercules among the romans, mithra among the persians, adonis and arris in syria and phrygia, osiris and isis and horus in egypt, baal and astarte among the babylonians and carthaginians, and so forth. societies, large or small, united believers and the devout in the service or ceremonials connected with their respective deities, and in the creeds which they confessed concerning these deities. and

indra in nepal and tibet spilt their blood for the salvation of men; buddha said, according to max m ller `let all the sins that were in the world fall on me, that the world may be delivered' the chinese tien the holy one `one with god and existing with him from all eternity' died to save the world; the egyptian osiris was called saviour, so was horus; so was the persian mithra; so was the greek hercules who overcame death though his body was consumed in the burning garment of mortality, out of which he rose into heaven. so also was the phrygian attis called saviour, and the syrian tammuz or adonis likewise both of whom, as we have seen, were nailed or tied to a tree, and afterwards rose again from their biers or coffins. prometheus, the greatest and earliest benefactor of the human race

r points this out, throwing light upon this ceaseless and age-old focussing of the love of god and the desire of man in the person of a son of god. he says "if the historicity of jesus, in any degree, could be proved, it would give us reason for supposing what i have personally always been inclined to believe that there was also a historical nucleus for such personages as osiris, mithra, krishna, hercules, apollo and the rest. the question, in fact, narrows itself down to this, have there been in the course of human evolution certain, so to speak, nodal points or periods at which the psychologic currents ran together and condensed themselves for a new start, and has each such node or point of condensation been marked by the appearance of an actual and heroic man (or woman) who supplied a n

e great experiences from the birth to the resurrection. the uniqueness of christ's work lay in the fact that he was the first to enact the whole of the initiation ceremonial rites and ritual publicly, before the world at large, thus giving to humanity a demonstration of divinity centred in one person, so that all could see, could know, believe and follow in his steps. the same stories are told of hercules, of baldur, of mithra, of bacchus, and of osiris, to mention only a few of a large number. one of the early church fathers, firmicus maternus, tells us that the mysteries of osiris bear a close resemblance to the christian teaching, and that after the resurrection of osiris his friends rejoice together, saying "we have found him" annie besant points out in an illuminating passage that "in

ALICE A BAILEY14 THE REAPPEARANCE OF THE CHRIST

ed itself. let us look at each one of them for a moment: 1. there is, first of all, his statement to his parents in the temple "wist ye not that i must be about my father's business" we should note here that he was twelve years old at the time and, therefore, the work with which he had been occupied (as a soul) was finished; twelve is the number of completed work, as witness the twelve labours of hercules, another son of god. the symbolism of his twelve years is now replaced by that of the twelve apostles, the symbol of service and sacrifice. he was also in the temple of solomon, which is the symbol of the perfect life of the soul, just as the tabernacle in the wilderness is the symbol of the imperfect ephemeral life of the transient personality; christ was, therefore, speaking on soul lev

ngs which christ will give after his reappearance) several of the minor concepts which today underlie the teaching of all the world religions, and which modern religious teachers should be presenting to the public mind. the first such teacher is of such ancient date that it is not possible to say when he truly lived; even his name is a modernised one, given to an ancient hero-teacher. his name is hercules. he presented to the world, through the form of a pictorial and world drama (symbolic in nature) the concept of a great objective, only to be reached as the result of struggle and difficulty. he pointed to a goal toward which men must make their way, no matter what the obstacles; these obstacles he portrayed in the twelve labours of hercules which were dramas and not factual occurrences

a taught that misery and suffering were of man's own making and that the focussing of human desire upon the undesirable, the ephemeral and the material was the cause of all despair, all hatred and competition, and the reason why man found himself living in the realm of death the realm of physical living, which is the true death of the spirit. he made a unique contribution to the teaching given by hercules and vyasa, and added to the structure of truth which they had erected. thus he prepared the way for christ. between the times of these two great teachers, the buddha and the christ, lesser teachers appeared to amplify and add to the already given basic truths; of these sankaracharya was one of the most important, giving, as he did, deep instruction upon the nature of the self. also the te

ALICE A BAILEY15 THE DESTINY OF THE NATIONS

of men their own divine potentialities. in the appearance of the christ, the divine ideal for the race, as a whole, was presented for the first time. other and earlier sons of god presented diverse divine qualities and attributes, but in three of them a certain perfection of presentation was achieved which (as far as this present world period is concerned) can never be surpassed. these three are: hercules, the perfect disciple but not yet the perfected son of god; the buddha- 20- the destiny of the nations copyright 1998 lucis trust the perfect initiate, having reached illumination but not yet having developed to perfection all the attributes of divinity; the christ, the absolutely perfect expression of divinity for this cycle and, therefore, the teacher alike of angels and of men. that ah

however, we have three instances of a perfection which lies far ahead for the majority of the sons of men. in all of them, the sixth and the second rays were controlling factors, with the first ray reaching full expression. in them, idealism, love-wisdom and indomitable will stood forth in all their divine power. it might be of interest to you to know just what rays controlled these sons of god: hercules, the sun-god, had a first ray soul, a second ray personality and a sixth ray astral body. these potencies and energies sufficed to carry him through all the trials and the labours of the disciple. the buddha had a second ray soul, a first ray personality and a sixth ray mind a very rare phenomenon. the christ had a second ray soul, a sixth ray personality (which accounted for his close re

for centuries by the strength of their living love and power brought the vision and the aspiration of humanity back to those spiritual essentials whereby men must live. all of them were part of the directing group of lives who are working out the plans of god, founded upon the love of god. the buddha and the christ are still closely connected with, and working in cooperation with, the hierarchy. hercules has gone over into the shamballa centre, but still works in a basic association with the buddha who is one of the forces linking shamballa and the hierarchy. pure religion, undefiled and spiritually focussed, is the higher expression of the sixth ray (working as is ever the case under the influence and potency of the second ray) and for us christianity in its earlier days was the great an

ation of the second, and the fifth of the third. 4. the third major centre the throat centre. 5. the third race the aryan, as it expresses the first strictly human race, the lemurian. 6. the third plane the physical, the reflection of the third highest plane, the atmic. 7. the third periodical vehicle the personality. 8. the third divine aspect intelligence. 9. the third grade of divine messenger hercules. 10. the sustaining life, the third or outer sun the physical sun. these are a few of the correspondences which it is helpful for us to bear in mind in so far as they reveal divine quality, spiritual intent and universal objectives. during the aquarian age and during one third of its expression, that is, during the first decanate, esoterically considered, the vitalising of the human centr

ALICE A BAILEY18 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME III ESOTERIC ASTROLOGY

ac according to the mode studied by the esoteric astrologer. this is the path of reality as the other is the path of illusion. this carries the disciple around the path from commencement in aries to consummation in pisces. the present method is based upon the temporary truth that ordinary man is subject to the illusory nature of manifestation and "as he thinks, so is he" when, however, he becomes hercules, the sun god (or solar angel, he begins to reverse the process (again only apparently) and a definite reorientation takes place. the teachers on the inner side, therefore, study the horoscope only in its relation to the following three entities: 1. the horoscope of the planet itself as the expression of the life of the planetary logos. this involves the studying of the horoscope of the sp

ion and demonstrate that the desire nature is subdued and conquered and that the lower nature is (by being lifted up in the air, i.e. into heaven) capable of reaching the goal for this world period, and that from the earthy foundations of scorpio the personality can be so tested that it shows fitness for the world service demanded in aquarius. this is beautifully expressed for us in the legend of hercules, the sun-god who overcomes the nine-headed hydra or serpent of desire by being forced to his knees and from that position of humility lifts up the serpent into the air, and then deliverance comes. 4. in aquarius in this sign, the long effort of the soul is consummated and concludes the- 86- a treatise on the seven rays- volume iii: esoteric astrology copyright 1998 lucis trust experience

ee aspects which in this treatise on the seven rays we have called- 122- a treatise on the seven rays- volume iii: esoteric astrology copyright 1998 lucis trust life, quality and appearance. thus the three great tests in scorpio are in reality nine tests and hence the nine-headed hydra or serpent which is ever associated with scorpio and hence also the nature of the stupendous victory achieved by hercules, the sun-god, in this sign. it is interesting to note that each of the great sons of god whose names are pre-eminent in the minds of men hercules, the buddha and the christ are associated in the archives of the great white lodge with three special signs of the zodiac (which in a peculiar manner constitute the "zodiacal decanate) in each of which they passed from test to victory. in scorpi

rcules, the sun-god, in this sign. it is interesting to note that each of the great sons of god whose names are pre-eminent in the minds of men hercules, the buddha and the christ are associated in the archives of the great white lodge with three special signs of the zodiac (which in a peculiar manner constitute the "zodiacal decanate) in each of which they passed from test to victory. in scorpio hercules became the triumphant disciple. in taurus the buddha achieved victory over desire and arrived at illumination. in pisces the christ overcame death and became the world saviour. these three constellations, therefore, form a triangle of initiation of profound importance because it provides those conditions and that energy which will test and perfect the three aspects of the personality so t

re the expression. you will see from this how important are the functions of scorpio and mars upon our planet at this time, and you will note also how brief a time remains in which humanity can (rightly or wrongly) handle its tests. you will realise also the pressure under which the hierarchy at this time struggles now that martian energy is expressing itself upon the astral plane. will the world hercules lift this problem up into heaven and "elevate the hydra" of passion and hate, of greed and aggression, and of selfishness and ambition up into the region of the soul? or will it carry the whole matter down on to the physical plane with the inevitable corollary of world disaster, world war and death? such are the problems with which the guiding hierarchy is faced. scorpio is also most inte

8 lucis trust libra upon the cardinal cross rules man's subjective and spiritual life. the other signs in their consummation carry man beyond the stage of ordinary humanity and produce the following states of consciousness: 1. aries and virgo. the cosmic christ. universal and individual. 2. taurus and pisces. the world saviours; i.e, buddha and christ. 3. leo and aquarius. the world servers; i.e, hercules. 4. sagittarius and capricorn. the world initiates; i.e, masters. 5. cancer and scorpio. the triumphant disciples. the emphasis, however, on gemini and libra as far as humanity is concerned is on human attainment and achieving the point of balance before the other attainments become possible. it is also peculiarly instructive to study the rulers of this sign. from the angle of orthodox as

was applied to the mother principle in those far off times. this virgin was the founder of the matriarchate which then dominated civilisation and to which various myths and legends bear evidence and which have come down to us concerning lilith, the last of the virgin goddesses of atlantean times; the same thought is also to be found in the traditionary accounts of the ancient amazons, whose queen hercules defeated, wresting from her what he sought. this is an allegory, teaching the emergence of the spiritual man from the control of matter. three of these goddesses are eve, isis, and mary. they are of peculiar and significant importance where our civilisation is concerned for they embody in themselves the symbology of the entire form nature, which, when integrated and functioning as a whole

t take place upon what is esoterically called "the radiant surface of the earth" the plane of form; the assumption or glorification of the virgin has not yet taken place and the raising up of substance is not yet realised. it is interesting to note that scorpio establishes the inevitability of this final assumption of matter into heaven in capricorn, and this is previsioned for us in the story of hercules in scorpio when he raises the hydra high above his head into the air. virgo symbolises depths, darkness, quiet and warmth; it is the valley of deep experience wherein secrets are discovered and eventually "brought to light; it is the place of slow, gentle and yet powerful crises and periodic developments which take place in the dark and yet which lead to light. it is the "blinded stage" w

he was the first of our humanity who, having achieved divinity (and this many have done, was permitted to see the "golden thread of light and of living life which links the light within the centre of all the manifested crosses; he was allowed to know the meaning of life as it expressed itself in the cosmic crucifixion, which is an episode of cosmic life and not of death, as is generally supposed. hercules comprehended the true meaning of the mutable cross and, with full knowledge, mounted the fixed cross, with all its attendant difficulties and labours. the buddha comprehended, through complete illumination, the meaning of both the mutable and the fixed crosses, for the secret of revelation in taurus was his, just as the secret of directed energy in scorpio was the source of the strength o

rcules comprehended the true meaning of the mutable cross and, with full knowledge, mounted the fixed cross, with all its attendant difficulties and labours. the buddha comprehended, through complete illumination, the meaning of both the mutable and the fixed crosses, for the secret of revelation in taurus was his, just as the secret of directed energy in scorpio was the source of the strength of hercules. but the christ, knowing both the above secrets, also understood with a living comprehension, the mystery of the cardinal cross, because the light of the transfiguration (undergone in capricorn) revealed to him the glory and transcendent mystery. there are two words also which convey the purpose and intent of expression upon the cardinal cross. they give the reason why the two "doors of t

ALICE A BAILEY24 A TREATISE ON THE SEVEN RAYS VOLUME V THE RAYS AND THE INITIATIONS

response to the animal kingdom in its higher invocative ranks; his work brought about the process known as individualisation. down through the ages, these sons of god have come, evoked by human invocation; in their turn, they have invoked certain aspects of the divine nature, deeply hidden in mankind all related hitherto to consciousness and to responsiveness of the part to the whole. eventually hercules came forth and opened the door on to the path of discipleship, his work being preserved for us in the twelve labours of hercules. these epitomised the various tests to which all disciples are subjected, prior to the various initiations. shri krishna came and opened the door through which mankind could pass to the second initiation. the buddha, a still greater- 345- a treatise on the seven

ALICE BAILEY THE LABOURS OF HERCULES

, six times the moisture disappears, but at the seventh great absorption naught is left save iridescent fire. three times the fire envelops, three times the sun recedes; at time the fourth the work is done, and naught is left save flame primordial. that flame absorbs, revolves, receives, and remains. when all that is has traversed the flame, then time is nvialice bailey& djwhal khul the labors of hercules- table of contents the zodiac the purpose of this study (foreword) the nature of discipleship astrological connotations the world disciple today key thoughts hercules the disciple- the myth elaboration of the myth labor i the capture of the man-eating mares the myth the meaning of the myth the sign the three initial impulses in aries the sign of the mind constellations in aries the crux o

e capture of the doe or hind qualities of the sign the cardinal cross the stars at-one-ment with capricorn symbols the three symbolic constellations the lesson of the labor labor v the slaying of the nemean lion the myth the number five the story of the myth the field of the labor the three symbolic constellations the lesson of the labor labor vi seizing the girdle of hippolyte- 2- the labours of hercules the myth introduction interpretations of the myth the two ways the constellations and stars the mutable cross and the planetary rulers significance of the sign and its polar opposite keynotes labor vii the capture of the erymanthian boar the myth prologue reflections of a libran the rulers of libra and its opposite sign the constellations and stars some highlights from the lecture by alic

of the myth the nine heads of the hydra fighting the hydra: modern version applications to life what is death scorpio, the sign of magic the constellations and the stars labor ix killing the stymphalian birds the myth interpretation of the labor silence two gates, three constellations the chrysalis symbol the spirit of truth the spirit of right three gifts three constellations- 3- the labours of hercules details of the story labor x the slaying of cerberus, guardian of hades the myth prologue interpretations of the labor in capricorn meanings of the sign constellations the climbing of the mountain preparation for the descent into hades the symbol of cerberus epilogue labor xi cleansing the augean stables the myth the energies of aquarius hallmarks of the initiate decanates, rulers and con

ng the augean stables the myth the energies of aquarius hallmarks of the initiate decanates, rulers and constellations the lawgivers interpretation of the test labor xii the capture of the red cattle of geryon the myth interpretation of the story significant aspect of the sign the second coming of the christ the new group of world servers interpretation of the test the purpose of the study of the hercules myth summary of lessons learned in each zodiacal sign the path of the soul through the zodiac testimony as to the effectiveness of zodiacal energies on earth life the crosses journey through the signs- 4- the labours of hercules the zodiac the presiding one looked forth upon the sons of men, who are the sons of god. he saw their light and where they stood upon the way which leads back to

sacrifice. the watching teacher saw a man emerge from out this crowd, mount the fixed cross, demanding deeds to do, service to render unto god and man, and willingness to travel the way to god. he stood before the great presiding one who works within the council chamber of the lord and heard a word go forth "obey the teacher on the way. prepare for the last tests. pass through- 5- the labours of hercules each gate and in the sphere which they reveal and guard, perform the labor which befits their sphere. learn thus the lesson and begin with love to serve the men of earth" then to the teacher went the final word "prepare the candidate. give him his labors to perform and place his name upon the tablets of the living way [3] the tibetan (djwhal khul. foreword the purpose of this study the in

n to ourselves of the tests and trials, the failures and achievements of this heroic figure, who strove, centuries ago, towards the same goal as we do. through a reading of his story, fresh interest may be evoked in the mind of the bewildered aspirant, and such a picture painted of universal sequential development and destiny that he will go forward with fresh courage. we shall trace the story of hercules and endeavor to show how he, in his twelve labors, played the part of the aspirant upon the path of discipleship. on it, he undertook certain tasks, symbolic in nature, and passed through certain episodes and events which portray for all time the nature of the training and attainments which characterize the man who is nearing liberation. he stands for the incarnated, yet not perfected, so

od, who definitely takes the lower nature in hand and willingly subjects it to the discipline which will eventually produce the emergence of divinity. out of an erring but sincerely earnest human being, intelligently aware of the work to be accomplished, a world savior is formed. two great and dramatic stories have been held constantly before the eyes of men down the ages. in the twelve labors of hercules, that path of discipleship is depicted, and his experiences preparatory to the great concluding cycle of initiation meet with a ready response from every aspiring man. in the life and work of jesus the christ, that radiant and perfected son of god, who "has entered for us within the veil, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps, we have portrayed the five stages of the path

us an example that we should follow his steps, we have portrayed the five stages of the path of initiation, which are the climaxing episodes for which the twelve labors have prepared the disciple. the oracle has spoken, and down the ages the word has sounded forth: man, know thyself. this knowledge is the outstanding attainment upon the path of discipleship, and the reward of all the work done by hercules. the nature of discipleship it might be of value here if we considered briefly the nature of discipleship. it is a word in constant use among aspirants in christian lands, as in the oriental religions. discipleship could be defined as the final stage of the path of evolution, and as that period in a man's experience in which he is definitely self-conscious. it is the stage in which he kno

ed forward under nature's laws, cycle after cycle, until gradually the hidden god can be seen in man and in the universe. or, it can be the result [6] of systematized application and discipline on the part of the aspirant, producing a more rapid unfoldment of the power and life of the soul. in one analysis of discipleship, it has been defined as "a psychic resolvent, which eats- 7- the labours of hercules away all dross and leaves only the pure gold behind" it is a process of refining, of sublimation and of transmutation, carried steadily forward until at length the mount of transfiguration and of illumination is attained. the hidden mysteries and the forces, latent in human beings, need to be discovered and require to be utilized in a divine manner and in line with divine purpose, intelli

the operations of the natural world. thus he becomes a worker under the plan of evolution and a cooperator with that great "cloud of witnesses, who through the power of their onlooking, and the result of their attainment, constitute the thrones, principalities and powers through the medium of which the one life guides all creation onward to a glorious consummation. such is the goal towards which hercules worked, and such is the goal before humanity as a whole, whose ultimate group achievement will be brought about by the many individual perfections. astrological connotations a secondary object of this study is to present an aspect of astrology which will differ from that usually expressed. we shall trace the story of hercules as he passed through the twelve signs of the zodiac. in each si

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

s adam kadmon was the same as athamaz, tamaz, or the adonis of the greeks "the one with, and of his father- the "father" becoming during the later races helios, the sun, as apollo karneios* for instance, who was the "sun born; osiris, ormazd, and so on, were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into still more earthly types: such as prometheus, the crucified of mount kajbee, hercules, and so many others, sun-gods and heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols. in the zohar is it said "man was created by the sephiroth (elohim-javeh, also) and they engendered by common power the earthly adam" therefore in genesis the elohim say "behold man is become as one of us" but in hindu cosmogony or "creation" brahma-prajapati creates viraj

47 agreement of dates. on globe a in the first round (b) as the "seed of life" on globe d in the fourth round; and (c) as the "seed of man" at the beginning of every root-race- in our fifth race especially. the very commencement of the latter witnesses, during the dvapara yuga* the destruction of the accursed sorcerers "of that island (plato speaking only of its last island) beyond the pillars of hercules, in the atlantic ocean, from which there was an easy transition to other islands in the neighbourhood of another large continent (america. it is this "atlantic" land which was connected with the "white island" and this white island was ruta; but it was not the atala and the "white devil" of colonel wilford (see "asiatic researches" vol. viii, p. 280, as already shown. it may well be remar

ed the aleim, while the head of their caste, or the chief of the hierophants was known as java-aleim. instead of becoming a neophyte, and gradually obtaining his esoteric knowledge through a regular initiation, an adam, or man, uses his intuitional faculties and, prompted by the serpent (woman and matter, tastes of the tree of knowledge- the esoteric or secret doctrine- unlawfully. the priests of hercules, or mel-karth, the "lord of the eden" all wore "coats of skin" the text says "and java-aleim made for adam and his wife[[hebrew 'chitonuth our" the first hebrew word "chiton" is the greek[[chiton, chiton. it became a slavonic word by adoption from the bible, and means a coat, an upper garment "though containing the same substratum of esoteric truth as does every early cosmogony, the hebre

ern portion of the tropics "apart from this fact, the supposition of an ancient continent in those latitudes, the vestiges of which may be found in the volcanic islands and moun[[vol. 2, page] 223 the magicians of atlantis. tainous surface of the azores, the canaries and cape de verdes, is not devoid of geographical probability. the greeks, who, moreover, never dared to pass beyond the pillars of hercules, on account of their dread of the mysterious ocean, appeared too late in antiquity for the stories preserved by plato to be anything else than an echo of the indian legend. moreover, when we cast a look on a planisphere, at the sight of the islands and islets strewn from the malayan archipelago to polynesia, from the straits of sunda to easter island, it is impossible, upon the hypothesis

head of inferior asuras (not gods, but spirits, to have rebelled against brahma; for which siva hurled him down to patala. but, as philosophy goes hand in hand with allegorical fiction in hindu myths, the devil is made to repent, and is afforded the opportunity to progress: he is a sinful man esoterically, and can by yoga devotion, and adeptship, reach his status of one with the deity, once more. hercules, the sun-god, descends to hades (the cave of initiation) to deliver the victims from their tortures, etc, etc. the christian church alone creates eternal torment for the devil and the damned, that she has invented[[vol. 2, page] 238 the secret doctrine. believers in the pope's infallibility, but will hardly satisfy the philosophical mind. yet the truth, although known to most of the highe

is it possible that prejudice would carry science so far as to class all these men as either fools or liars? pliny speaks of a giant in whom he thought he recognised orion, the son of ephialtes (nat. hist, vol. vii, ch. xvi. plutarch declares that sertorius saw the tomb of antaeus, the giant; and pausanias vouches for the actual existence of the tombs of asterius and of geryon, or hillus, son of hercules- all giants, titans and mighty men. finally the abbe pegues (cited in de mirville's pneumatologie) affirms in his curious work on "the volcanoes of greece" that "in the neighbourhood of the volcanoes of the isle of thera, giants with enormous skulls were found laid out under colossal stones, the erection of which must have necessi[[footnote(s* there are critics who, finding no evidence ab

locity in the earth's rotation "when the wheel runs at the usual rate, its extremities (the poles) agree with its middle circle (equator, when it runs slower and tilts in every direction, there is a great disturbance on the face of the earth. the waters flow toward[[footnote(s[[footnote continued from previous page] portions of the submerged fourth-race continent which were "beyond the pillars of hercules" and which happened to keep above water after the general cataclysm. the last remnant of these- plato's atlantis, or the "poseidon (another substitute or rather a translation of the real name- was the last of it some 11,000 years ago. most of the correct names of the countries and islands of both continents are given in the puranas; but to mention them specially, as found in other more an

nly seventy-seven in all (about one hundred, creuzer thinks. they are called "builders" and occultism calls them the initiators, who, initiating some pelasgians, thus laid the foundation stone of true masonry. herodotus associates the cyclops with perseus "the son of an assyrian demon (i. vi. p. 54. raoul rochette found that palaemonius, the cyclops, to whom a sanctuary was raised "was the tyrian hercules" anyhow, he was the builder of the sacred columns of gadir, covered with mysterious characters to which apollonius of tyana was the only one in his age to possess the key; and with figures which may still be found on the walls of ellora, the gigantic ruins of the temple of viswakarma "the builder and artificer of the gods[[vol. 2, page] 346 the secret doctrine. called mad stones (see his

hich plato declared had passed since the submersion of the last atlantis, a very strange fact is made apparent. bailly remarked, but distorted it by his interpretation. the secret doctrine may restore the figures to their true meaning "first of all" we read in "critias" that "one must remember that 9,000 years have elapsed since the war of the nations, which lived above and outside the pillars of hercules, and those which peopled the lands on this side[[footnote(s* some derive the word from paras which produced pars, persia, pars; but it may be equally derived from pitar or pitris, the hindu progenitors of the fifth race- the fathers of wisdom or the sons of "will and yoga- who were called pitar, as were the divine pitars of the first race* see for these traditions the "collection of persi

(2 samuel, brought thence the name of jehovah. he made zadok high priest, from whom came the zadokites or sadducees. he lived and ruled first at hebron[[hebrew, habir-on or kabeir-town, where the rites of the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. neither david nor solomon recognized either moses or the law of moses. they aspired to build a temple to[[hebrew, like the structures erected by hiram to hercules and venus, adon and astarte. says furst "the very ancient name of god, yaho, written in the greek law, appears, apart from its derivation, to have been an old mystic name of the supreme deity of the shemites. hence it was told to moses when he was initiated at horeb- the cave- under the direction of jethro, the kenite (or cainite) priest of midian. in an old religion of the chaldeans, who

BLAVATSKY H P COSMOGENESIS

, from which these two in one have their being, is ever concealed and called the "hidden one" connected only indirectly with creation* as it can act only through the dual force emanating from the eternal essence. even aesculapius, called the "saviour of all" is identical, according to ancient classics, with phta, the egyptian creative intellect (or divine wisdom, and with apollo, baal, adonis and hercules (see dunlap's "mystery of adonis" pp. 23 and 95; and phta is, in one of its aspects, the "anima mundi" the universal soul of plato, the "divine spirit" of the egyptians, the "holy ghost" of the early christians and gnostics, and the akasa of the hindus, and even, in its lower aspect, the astral light. for phta was originally the "god of the dead" he in whose bosom they were received, henc

ately connected in all the pagan theogonies with the dragon, her eternal enemy; the virgin, or madonna, standing on the mythical satan under that form, crushed and made powerless, under her feet. this, because the head and tail of the dragon, which represent in eastern astronomy to this day the ascending and descending nodes of the moon, were also symbolized in ancient greece by the two serpents. hercules kills them on the day of his birth, and so does the babe in his virgin mother's arms. as mr. gerald massey aptly observes in this connection "all such symbols figured their own facts from the first, and did not pre-figure others of a totally different order. the iconography (and dogmas, too) had survived in rome from a period remotely pre-christian. there was neither forgery nor interpola

and mechanical manner, but have been evolved from simpler matters- or perhaps, indeed, from one sole kind of matter- i do but give formal utterance to an idea which has been, so to speak, for some time 'in the air' of science. chemists, physicists, philosophers of the highest merit, declare explicitly their belief that the seventy (or thereabouts) elements of our text-books are not the pillars of hercules which we must never hope to pass "philosophers in the present as in the past- men who certainly have not worked in the laboratory- have reached the same view from another side" thus mr. herbert spencer records his conviction that 'the chemical atoms are produced from the true or physical atoms by processes of evolution under conditions which chemistry has not yet been able to produce "and

BLUE EQUINOX

immortal, that we may take our pleasure thereupon. bid thy satyrs heap thorns among the flowers, that we may take our pain thereon. let the pleasure and pain be mingled in one supreme offering unto the lord adonai! 48. also i heard the voice of adonai the lord the desirable one concerning that which is beyond. 49. let not the dwellers in thebai and the temples thereof prate ever of the pillars of hercules and the ocean of the west. is not the nile a beautiful water? 50. let not the priest of isis uncover the nakedness of nuit, for every step is a death and a birth. the priest of isis lifted the veil of isis, and was slain by the kisses of her the equinox 96 mouth. then he was the priest of nuit, and drank of the milk of the stars. 51. let not the failure and the pain turn aside the worship

r. bernart correctly states that the exact date and hour of birth are necessary to delineate a horoscope. yet he publishes a book which attempts such a delineation on the birthday alone. now, the birthday tells the astrologer nothing but the position of the sun in the zodiac at the time of birth, and this position varies to a small but sufficient extent in different years. this is indeed divining hercules not merely from his foot, but from a big toe which may not be his at all. the error is often amusingly illustrated in the book itself. for example, wm. t. stead and admiral farragut were both born on july 5th. on july 11th, john quincy adams and wanamaker. this happy combination is told "you are a good mimic and have a singing voice. you are not as fond of literary and scientific pursuits

BOOK T

, but not so heavy, and also the sigil of his scale is shown; beneath the rushing feet of his steed are waving flames and fire. he is active- generous- fierce- sudden- impetuous. if ill dignified, he is evil-minded- cruel- bigoted- brutal. he rules the celestial heavens from above the twentieth degree of scorpio to the first two decans of sagittarius: and this includes a part of the constellation hercules (hercules is always represented with a club) fire of fire king of the salamanders. vi. the queen of the thrones of flame queen of wands a crowned queen with long red-golden hair, seated upon a throne, with steady flames beneath. she wears a corslet and buskins of scale-mail, which latter her robe discloses. her arms are almost bare. on cuirass and buskins are leopard's heads winged, and t

CHIREAU YVONNE BLACK MAGIC RELIGION AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CONJURING TRADITION

sactions, others were public functionaries and itinerant adepts. in new england, supernatural specialists accounted for almost half of all persons identified as "fortunetellers" according to an occupational census of professions taken beginning in the mid-1600s. some supernatural professionals acquired methods that suggest affinities between african and european styles. one specialist called long hercules was said to have performed miracles for citizens in eighteenthcentury savannah, georgia. hercules, who was known locally as "doctor hercules" was renowned for his "remarkable conjurations" of "pigs feet" and "rattlesnakes teeth" that he was said to have removed from the bodies of "several sick people" a contemporary of long hercules was negro sampson, a practitioner in south carolina who

CHYMICAL WEDDING OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ

r that, and commonly the most sorry idiots made the loudest noise. ah, when i call to mind what preternatural and impossible enterprises i then heard, i am still ready to vomit at it. in a word, they never kept in their order, but whenever one rascal here, another there, could insinuate himself in between the nobles, then they pretended to having finished such adventures as neither samson nor yet hercules with all their strength could ever have achieved: this one would discharge atlas of his burden; the other would again draw forth the threeheaded cerberus out of hell. in brief, every man had his own prate, and yet the greatest lords were so simple that they believed their pretences, and the rogues so audacious, that although one or other of them was here and there rapped over the fingers

DAVID ICKE CHILDREN OF THE MATRIX

or syrian, lykian, lydian, corinthian, ionian, cretan or "minoan, pelasgian, phrygian, cappadocian, cilician, theban, libyan, celto-lberian, gothic runes, etc, were all really local variations of the standard aryan hitto-sumerian writing of the aryan phoenician mariners, those ancient pioneer spreaders of the hittite civilisation along the shores of the mediterranean and out beyond the pillars of hercules [between spain and north africa] to the british isles."40 in truth, this was the nordic race and the nordic-reptilian "aryans" returning to the lands from which many of their ancestors came after the atlantean cataclysms. the evidence presented in this chapter, and this is a fraction of what exists even after thousands of years of suppression, supports waddell's conclusion that menes, man

worship? balder was symbolised as a bull or steer and became the "steer god" of israel or isra- el. he is referred to in the edda as the "steer of eden. balder is also called "the young hydra. in greek mythology, the hydra is a nine-headed serpent monster with poisonous breath and when one head was severed, two would grow in its place. it was killed in the second of the 12 labours of the sun god, hercules. the edda says that thor/ indara/adam called his cappadocian capital, himin or "heaven" and that balder("abel) of the serpent cult went to thor's banqueting hall in himin/heaven. there he began a riotous quarrel and insulted eve. with this, balder of the serpent cult was ejected by gunn or "cain" or miok (michael, the son of eve and adam. this is the origin, waddell says, of st michael ca

both protestant and catholic, thus clearly 206 children of th matrix showing that the christian religion is but a modification of oriental sun worship, attributed to zoroaster. the christians read the same letters 'ihs' in the greek text as 'jes' and the roman christian priesthood added the terminus 'us" here are some of the other pre-christian deities of whom the "jesus" story was told: apollo, hercules, and zeus of greece; adad and marduk of assyria; buddha sakia and indra of india and tibet; salivahana of southern india and bermuda; osiris and horus of egypt; odin, balder, and frey of scandinavia; crite of chaldea; zoroaster of persia; baal (bel) and taut of phoenicia; bali of afghanistan; jao of nepal; wittoba of bilingonese; xamolxis of thrace; zoar of the bonzes; chu chulainn of ire

DAVID ICKE THE BIGGEST SECRET

a mitreshaped like a fish head to symbolise nimrod. this is also the significance of hisfishermans ring. the chair of st peter in the v atican was claimed to be a holy relic, butin 1968 it was exposed by a scientific commission as being no older than the 9th centurymore significantly, according to the catholic encyclopaedia, is that it is decorated bytwelve plates portraying the twelve labours of hercules. this same work claims thathercules was another name for nimrod before becoming a deity of the greeks.9 in 1825,pope leo xii authorised the production of a jubilee medal and it depicted a woman in apose that was blatant symbolism of queen semiramis. she had a crucifix in her lefthand, a cup in her right and on her head was a seven rayed crown like the one on thestatue of liberty, another

ramaic or syrian, lykian, lydian,corinthian, lonian, cretan or minoan, pelasgian, phrygian, cappadocian, cilician,theban, libyan, celto-iberian, gothic runes etc, were all really local variations of thestandard aryan hitto-sumerian writing of the aryan phoenician mariners, those ancientpioneer spreaders of the hittite civilisation along the shores of the mediterranean and outbeyond the pillars of hercules to the british isles.39official history asks us to believe that the people of britain were savages who werecivilised only after the romans came. this is not true and in fact the romans said theopposite. roman records say that the britons were generally civilised and their customs70much the same as the gauls. of course they were. they were the same people with thesame origins. the britons

cus and others.jesus is the alpha and omega, the first and the last. so was khrishna, buddha, lao-kiun, bacchus, zeus and others. jesus is claimed to have performed miracles such ashealing the sick and raising people from the dead. so did khrishna, buddha, zoroaster,bochia, horus, osiris, serapis, marduk, bacchus, hermes and others. jesus was bornof royal blood. so was buddha, rama, fo-hi, horus, hercules, bacchus, perseus andothers. jesus was born to a virgin. so was khrishna, buddha, lao-kiun or tsze,confusius, horus, ra, zoroaster, prometheus, perseus, apollo, mercury, baldur,quetzalcoatl and far too many others to mention. jesus will, we are told, be bornagain. the sky is going to be rather crowded because khrishna, vishnu, buddha,quetzalcoatl and others, will also be there. the star a

ylon this wouldhave been queen semiramis and tammuz.93and it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until theninth hour. and the sun was darkened. luke 23-44,45the son/sun had died and so there was darkness. and look how many hours thislasted for: three. the same story of darkness at their death was told by the hindus ofkhrishna, the buddhists of buddha, the greeks of hercules, the mexicans ofquetzalcoatl, ad infinitum, long before jesus. when he died, jesus descended intohell, just like the earlier khrishna, zoroaster, osiris, horus, adonis/tammuz, bacchus,hercules, mercury and so on. he then rose from the dead like the earlier khrishna,buddha, zoroaster, adonis/tammuz, osiris, mithra, hercules and baldur. jesus wassymbolically crucified at easter because this

DION FORTUNE MYSTICAL QABALA

s come down to us concerning the rites by which the ancients worshipped their many gods soon reveals that the clear-cut myths so delightfully retold for children have little bearing on the actual religion of the folk who used them as the means of expression for spiritual teachings. the gods and goddesses melt one into the other in the most perplexing fashion, so that we get the bearded venus, and hercules, of all persons, arrayed in female clothes. 60. it is clear from a study of ancient art that the persons and characteristics of the various gods and goddesses were used as a form of picture-writing to indicate definite abstract ideas, of which the convention was well understood by the priesthood. having to deal with an illiterate population for the most part, for learning was limited to a

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 1

ught in answer to their cries of alarm when the specter opened the door, slid past the advancing domestics, and disappeared. alexander of tralles (ca. sixth century b.c.e) a physician born at tralles in asia minor, with a leaning toward medico-magical practice. he prescribed for his patients amulets and charmed words, as, for instance, when he stated in his practice of medicine that the figure of hercules strangling the nemean lion, graven on a stone and set in a ring, was an excellent cure for colic. he also claimed that charms and phylacteries were efficacious remedies for gout and fevers. alexander the paphlagonian (ca. second century c.e) the oracle of abonotica, an obscure paphlagonian town, who for nearly twenty years held absolute supremacy in the empirical art. born about the end o

d soon after published his songs of innocence, the letterpress enriched by his own designs. in addition, the whole volume was printed by the author himself by a new method of his own invention. blake lived on poland street for five years, during which time he achieved and issued the book of thel, the marriage of heaven and hell, and the first book of the french revolution. in 1792 he moved to the hercules buildings in lambeth, where dire poverty forced him to do much of his commercial work, notably a series of illustrations to young s night thoughts, yet he also found time for original drawing and writing, including the gates of paradise and songs of experience. eventually he tired of london, however, and moved to felpham, near bognor in sussex, taking a cottage close to where aubrey beard

ere credited with the first a use of minerals and with developing the notes of the musical scale, as well as with the discovery and use of the ephesian mines. they supposedly introduced fire into crete and musical instruments into greece. they were good runners and dancers and were skilled in science and learning. they were said by some to have been the magnetic powers and spirits, whose head was hercules. 371 sources: eliade, mircea. forgerons et alchimistes. flammarion, 1965. translated as the forge and the crucible. new york: harper& brothers, 1962. daemonologie a book by james vi, king of scotland (later james i of england. the king s books were greatly admired in his day, winning the praise of bacon, izaak walton, and numerous equally eminent men of letters. published in 1597, daemono

overcoat; five feet down they came upon the body. bedford was arrested at ellos, nebraska, and hanged in due course. miss loganson, in explanation, said that the spirit of her brother haunted her for seven days in dreams. lost objects are frequently found in dreams. in most cases subconscious memory sufficiently explains the mystery. there are, however, more complicated cases. according to legend hercules appeared in a dream to sophocles and indicated where a golden crown would be found. sophocles got the reward promised to the finder. supposedly the paranormal character of dreams is clearest in telepathic and prophetic dreams. they often produce an impression lasting for days. sweating and trembling are occasionally experienced on waking from a dream of this character. the dreams tend to

qualities, they can live for several centuries, yet they are much troubled because of their mortal nature. it was revealed to the philosophers, however, that an elementary spirit could attain immortality by marrying a human being. the children born of such unions are more noble and heroic than the children of human men and women, and some of the greatest figures of antiquity.zoroaster, alexander, hercules, and merlin, to mention a few.are declared to have been the children of elementary spirits. the salamanders, the comte de gabalis goes on to say, are composed of the most subtle particles of the sphere of fire, conglobated and organized by the action of the universal fire, so called because it is the principle of all the motions of nature. the sylphs are composed of the purest atoms of th

ompiled several treatises. because he practiced in montepellier, he has been confused with a painter named fabre who was born in montepellier and gave his name to the musee fabre in that town. there is no evidence that pierre jean fabre had any practical success in the field of alchemy, but he wrote numerous works dealing with that topic. of these the most important are alchimista christianus and hercules piochymicus, both published at toulouse, the first in 1632. in the latter he maintains that the mythological labors of hercules are allegories, embodying the arcana of hermetic philosophy. the philosophers stone, he declares complacently, may be found in all compounded circumstances and is formed of salt, mercury, and sulphur. faculty of astrological studies british astrological school. t

lling of water, or by the wind-moved clanging of brazen-bowls, two hollow columns standing side by side. the three priestesses or peliades (meaning doves) were given titles signifying the diviner of the future; the friend of man, virtue; and the virgin-ruler of man, chastity. for 2,000 years this oracle existed. it was consulted by those heroes of the ancient myths struggling in the toils of fate.hercules, achilles, ulysses and aeneas.down to the later vestiges of greek nationality. the oracle of trophonius was also of great renown. here there were numerous caverns filled with misty vapors and troubled by the noise of hidden waters far beneath. in this mysterious gloom the supplicants slept sometimes for nights and days, coming forth in a somnambulic state from which they were aroused and

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 2

y the power that accumulates for telekinetic phenomena is so great that astounding feats of strength are exhibited. at warsaw, in ochorowitz s experiments, a dynamometer marked a force three times as great as eusapia palladino s and in excess of that of the strongest man present. the medium of elizabeth d esperance recorded that during a seance in breslau the strongest man in silesia, a veritable hercules, vainly tried to prevent the movements of the table. zollner recorded this incident from a seance with henry slade: a violent crack was suddenly heard as in the discharging of a large battery of leyden jars. on turning, with some alarm, in the direction of the sound, the before-mentioned screen fell apart in two pieces. the wooden screws, half an inch thick, were torn from above and below

e gardens of jupiter, of alcinous, of the fortunate islands, and of the hesperides. these not only contain descriptions of the primeval paradise, but also include the traditions of the tree of knowledge and of the original promise made to the woman. the garden of the hesperides produced golden fruit, guarded by a dangerous serpent.this fierce reptile encircled with its folds a mysterious tree.and hercules procured the fruit by encountering and killing the serpent. the story of the constellation, as related by eratosthenes, is applicable to the garden of eden and the primeval history of mankind. this serpent, said that ancient writer, alluding to the constellation, is the same as that which guarded the golden apples, and was slain by hercules. for, when the gods offered presents to juno on

tion, is the same as that which guarded the golden apples, and was slain by hercules. for, when the gods offered presents to juno on her nuptials with jupiter, the earth also brought golden apples. juno, admiring their beauty, commanded them to be planted in the garden of the gods; but finding that they were continually plucked by the daughter of atlas, she appointed a vast serpent to guard them. hercules overcame and slew the monster. hence, in this constellation the serpent is depicted rearing its head aloft, while hercules, placed above it with one knee bent, tramples with his foot upon its head, and brandishes a club in his right hand. the greeks placed the garden of the hesperides close to mount atlas, and then claimed it was far into the regions of western africa, yet all knowledge o

y after his birth, his parents separated, and his mother raised him as john parsons. his friends and magical associates would know him as jack. during his teen years he developed an interest in rocketry and explosives, and carried out a number of amateur experiments. in 1932, while still in high school, he landed a job with encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. parsons, jack 1187 the hercules powder company. he graduated the following year and entered pasadena junior college and then spent two years at the university of southern california, though he never graduated. in 1935 he married helen northrup and shortly thereafter left school to take a job at the california institute of technology, even though he lacked the formal training that such a job usually required. he took the

me forth as dreams to the souls of men. pliny the elder stated in this matter: trees have a soul since nothing on earth lives without one. they are the temples of spirits and the simple countryside dedicates still a noble tree to some god. the various kinds of trees are sacred to their protecting spirits: the oak to jupiter, the laurel to apollo, olive to minerva, myrtle to venus, white poplar to hercules. these trees therefore partook of the nature of their presiding spirits and it was desirable to bring about communion with their magical influence, as in the spring, when laurel boughs were hung at the doors of the flamens and pontiffs, and in the temple of vesta, where they remained hanging until the following year. trees and their leaves were also possessed of healing and purifying valu

EXTRAORDINARY ENCOUNTERS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS AND OTHERWORLDY BEINGS

f various kinds, critias, a historian and plato s great-grandfather, tells of a story that he ascribes to his grandfather, who heard it from his father. around 600 b.c, while traveling in europe, solon (a historical figure remembered for his legal and poetic genius) learned of a great civilization that existed nine thousand years earlier. it was located in the atlantic ocean beyond the pillars of hercules (the present-day straits of gibraltar) on an island larger than north africa and asia combined. according to solon s informant, an egyptian priest, atlantis had grown arrogant and warlike. it ruled many other islands and parts of what is now europe. but when it attacked athens and other greek city-states, those communities joined forces to repel the invaders and drive them back to atlanti

FAUST

me when i see all these; great are the figures, great the memories. mephistopheles in former times such creatures you d have scouted which now it seems that you approve; aye, when one seeks his lady-love, monsters themselves are welcome and not flouted. faust [to the sphinxes] ye forms like women, answer me and say: has anyone of you seen helena? sphinxes we did not last till helena s generation; hercules slew the last ones of our nation. from chiron you might get the information. this ghostly night he s galloping around; if he will stop for you, you ve gained much ground. sirens. with us too thou wouldst not miss it. when ulysses, with us whiling, sped not past us, unreviling, much he told made bright his visit; all his tales we d tell to thee if thou camest to renew thee to our meadows b

ved their hardihood. reflective, strong and shrewd, in council wise, thus jason ruled, a joy to women s eyes. then orpheus, gentle, still, and contemplating, but, when he smote the lyre, all subjugating; keensighted lynceus who by day and dark past reef and shallow steered the sacred bark. danger is tested best by banded brothers: when one achieves, then praise him all the others. faust i beg, of hercules i would be learning! chiron. oh, woe! awaken not my yearning. phoebus i ne er had seen, nor yet seen ares, hermes, as they re called, in fine, when my enraptured vision met a form that all men call divine. a king by birth as was no other, a youth most glorious to view, a subject to his elder brother and to the loveliest women too. his like will gaea bring forth never nor hebe lead to heav

FRANCIS A YATES GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION

must purify ourselves and make ourselves beautiful. we must place ourselves, i say, first in the intellectual heaven which is within us, and then in this sensible and corporeal heaven which presents itself to our eyes. let us remove from the heaven of our minds the bear of deformity, the arrow of detraction, the horse of levity, the dog of murmuring, the little dog of flattery. let us banish the hercules of violence, the lyre of conspiracy, the triangle of impiety, the bootes of inconstancy, the cepheus of cruelty. may the dragon of envy be far from us, and the swan of imprudence, the cassiopeia of vanity, the andromeda of laziness, the perseus of vain anxiety. let us chase away the ophiuchus of evil-speaking, the eagle of arrogance, the dolphin of lust, the horse of impatience, the hydra

s old, and he is in a mood of penitence. casting his eye around the heavens he perceives that the images of the forty-eight constellations are either in the ugly forms of animals, like that great deformed bear, the ursa major, or like aries and taurus and other animal forms of the zodiac, or their images recall shameful actions of the gods, like the lyre which reminds of the thefts of mercury, or hercules and perseus, who are his own bastards. the assembled gods in their conclave are therefore to consider each in turn the images of the constellations, beginning with the bear and the other northern constellations, passing along the twelve signs of the zodiac, and concluding with a survey of the southern constellations.2 jupiter had perhaps provided each member of the celestial board with a

als, colleges are lamented almost in the tones of the lament of the asclepius. bruno's quarrel with the "oxford pedants, found less satisfactory than earlier barbarous friars, takes on a new meaning in this context, and george abbot's inclusion of him in his anti- catholic propaganda becomes quite understandable. the argument on law continues under the next two constellations, corona borealis and hercules. the crown is to be given to the prince who will crush the pernicious pedants who decry good works,1 and hercules, though his image is banished from heaven because it recalls jupiter's fault, will go down to earth to do new good works.2 when the constellation cassiopeia comes under review, before the other gods have had time to determine anything about her, mars jumps up and demands furio

tly live "although i cannot see your soul, he makes an english admirer say of him "from the ray which it diffuses i perceive that within you is a sun or perhaps some even greater luminary."3 when he was an infant in nola, a huge serpent of very ancient appearance came out of an aperture in the wall of the house/ serpents in the cradle are a sign of a heroic destiny, as we know from the history of hercules. there is little doubt that bruno thought of himself as a messiah, an illusion not uncommon in the renaissance. a remarkable example is the case of the man who called himself "mercurius" and who thought that he was a kind of christ.5 the divinising hermetic experience, thought to be transmitted in a miraculous way, like the way in which christ transmitted experience to the apostles, is de

strong. for it was the descendant of the magi of the renaissance who stood for the dignity of man in the sense of liberty, toleration, the right of man to stand up in any country and say what he thought, disregarding all ideological barriers. and bruno, the magus, stood for love, as against what the pedants, of both sides, had made of christianity, the religion of love. for valour, is not love a hercules, still climbing trees in the hesperides? subtle as sphinx, as sweet and musical as bright apollo's lute, strung with his hair; and, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven drowsy with the harmony' these images in praise of love are uttered by giordano bruno's namesake, berowne, in shakespeare's love's labour's lost. a long line of writers, amongst them myself, have argued

GAMBLE ELIZA BURT THE GOD IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS OR SEX IN RELIGION

usand years, have become changed or greatly modified. during a certain stage in human history "all great women and mythical ladies were serpents; but when monumentally or pictorially represented, they appeared "with the head of a woman, while the body was that of a reptile" this figure represented wisdom and passion, or the spiritual and material planes of human existence. the mythical woman whom hercules met in scythia, and who was doubtless the original eponymous leader of the scythian people, had the head of a woman and the body of a serpent.[73] even the mexicans declare that "he, the serpent, is the sun, tonakatl-koatl, who ever accompanies their first woman" their primitive mother, they said, was kihua-kohuatl, which signifies a serpent. in referring to this mexican tradition, forlon

d forty feet high" we are assured by forlong that solomon's temple was like hundreds observed in the east, except that its walls were a little higher than those usually seen, and the phallic spire out of proportion to the size of the structure "the jewish porch is but the obelisk which the egyptian placed beside his temple; the boodhist pillars which stood all around their dagobas; the pillars of hercules, which stood near the phoenician temple; and the spire which stands beside the christian church"[104 [104] forlong, rivers of life, vol. i, p. 219. the rites and ceremonies observed in the worship of baal-peor are not of a character to be described in these pages: it is perhaps sufficient to state that by them the fact is clearly established that profligacy, regulated and controlled by th

f the soul and of future rewards and punishments. the analogy existing between the festivals, seasons, mythoses, etc, of the various incarnations of the sun which were worshipped by the early historic nations and those belonging to christianity is too striking to be the result of chance. buddha originally represented the sun in taurus. crishna was the sun in aries. the laborings and sufferings of hercules, a god who was an incarnation of the latter, portrays the history of the passage of the sun through the signs of the zodiac. all the principal events of christ's life correspond to certain solar phases; or, in other words, all ecclesiastical calendars are arranged with reference to the festivals which commemorate the important events of his life from his conception and birth to his ascens

m edem upon moses, as also upon all men, observed the precepts of baruch, and caused his own peculiar injunctions to be hearkened unto. again, after these occurrences baruch, the angel of the good one, was sent to the prophets to warn them against the wiles of edem, but in the same manner nass, the devil, enticed them away, they being allured by him to their own destruction. again elohim selected hercules, an uncircumcised prophet, and sent him to quell the disturbance caused by naas or edem and to release the father from their power "these are the twelve conflicts of hercules which he underwent, in order, from first to last, viz: lion, and hydra, and boar, and the others successively. for they say that these are the names of them among the gentiles, and they have been derived, with altere

flicts of hercules which he underwent, in order, from first to last, viz: lion, and hydra, and boar, and the others successively. for they say that these are the names of them among the gentiles, and they have been derived, with altered denomination, from the energy of the maternal angels. when he seemed to have vanquished his antagonists, omphale (now she is venus) clings to him and entices away hercules, and divests him of his power, viz: the commands of baruch which elohim issued. and in place of this power babel, or venus, envelops him in her own peculiar robe, that is, in the power of edem, who is the power below; and in this way the prophecy of hercules remained unfulfilled and his work" as men were still bound by the power of edem, or the devil, in the days of herod the king, baruch

hat among the buddhists, to whom belongs the first book of genesis, no bloody sacrifices were ever offered. it was doubtless under the worship of muth, neith, or minerva, the first emanation from the deity and the original buddha, that the first book of genesis or wisdom was written. in this book may be observed the fact that the slaughter of animals is forbidden. it is thought that with crishna, hercules, and the worshippers of the sun in aries, the sacrifice of human beings and animals began. in the second book of genesis, which is said to be a brahmin work, animals are first used for sacrifice, and in the third book, or the book of generations or re-generations of the race of man or the adam, which was written after the pure doctrines connected with the worship of wisdom had been corrup

GILBERT THE GOLDEN DAWN TWILIGHT OF THE MAGICIANS

as vaughan'seup255hrates,annotatedthe hermeticartandwroteegyptianmagic.theintroduction tothehermeticartcontains this sketch of the true alchemist:wisdomi can holdout no hope of success tothose whostill retainan absorbing interest in the world.inthe world adepts may be, but notofit.alchemyis a jealous mistress, she demands frompupils no less than life;for her sake youmust performthetwelvelaboursof hercules;for her you must descend into hell, for her sakeyou must ascend into heaven. you must have strength and patience, nothing must terrify you,thejoysof nirvana mustnot temptyou;havingchosenyourwork,youmust to this end purify yourselffrom perishabledesires, and bring downthe light of the shining ones, thatitmayradiate upon you here on earth. this is the work of thealchemist.8herown life hardl

GILBERT THE MAGICAL MASON

oa recent spiritual development 293incarnation, forming a personal human individual.itis impossible to go now into any further hints upon these obscure matters,buti may say that the new theory names the earliest stage lemuria (the hindoo name would confer no meaning to us, then acknowledges the atlantic continent, and that the lastpartto disappear was a great atlantic island beyond the pillars of hercules, that is, outside gibraltar;itsank beneath the ocean some 6,000 years before egyptian history begins: this great submergence gave rise to the widespread primary form of the legend of the flood. streams of survivors from this deluge, led by adepts, settled in egypt and passed to central asia, forming the sources of the great ancient nations which have flourished since the deluge. the first

GILBERT THE SORCERER AND HIS APPRENTICE

mystic rose of the. primary colours. the deuce of pentacles is bound together by a continuous band in such a manner as to form a figure 8, and represents the one as being the reflection of theother,asthe universe is thatofthe divine idea. the four aces stand out by themselves from the restofthepack, each forming, as it were, the key of its respective suit. the ace of sceptres recalls the club of -hercules;itis surrounded by eight detached leaves,whose shape recalls that of the hebrew letter yod, ori,and is crowned with the symbol of the triad represented by the three lopped branches; itisthesymbol of almighty strength within the cube of the universe, which latter is shown by the eightle bateleur..thejuggler or magician. alephlap th e high priestess, orfemale b thapesse..p e ope. l'imperatr

GNOSTIC HANDBOOK

life the aim of life is to offer man a chance to gain salvation, to enter the path of transfiguration. since time immemorial the pleroma has outlined an escape route, a path by which man may awaken the true self and grasp the gift of immortality. and immortality is a gift, in all mythologies we find a quest for immortality, a trial that leads to a reward of life eternal. in the twelve labours of hercules we have a series of initiations which lead to eternal life, while in the quest for the golden fleece (of immortality) we have jason overcoming immense odds to grasp it. the divine will offers man many chances to gain immortality and these chances take place in many lives. reincarnation within gnostic thought is not the same as it is within eastern philosophy. reincarnation occurs within a

GNOSTIC STUDIES THE GNOSTIC HANDBOOK II GNOSTIC THEURGY

nues eternally and that everyone is at some point reconciled. this is a strange and unusual adaptation of the theory, and not one found in any of the earlier esoteric traditions. the whole gist of reincarnation in earlier esotericism is that it is a weeding process whereby the awakened achieve immortality and the rest cease to exist. this approach abounds in myth and legend- the twelve labours of hercules, the search for the holy grail, the quest for the golden fleece- all are focused on a tribulation to achieve a goal, with a real sense of ruin if one looses. what is the use of a divine quest if everyone achieves the same end with some simply taking more time than others. no, reincarnation is a process of opportunities, opportunities that if missed, have dire consequences. reincarnation d

GRAHAM HANCOCK FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

settled in this steamy rubber jungle the ones who had provided the models for the great negro heads? some radical researchers, who rejected the dogma concerning the isolation of the new world prior to 1492, had proposed what looked like a viable solution to the problem: the bearded, thin-featured individuals could have been phoenicians from the mediterranean who had sailed through the pillars of hercules and across the atlantic ocean as early as the second millennium bc. advocates of this theory went on to suggest that the negroes shown at the same sites were the slaves of the phoenicians, picked up on the coast of west africa prior to the trans- atlantic run.2 the more consideration i gave to the strange character of the la venta sculptures, the more dissatisfied i became with these idea

GRIMM TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 2 1883 COMPLETE

word. it may have been vivider or fainter in this place or that: thus, the on. hunar is never convertible with iotnar and]?ursar. i will not touch upon the root here (conf. p. 529 note, but only remark that one eddie name for the bear is hunn, sn. 179. 222a and ace. to biorn mn and liunbiorn= catulus ursinus (see suppl. one as. term for giant is ent, pi. entas: alfred in his orosius p. 48 renders hercules gigas by ercol se ent. the poets like to use the word, where ancient buildings and works are spoken of: enta geweorc, enta rergeweorc (early work of giants, eald entegeweoro/ beow. 3356. 5431. 5554. cod. exon. 291, 24. 476, 2. so the adj: entischelm, beow. 5955; lipsius s glosses also give eintisc avitus, what dates from the giants days of yore. our ohg. entisc antiquus does not agree wit

, that altissima, universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia (p. 115-7, is likewise nearly allied to the world-tree yggdrasil. as this extended its roots and boughs in three directions (standa a]?ria vega, so did three or four great highways branch out from the irminsul (pp. 356. 361; and the farther we explore, the richer in results will the connexion of these heathen ideas prove. the pillars of hercules (p. 364, of bavo in hainault, and the thor and roland pillars (p. 394) may have had no other purpose than to mark out from them as centre the celestial and terrestrial direction of the regions of the world; and the sacred yggdrasil 1 also in the east, conf. jelaleddin s divan in hammer s pers. redek. p. 183. 2 first publ. in boissonade s anecd. graeca, torn. 4, paris 1882, pp. 1365. 3 his

ISIS UNVEILED

dly not from the jewish scriptures, and we appeal for corroboration to any well-informed hebrew scholar. he only suggestion of something approaching hell in the bible is gehenna or hinnom, a valley near jerusalem, where was situated tophet, a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary purposes. the prophet jeremiah informs us that the israehtes used to sacrifice their children to moloch-hercules on that spot; and later we find christians quietly replacing this divinity by their god of mercy whose wrath will not be appeased, unless the church sacrifices to him her unbaptized children and sinning sons on the altar of 'eternal danmation! whence then did the divines learn so well the conditions of hdl, as 16. ckipt. dc, il p. 233. 17. mallet: northern antiquttitt, p. ms. digitizecoy

hers served to have been affixed to the chaii at a time wben the remains of antiquity were employed mt ornaments, without much regard to stness" this is the poiat. the artide was written simply as a dever answer to several facts published during the present cen- tury. bower, in his history of ike fopa (u, p. 7, narrates that in the yrai 1662, while cleaning one of the chairs "the 'twdve labors of hercules' unluckily appeared en- gnved upon it" after which the chair was removed and another substituted. but in it^s when bonaparte's troops occupied home, the chair was again examined. this time there was found the mohammedan confessioii of faith, in arabic letters "there is no deity but allah, and mohammed is his apostle (see appendix to ancient sym- mic worihip. by h. m. weatropp and c. stani

hich, among other meanings, by the rites of the resurrection of osiris, adonis, bac- chus, and other slaughtered sun-gods, symbolized the resurrection of all nature in spring, the germination of seeds that bad been dead and sleep- ing during winter, and so were allegorically said to be kept in the under- world (hades. they are typified by the three days passed in hell before their resurrection by hercules, christos and others. this derivation, or rather h^ety, as it is called in christianity, is simply the br&hmanic doctrine in all its archaic purity. vishnu, the second personage of the hindq trinity, is also the logos, for he is made subsequently to incarnate himself in krishna. and lakhmi (or lakskmi) who, as in the case of osiris and isis, of ain-soph and sephira, and of bythos and enno

ater ones. in bishop horsley's edition of sir isaac newton's works* several manuscripts on theological subjects were cautiously withheld from publication. the article known as christ's descent into bell, which is found in the later apostles' creed, is not to be found in the manu- scripts of ther the fourth or sixth centuries. it was an evident interpo- lation copied from the tables of bacchus and hercules, and forced upon christendom as an article of faith. couceming it the author of the preface to the catalogue of hie manuscripts of the king's library (preface, p. xxiv) remarks "i wish that the insertion of the article of christ's descent vtio bsu into the apostles' creed could be as well accounted for as the insertion of the said verse" viz, 1 john, v, 7" now this verse reads "for there

stines (j8 samuet, brought thence the name of jehovah. he made zadok high-priest, from whom came the zadokites or sadducees. he kved and ruled first at hebron iton 'habir-on or kabir-town, where the rites mystery-gods) were celebrated. neither david dor solomon recognised either moses or the law of moses. they aspired to build a temple to nin, like the structures erected by hiram to hercules and venus, adon and astarte. says furst "the very ancient name of god, yaho, written in the greek jaa, appears, apart from ii derwation, to have been an old mystic name of the supreme deity of the shemites [hence it was told to moses when initiated at hor-eb the cave, under the direction of jethro, the kenite or cainite priest of midian] in an old religion of the chal- daeans, whose remai

JENNINGS HARGRAVE ROSICRUCIANS RITES MYSTERIES

nicolai there is an account of a gnostic gem, or talisman, which represents a cynocephalus, with a lunar disc on his head, standing in the act of adoration, with sceptrum displayed, before a column engraved with letters, and supporting a triangle. this latter architectural figure is, in fact, an obelisk. all the egyptian, obelisks were phalli. the triangle symbolises one of the pillars of hermes (hercules. the cynocephalus was sacred to him. the pillars of hermes have been judaiscd into solomon's jachin and boaz. so says herz, in regard to masonic insignia. we will explain fully, later in our book, of these interesting sexual images, set up for adoration so strangely; and from the meaning of which we foolishly but determinedly avert. we now propose to deduce a very original and a very elab

rious and awing, yet cogent, and not to be of philosophy (that is, illumination) denied. the death and descent of balder into the hell of the scandinavians may be supposed to be the purgatory of the human unit (or the god-illuminate, from the light (through the god-dark phases of being, back into its native light. balder was the scandinavian sun-god, and the same as the egyptian osiris, the greek hercules, bacchus, and phoebus, or apollo, the indian crishna, the persian mithras, the aten of the empires of insular asia; or, even of the sidonians, the athyr or ashtaroth. the presences of all these divinities indeed, of all gods were of the semblance of fire; and we recognise, as it were, the mark of the foot of them, or of the impersonated fire, in the countless uprights, left, as memorials

ngular, solitary, wonderful pillars and monuments of egypt, as of other lands, are, as it were, only tombstones of the fire! all testify to the great, so darkly hinted secret. in troy was the image of pallas, the myth of knowledge, of the world, of manifestation, of the fire-soul. in athens was pallas- athene, or minerva. in the greek cities, the form of the deity changed variously to bacchus, to hercules, to phoebus- apollo; to the tri-formed minerva, dian, and hecate; to the dusky ceres, or the darker cybele. in the wilds of sarmathia, in the wastes of northern asia, the luminous rays descended from heaven, and, animating the lama, or light-born spoke the same story. the flames of the greeks, the towers of the phoenicians, the emblems of the pelasgi; the story of prometheus, and the myth

rial: the absolute doctrine of the bhudds, taught, even at this day, among the initiate all over the east. thus we see how classic practice and heathen teaching may be made to reconcile, how even the gentile and hebrew, the mythological and the (so-called) christian, doctrine harmonise in the general faith founded in magic. that magic is indeed possible is the moral of our book. we have seen that hercules was the myth of the electric principle. his pillars (calpe and abyla) are the dual upon which may be supposed to rest a world. they stood in the days when giants might really be imagined, indeed, they almost look as impressive of it now, the twin prodigious monoliths, similar in purpose to the artificial pyramids. they must have struck the astonished and awed discoverers gaze, navigating

type of the father is fire; of the word, light; and of the holy ghost, spirit, or air in motion. this material trinity, as a type, is similar to the material trinity of plato; as a type, it is used to conceal the secret trinity. see anacalypsis, vol. i. p. 627. holy fires, which were never suffered to die, were maintained in all the temples: of these were the fires in the temple of the gaditanean hercules at tyre, in the temple of vesta at rome, among the brachmans of india, among the jews, and principally among the persians. now to prove that all appearances are born of fire, so to speak, according to the ideas of the rosicrucians. light is not radiated from any intensely heated gas or fluid. if nitre is melted, it will not be visible; but throw into it any solid body, and as soon as that

ng the two original principles water and fire, as thus (b) the union of which, as intersecting triangles, forms the famous hexalpha, or solomon s seal, or wizard s foot, which, according to the eastern allegory, is placed (as that of st. michael) upon the rebellious spirits in their abyss, or prison. pyr is the greek name of fire (thence pyramid, and mythologically of the sun, who was the same as hercules. 156 the rosicrucians. and the great analyser of mythology assures us that pur was the ancient name of latian jupiter, the father of hercules; that he was the deity of fire; that his name was particularly retained amongst the people of prasneste, who had been addicted to the rites of fire. fire, in short, in these mythologies, as also in all the christian churches, meets us at every turn

tus, in adoration of the yoni, or hwj, or havah. the druidical circles, and single stones standing in solitary places, are all connected with the mystic speculations of the rosicrucians. fig. 58. figures on the egyptian sarcophagus in the british museum. fig. 59. the eminences, st. michael's mount and mont st- michel, were dedicated by the phoenicians to the sun-god fig. 57. 212 the rosicrucians (hercules, as the hydra or dragon-slayer. these mounts in the channel are secondary hercules pillars, similar to calpe and abyla. figs. 60, 61. heads of ships: a. fiddle-head; b, c, d. gondola; e. ceres reaping-hook, also saturn; f. blade and fasces; g. beak of galley; h. glaive; i. prow of grecian galley. the architectural genealogy of the tower or steeple displays other phases of the alterations

yle. the steeples of the churches, the figures of which we give on p. 218, indicate the fig. 68. fig. 69. england: st. michael s mount, mount s bay, cornwall. dragon, horns, or fires (moloch or baal) british channel, dragonmouth (galilee from the west) france normandy: mont st.-michel( montjoie! montjoy! old battlecry of the gauls) dragon, horns, or fires (moloch or baal) st. michael, or the sun (hercules. fig. 71. round tower, devenish, ireland. fig. 70. round tower, ireland. gradual growth, and expansion of the romantic or pointed architecture, which is generally called gothic; and they round towers and obelisks. 215 prove how the upright, or original phallic form, was adopted and gradually mingled in christian architecture,-in reality at last becoming its dominant feature. fig. 96 repre

KASAK VEEDE UNDERSTANDING PLANETS IN ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA

m.sag.u, mul2genna and dnin-urta, which was earlier read as dnin.ib (g69. genna consists of two symbols (ge/inna, which could also be read as tur.di (or tur.ti. 27 mars of all the names of mars, at first glance two gods strike the eye at once: nergal and gibil. nergal was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) of the gods of underworld, whose cult disappeared only when it melt into the cult of hercules in the hellenistic period. nergal, whose portfolio also included some fertility functions, also occurred widely in mythology and absorbed in time many smaller gods. it is interesting that mars is not referred to by nergal fs most widespread designations dgir3.unu.gal and du.gar, although in some later texts we can find dnergal. his name does not seem to be originally sumerian: babylonian

LEWIS JAMES SATANISM TODAY AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION FOLKLORE AND POPULAR CULTURE

a, he was described as having three heads (though hesiod attributes him with fifty heads, a snake s tail, and a row of snake s heads sprouting from his neck. he greeted the newly dead with eagerness, but ate anyone who tried to escape. cerberus was said to have been charmed by orpheus, who was the only mortal he willingly allowed to enter hades. in another story he was defeated in a struggle with hercules, who forced him to come with him to the surface world (this was the twelfth labor of hercules. it was also said that anyone who chanced to look at cerberus turned to stone, and that, upon falling to the ground, the animal s spittle would give birth to the poisonous aconite plant. both cerberus and charon, the ferryman of the underworld, are threshold guardians, a type of mythological figu

LIBER 777

LIBER CORDIS CINCTI SERPENTE

LIBER LXXVIII

he princes may be called emperors without harm. remember only that the horsed figures refer to the yod of tetragrammaton, the charioted figures to the vau. a description of the cards of the taro 13 if ill dignified, he is evil-minded.cruel.bigoted.brutal. he rules the celestial heavens from above the twentieth degree of h to the first two decans of i: and this includes a part of the constellation hercules (hercules is always represented with a club) b of b king of the salamanders. vi the queen of the thrones of flame queen of wands a crowned queen with long red-golden hair, seated upon a throne, with steady flames beneath. she wears a corslet and buskins of scale-mail, which latter her robe discloses. her arms are almost bare. on cuirass and buskins are leopard's heads winged, and the same

LINDOW JOHN NORSE MYTHOLOGY A GUIDE TO THE GODS HEROES RITUALS AND BELIEFS

atio romana groman interpretation, h that is, translations of the germanic gods into the roman equivalents. although caesar has something to say about the germanic gods, this notion refers especially to tacitus, germania, chapter 9, in which tacitus attempts a discussion of gods, cult, and divination. mercury, he says, receives the greatest worship, even human sacrifice. animals are sacrificed to hercules and mars, and a portion of the suebi sacrifice to isis (an egyptian goddess who was known to the romans, in what tacitus regards as a ritual of foreign origin because of the use of a ship. in the interpretatio germanica, we know the latin weekday names that were being translated, but here we are on less-certain ground. indeed, we cannot know the extent to which the interpretatio romana re

ke guesses about the forms of the myths that might have attended the germanic gods, but the enterprise is difficult. still, when we bring into the picture the interpretatio germanica, which presumably occurred a few centuries after tacitus wrote, the presumed correspondences become fairly clear. in the interpretatio germanica odin is the equivalent of mercury, and ty lr is the equivalent of mars. hercules is not used in the interpretatio, but we must believe that thor was one of the principal deities of the germanic peoples, and, like thor, hercules was a renowned slayer of monsters. thus, tacitus tells us about just three gods, the same three who were pressed into service when the days of the week were translated. tacitus also tells us about one goddess, whom he calls isis, and in the int

MANLY P HALL THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

h to heaven, and from heaven to earth" the so-called chair of st. peter, in rome, was believed to have been used in one of the pagan mysteries, possibly that of mithras, in whose subterranean grottoes the votaries of the christian mysteries met in the early days of their faith. in anacalypsis, godfrey higgins writes that in 1662, while cleaning this sacred chair of bar-jonas, the twelve labors of hercules were discovered upon it, and that later the french discovered upon the same chair the mohammedan confession of faith, written in arabic. initiation into the rites of mithras, like initiation into many other ancient schools of philosophy, apparently consisted of three important degrees. preparation for these degrees consisted of selfpurification, the building up of the intellectual powers

urning to the study of atlantis. how many naturalists, geologists, zoologists, or botanists are asking one another today whether plato has not transmitted to us, with slight amplification, a page from the actual history of mankind. no affirmation is yet permissible; but it seems more and more evident that a vast region, continental or made up of great islands, has collapsed west of the pillars of hercules, otherwise called the strait of gibraltar, and that its collapse occurred in the not far distant past. in any event, the question of atlantis is placed anew before men of science; and since i do not believe that it can ever be solved without the aid of oceanography, i have thought it natural to discuss it here, in this temple of maritime science, and to call to such a problem, long scorne

d in human nature (see atlantis) the same author sustains his views by noting that the deities of the greek pantheon were nor looked upon as creators of the universe but rather as regents set over it by its more ancient original fabricators. the garden of eden from which humanity was driven by a flaming sword is perhaps an allusion to the earthly paradise supposedly located west of the pillars of hercules and destroyed by volcanic cataclysms. the deluge legend may be traced also to the atlantean inundation, during which a "world" was destroyed by water, was the religious, philosophic, and scientific knowledge possessed by the priestcrafts of antiquity secured from atlantis, whose submergence obliterated every vestige of its part in the drama of world progress? atlantean sun worship has bee

makes the following statement "the sun, as he pursued his way among these 'living creatures' of the zodiac, was said, in allegorical language, either to assume the nature of or to triumph over the sign he entered. the sun thus became a bull in taurus, and was worshipped as such by the egyptians under the name of apis, and by the assyrians as bel, baal, or bul. in leo the sun became a lion-slayer, hercules, and an archer in sagittarius. in pisces, the fishes, he was a fish--dagon, or vishnu, the fish-god of the philistines and hindoos" a careful analysis of the religious systems of pagandom uncovers much evidence of the fact that its priests served the solar energy and that their supreme deity was in every case this divine light personified. godfrey higgins, after thirty years of inquiry in

emblem or shekinah of that higher principle, known by the name of the creative being or god" the egyptian priests in many of their ceremonies wore the skins of lions, which were symbols of the solar orb, owing to the fact that the sun is exalted, dignified, and most fortunately placed in the constellation of leo, which he rules and which was at one time the keystone of the celestial arch. again, hercules is the solar deity, for as this mighty hunter performed his twelve labors, so the sun, in traversing the twelve houses of the zodiacal band, performs during his pilgrimage twelve essential and benevolent labors for the human race and for nature in general, hercules, like the egyptian priests, wore the skin of a lion for a girdle. samson, the hebrew hero, as his click to enlarge the lion o

globe surrounded by emanating rays. all the kingdoms of earth were but copies of the kingdoms of heaven, and the kingdoms of heaven were best symbolized by the solar kingdom, in which the sun was the supreme ruler, the planets his privy council, and all nature the subjects of his empire. many deities have been associated with the sun. the greeks believed that apollo, bacchus, dionysos, sabazius, hercules, jason, ulysses, zeus, uranus, and vulcan partook of either the visible or invisible attributes of the sun. the norwegians regarded balder the beautiful as a solar deity, and odin is often connected with the celestial orb, especially because of his one eye. among the egyptians, osiris, ra, anubis, hermes, and even the mysterious ammon himself had points of resemblance with the solar disc

er of daffodil, the leaves of mallows, and a paste of barley and peas. these he compounded together with the addition of wild honey. for a beverage he took the seeds of cucumbers, dried raisins (with seeds removed, the flowers of coriander, the seeds of mallows and purslane, scraped cheese, meal, and cream, mixed together and sweetened with wild honey. pythagoras claimed that this was the diet of hercules while wandering in the libyan desert and was according to the formula given to that hero by the goddess ceres herself. the favorite method of healing among the pythagoreans was by the aid of poultices. these people also knew the magic properties of vast numbers of plants. pythagoras highly esteemed the medicinal properties of the sea onion, and he is said to have written an entire volume

36, consisting of the first four odd numbers added to the first four even numbers, thus: 1+ 3 +5 +7= 16 2+ 4+ 6+ 8= 20 36 keywords given to the tetrad are impetuosity, strength, virility, two-mothered, and the key keeper of nature, because the universal constitution cannot be without it. it is also called harmony and the first profundity. the following deities partook of the nature of the tetrad: hercules, mercury, vulcan, bacchus, and urania (one of the muses. the triad represents the primary colors and the major planets, while the tetrad represents the secondary colors and the minor planets. from the first triangle come forth the seven spirits, symbolized by a triangle and a square. these together form the masonic apron. the pentad--5--is the union of an odd and an even number (3 and 2

god-men of nearly every pagan mystery ritual are personifications of the spirit fire in the human spinal cord. the astronomical aspect of the hiramic legend must not be overlooked. the tragedy of chiram is enacted annually by the sun during its passage through the signs of the zodiac "from the journey of the sun through the twelve signs" writes albert pike "come the legend of the twelve labors of hercules, and the incarnations of vishnu and buddha. hence came the legend of the murder of khurum, representative of the sun, by the three fellow-crafts, symbols of the winter signs, capricornus, aquarius, and pisces, who assailed him at the three gates of heaven and slew him at the winter solstice. hence the search for him by the nine fellow-crafts, the other nine signs, his finding, burial, and

on the animal was chosen as a symbol of vigilance. the figure of a lion placed on either side of doors and gateways is an emblem of divine guardianship. king solomon was often symbolized as a lion. for ages the feline family has been regarded with peculiar veneration. in several of the mysteries--most notably the egyptian--the priests wore the skins of lions, tigers, panthers, pumas, or leopards. hercules and samson (both solar symbols) slew the lion of the constellation of leo and robed themselves in his skin, thus signifying that they represented the sun itself when at the summit of the celestial arch. at bubastis in egypt was the temple of the famous goddess bast, the cat deity of the ptolemies. the egyptians paid homage to the cat, especially when its fur was of three shades or its eye

MEANING OF MASONRY

dreams the will is not functioning as a consciously directive instrument as is hypothetically the case with one who, having attained mastership, has all his faculties under volition and control. yet all this interior work, so rapidly summarized and symbolically enacted in the ceremony, is not the work of a day nor the casual task of a weakling. the ancients referred to it as the twelve labours of hercules, whilst its arduousness is further graphically described by the initiate poet virgil in the sixth aneid and by more recent illuminates. nor, even when its nature is fully apprehended, is it a work to be lightly undertaken. throughout the ceremony the utmost humility is enjoined upon the candidate as the e ssential qualification for entering upon this process of self-exploration he is bidd

MICHAEL TSARION ATLANTIS ALIEN VISITATION AND GENETIC MANIPULATION

he tree of the east and the treeof the west? what are the two seraphim who guard the ark of the covenant? what arethe gates of v alhalla? why are there twin columns at the portals of illustrious edifices?what do the swastika, the double-headed eagle, the masonic double cube, the double-barred cross of lorraine, the two knights templars riding one horse, really signify?what are the real pillars of hercules that guarded the way to atlantis?atlantis, alien visitation, and genetic manipulation49 chapter 7records of blood and stoneof central importance to the proof of the war between the gods is the purely scientificaccounts of the devastation that affected the earths flora and fauna: what then has exterminated so many species and whole genera? the mind is at first irresist-ibly hurried into th

riptorium where is kept the greatest gnosis. when will the occi-dental scholar realize that the real academy, the real lyceum, the real library of alex-andria, the real chambers of thoth, hermes, or merlin are not under a rock in someremote wilderness waiting to be discovered by a wanna-be indiana jones. they are inthe house of bone, the temple of the nine gatesthe human body. the famed pillarsof hercules guarding the way to atlantis are not of stone. they are the arms ofadam-kad-amon. they are the serpentine strands of dna.the legacy of the atlanteans is only partly resolved in the physical domain. as saidabove, no external presence or force will intervene to directly prevent our total annihi-lation. our predicament (the nephilim visitation and the quarantine situation, etc) hasits origin

MORALS AND DOGMA

ses the light. moreover, factions are blind men, who aim straight, errors are excellent projectiles, striking skillfully, and with all the violence that springs from false reasoning, wherever a want of logic in those who defend the right, like a defect in a cuirass, makes them vulnerable. therefore it is that we shall often be discomfited in combating error before the people. ant us long resisted hercules; and the heads of the hydra grew as fast as they were cut off. it is absurd to say that _error, wounded, writhes in pain, and dies amid her worshippers. truth conquers slowly. there is a wondrous vitality in error. truth, indeed, for the most part, shoots over the heads of the masses; or if an error is prostrated for a moment, it is up again in a moment, and as vigorous as ever. it will n

t the men of baalbec worshipped. his light-giving and life-giving powers were secondary attributes. the one grand idea that compelled worship was the characteristic of god which they saw reflected in his light, and fancied they saw in its originality the changelessness of deity. he had seen thrones crumble, earthquakes shake the world and hurl down mountains. beyond olympus, beyond the pillars of hercules, he had gone daily to his abode, and had come daily again in the morning to behold the temples they built to his worship. they personified him as brahma, amun, osiris, bel, adonis, malkarth, mithras, and apollo; and the nations that did so grew old and died. moss grew on the capitals of the great columns of his temples, and he shone on the moss. grain by grain the dust of his temples crum

s (barith, the second day of which corresponded to the 25th of december. khur-um, king of tyre _movers_ says, first performed this ceremony. these facts we learn from _josephus, servius_ on the neid, and the _dionysiacs_ of _nonnus; and through a coincidence that cannot be fortuitous, the same day was at rome the _dies natalis solis invicti, the festal day of the invincible sun. under this title, hercules, har-_acles, was worshipped at tsur. thus, while the temple was being erected, the death and resurrection of a sun-god was annually represented at tsur, by solomon's ally, at the winter solstice, by the pyre of mal-karth, the tsurian haracles. aroeris or har-_oeris, the elder horus, is from the same old root that in the hebrew has the form _aur, or, with the definite article prefixed _hau

no shade; that masonry no longer marches in the advance-guard of truth? no. is freedom yet universal? have ignorance and prejudice disappeared from the earth? are there no longer enmities among men? do cupidity and falsehood no longer exist? do toleration and harmony prevail among religious and political sects? there are works yet left for masonry to accomplish, greater than the twelve labors of hercules; to advance ever resolutely and steadily; to enlighten the minds of the people, to reconstruct society, to reform the laws, and improve the public morals. the eternity in front of it is as infinite as the one behind. and masonry cannot cease to labor in the cause of social progress, without ceasing to be true to itself, without ceasing to be masonry [illustration [illustration: t.d.i.c.g]

ces the sublime lessons of him who died upon the cross. the ancients thought that universal humanity acted under the influence of two opposing principles, the good and the evil: of which the good urged men toward truth, independence, and devotedness; and the evil toward falsehood, servility, and selfishness. masonry represents the good principle and constantly wars against the evil one. it is the hercules, the osiris, the apollo, the mithras, and the ormuzd, at everlasting and deadly feud with the demons of ignorance, brutality, baseness, falsehood, slavishness of soul, intolerance, superstition, tyranny, meanness, the insolence of wealth, and bigotry. when despotism and superstition, twin-powers of evil and darkness, reigned everywhere and seemed invincible and immortal, it invented, to a

dictated laws for the hebrews to his servant moses. the stars were the guardians of mortals whose fates and fortunes were to be read in their movements, conjunctions, and oppositions. the moon was the bride and sister of the sun, at the same distance above the earth, and, like the sun, made for the service of mankind alone. if, with the great telescope of lord rosse, we examine the vast nebul of hercules, orion, and andromeda, and find them resolvable into stars more numerous than the sands on the seashore; if we reflect that each of these stars is a sun, like and even many times larger than ours--each, beyond a doubt, with its retinue of worlds swarming with life--if we go further in imagination, and endeavor to conceive of all the infinities of space, filled with similar suns and worlds

om all work, from want, danger, hardship, the victory over which is work; and has all his work and battling done by other men; and yet there are men who pride themselves that they and theirs have done no work time out of mind. so neither have the swine. the chief of men is he who stands in the van of men, fronting the peril which frightens back all others, and if not vanquished would devour them. hercules was worshipped for twelve labors. the czar of russia became a toiling shipwright, and worked with his axe in the docks of saardam; and something came of that. cromwell worked, and napoleon; and effected somewhat. there is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in work. be he never so benighted and forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man who actually and earnestly w

to immortality, are ever in this world interrupted at the moment of their anticipated completion. life is a mirror which reflects only to deceive, a tissue perpetually interrupted and broken, an urn forever fed, yet never full. all initiation is but introductory to the great change of death baptism, anointing, embalming, obsequies by burial or fire, are preparatory symbols, like the initiation of hercules before descending to the shades, pointing out the mental change which ought to precede the renewal of existence. death is the true initiation, to which sleep is the introductory or minor mystery. it is the final rite which united the egyptian with his god, and which opens the same promise to all who are duly prepared for it. the body was deemed a prison for the soul; but the latter was no

nt, connecting the sublimest hopes with the plainest occurrences, was the simple yet beautiful formula assumed by the great mystery in almost all religions, from the zend-avesta to the gospel. as proserpina, the divine power is as the seed decaying and destroyed; as artemis, she is the principle of its destruction; but artemis proserpina is also cote soteria, the saviour, who leads the spirits of hercules and hyacinthus to heaven. many other emblems were employed in the mysteries--as the dove, the myrtle-wreath, and others, all significant of life rising out of death, and of the equivocal condition of dying yet immortal man. the horrors and punishments of tartarus, as described in the ph do and the neid, with all the ceremonies of the judgments of minos, eacus, and rhadamanthus, were repre

the corpse of a young man, over whose tomb tears were shed, and to whom funeral honors were paid. at samothrace, in the mysteries of the cabiri or great gods, a representation was given of the death of one of them. this name was given to the sun, because the ancient astronomers gave the name of gods cabiri and of samothrace to the two gods in the constellation gemini; whom others term apollo and hercules, two names of the sun. athenion says that the young cabirus so slain was the same as the dionusos or bakchos of the greeks. the pelasgi, ancient inhabitants of greece, and who settled samothrace, celebrated these mysteries, whose origin is unknown: and they worshipped castor and pollux as patrons of navigation. the tomb of apollo was at delphi, where his body was laid, after python, the p

MOTTA MARCELO THE COMMENTARIES OF AL

wn true nature because public opinion, or mediaeval morality, or religious prejudice would wish he were otherwise. the oyster stays shut in his shell for all darwin may say about his "low stage of evolution, or puritans about his priapistic character, or idealists about his unfitness for civic government. the advocates of homosexuality--primus inter pares, john addington symonds--hammer away like hercules at the spiritual, social, moral, and intellectual advantages of cultivating the caresses of a comrade who combines apollo with achilles and antinous at the expense of escaping from a chimaera with circe's head, cleopatra's body, and cressida's character. why can't they let one alone? i agree to agree; i only stipulate to be allowed to be inconsistent. i will confess their creed, so long a

rn pious, that all species share this divine prerogative, from viruses down or up, in one way or another. and that even crystals share it too) it is evidently of minor importance whether the will to create be consciously formulated. lot in his drunkenness served the turn of his two daughters, no less than jupiter, who prolonged the night to forty-eight hours in order to give himself time to beget hercules. man is in actual possession of this supreme talisman. it is his "pearl of great price" in comparison with which all other jewels are but gewgaws. it is his prime duty to preserve the integrity of this substance. he must not allow its quality to be impaired either by malnutrition or by disease. he must not destroy it like origen and klingsor. he must not waste it like onan. but physiology

ic sense, come this earth, a chilled spark of him, and all our light and life. his viceregent and representative in the animal kingdom is his cognate symbol the phallus, representing love and liberty. ra-hoor-khuit, like all true gods, is therefore a solar-phallic deity. but we regard him as he is in truth, eternal; the solar-phallic deities of the old aeon, such as osiris "christ, hiram, adonis, hercules, etc, were supposed through our ignorance of the cosmos, to 'die' and 'rise again. thus we celebrated rites of 'crucifixion' and so on, which have now become meaningless. ra-hoor-khuit is the crowned and conquering child. this is also a reference to the 'crowned' and conquering 'child' in ourselves, our own personal god. except ye become as little children, said 'christ, ye shall not ente

ay also mean that he conceals nuit. the hawk's head symbolizes keen sight, swift action, courage and mobility. 71. hail! ye twin warriors about the pillars of the world! for your time is nigh at hand. this is a clear statement as to the war which was to come, and did come, in 1914 e.v. i now (an xix) no longer agree with the above paragraph. i think "the pillars of the world" mean "the pillars of hercules" about the straits of gibraltar. and i think the really big war will start there. p.s. an xxxiii (september 8, 1937 e.v. can "twin warriors" imply a civil war? the spanish troubles started in spain and morocco. the verse may refer to a great seismic catastrophe, similar to that which destroyed atlantis, to occur in the eighties. 72. i am the lord of the double wand of power; the wand of t

MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS E

ing for him a task so replete with danger, eurystheus was in hopes that he might rid himself for ever of his hated cousin. but the indomitable courage of the hero rose with the prospect of this difficult and dangerous undertaking. after a long and wearisome journey he at last arrived at the western coast of africa, where, as a monument of his perilous expedition, he erected the famous "pillars of hercules" one of which he placed on each side of the straits of gibraltar. here he found the intense heat so insufferable that he angrily raised his bow towards heaven, and threatened to shoot the sun-god. but helios, far from being incensed at his audacity, was so struck with admiration at his daring that he lent to him the golden boat with which he accomplished his nocturnal transit from west to

NAUDON PAUL THE SECRET HISTORY OF FREEMASONRY

a stone discovered in 1725 in chichester, england, that bears the dedication (52 a.d) of a temple to minerva, goddess of wisdom, and neptune, god of the sea. the latter may well have been invoked both for the protection of the tignarii, who frequently had to cross the channel, and for the construction of boats.10 a similar inscription discovered in nice-cimiez shows the lapidarii making a vow to hercules, their tutelary deity* it is also likely that the worship of roman builders had experienced the influence of foreign peoples because of the itinerant nature of these artisans and the fact that the romans benefited from the architectural knowledge of the greeks, who in turn had been influenced by the persians, egyptians, and syrians. in fact, the influence of the syrians must have been con

cant immigration into the roman empire, to rome particularly, during the later years of its existence "it was especially in the first century that the syrian exercised his activities, charged with almost all the minor crafts. the syrus (oriental in the broad sense of the term) entered everywhere, introducing with him the tongue and mores of his country."11 indeed* for more on the symbolic myth of hercules and its connection with builders, see my book les loges de saint-jean (paris: editions dervy, 1995, 71 ff. the ancient corporations: colleges of builders in rome 13 the best propagators of christianity in the working classes were the syrians "christianity in the third and fourth centuries was preeminently the religion of syria. after palestine, syria played the greatest role in its founda

PHILIP NEIL MYTHS LEGENDS EXPLAINED

dess of hunting and archery. all wild animals were in her care. demeter demeter, zeus sister, was the greek earth-goddess. her brother zeus fathered her daughter, persephone. her search for persephone formed the basis of the mysteries of eleusis (see p. 29. dionysus dionysus (see pp. 58 59, god of ecstasy and wine, was the child of zeus by a mortal, semele. he is shown with goat s legs and horns. hercules hercules (see pp. 50 51) was a son of zeus by a mortal. hera hated him. he earned immortality by performing 12 impossible tasks. when he went to olympus he married zeus daughter hebe. hermes hermes was the messenger of the gods and zeus son by maia, daughter of the titan atlas. he is wearing his winged hat and carrying his herald s staff, the caduceus. ganymede ganymede was a young prince

d herms. herms were placed on roadsides, in public places, and in the home. one fateful night in athens in 415 bce hundreds of phalluses were broken off; modern scholars suggest this was a women s protest against athenian militarism. although pan boasted that he had seduced all of dionysus maenads, as well as the moon goddess selene (luna, he was often rejected. his least dignified pursuit was of hercules lover, omphale, queen of lydia. climbing into her bed, pan tried to embrace her, only to discover the couple had exchanged clothes in their loveplay and he was embracing hercules. hercules kicked pan out of bed and across the floor. caduceus, a messenger s emblem in ancient greece to ensure safe passage winged sandals for swift travel hermes hermes, shown here on a greek red-figure cup da

g polynices to rot on the battlefield. on pain of death, antigone performed a token burial. furious, creon shut her up in a cave to die, refusing the pleas of haemon, his son and antigone s betrothed, to forgive her. on the advice of the seer teiresias, he finally relented. but on opening the cave, he found that antigone had hanged herself. cursing his father, haemon killed himself. the labors of hercules 50 hercules did not know where to find the garden of the hesperides where the golden apples grew. the nymphs of the river eridanos told him that the shapeshifting sea god nereus knew the answer. hercules wrestled with nereus to force him to answer his question. the god transformed himself into all kinds of creatures, but hercules held him fast, and at last he had to reveal the secret. her

knew the answer. hercules wrestled with nereus to force him to answer his question. the god transformed himself into all kinds of creatures, but hercules held him fast, and at last he had to reveal the secret. hercules was a semi divine hero, the child of zeus (roman jupiter) by alcmene, a mortal. although zeus meant him to be a great king, hera (juno) made sure that this honor passed instead to hercules cousin eurystheus. hercules grew into a great hero, keen eyed, skilled with the bow and javelin, and possessed of superhuman strength, which he used to wield a huge club cut from an olive tree. however, hera, still jealous of zeus infidelities, afflicted the adult hercules with madness, and he killed his wife and children. devastated, he visited the oracle at delphi, where he was told tha

, he served king eurystheus. eurystheus, an inferior man, set him ten seemingly impossible tasks, later extended to 12 as the petty-minded king quibbled over the means used to achieve two of them. the most difficult tasks were the last: the capture of the watchdog of the underworld, cerberus, and the acquisition of the apples of the hesperides (shown here, which were guarded by a fearful serpent. hercules completed his tasks successfully, encountering many adventures along the way. when he died several years and exploits later from putting on a poisoned shirt, he rose to olympus, causing atlas to stagger under the sudden extra weight. lyre singing was the chief recreation of the hesperides. here, one of them dreamily strums on an upside-down lyre (it was by playing the lyre upside-down tha

chief recreation of the hesperides. here, one of them dreamily strums on an upside-down lyre (it was by playing the lyre upside-down that apollo vanquished his challenger marsyas in a musical contest [see p. 41) garden of the hesperides the garden of the hesperides was at the edge of the earth, enclosed behind a high wall. inside, the golden-apple tree was guarded by a terrifying serpent. it took hercules a long time to discover the whereabouts of the garden and reach it. on the way he had many adventures, which included freeing prometheus (see pp. 24 25) and killing the eagle that daily fed on his liver. cranes of vigilance cranes are a symbol of vigilance. however, as the hesperides seem to be asleep, and the apples that they are guarding are eventually stolen, the presence of the cranes

des seem to be asleep, and the apples that they are guarding are eventually stolen, the presence of the cranes may be ironic. daugh ters of a titan the hesperides were the daughters of the titan atlas (see p. 22) and hesperis, the daughter of the evening star hesperus (venus. they lived in a garden hidden in the far west; their name means daughters of the evening. this roman bronze shows the baby hercules killing two serpents with his bare hands an early indication of his superhuman strength, and a clue to his father s identity. the labors of hercules the childhood of hercules hercules was conceived when zeus came to alcmene in the guise of her husband king amphytryon, the grandson of perseus (see p. 46 47. zeus, knowing that he had fathered hercules, boasted that the next descendant of pe

an strength, and a clue to his father s identity. the labors of hercules the childhood of hercules hercules was conceived when zeus came to alcmene in the guise of her husband king amphytryon, the grandson of perseus (see p. 46 47. zeus, knowing that he had fathered hercules, boasted that the next descendant of perseus to be born would be a great king. so hera, to thwart her husband, arranged for hercules birth to be delayed and that of his cousin eurystheus to be accelerated. alcmene bore two children: hercules and, a day later, his brother iphicles. at eight months old, hera placed two serpents in the babies cradle iphicles fled, showing himself to be amphytryon s son, but hercules strangled the snakes with his bare hands. hercules spent much of his youth living with amphitryon s shepher

serpents in the babies cradle iphicles fled, showing himself to be amphytryon s son, but hercules strangled the snakes with his bare hands. hercules spent much of his youth living with amphitryon s shepherds, having accidentally killed one of his tutors in an argument. then, at 18, he killed a huge lion that was decimating the flocks and soon afterward set out upon the adventurous life of a hero. hercules serpent serpent the labors of hercules 51 guardian serpent ladon, the terrifying serpent that guarded the apples, had 100 heads (although they are not shown here) each of which spoke a different language. like the sphinx (see p. 48, he was a child of the monsters typhon and echidna. when he was killed, the grief-stricken hera set him in the sky as the constellation draco. sleeping hesperi

as a child of the monsters typhon and echidna. when he was killed, the grief-stricken hera set him in the sky as the constellation draco. sleeping hesperides sources vary as to whether there were three or four hesperides. those shown on the left are aigle, erytheia, and hesperia. so peaceful here, the theft of the apples caused them unspeakable sorrow. in one story, nereus (or prometheus) advised hercules to trick atlas, who supported the sky, into fetching the golden apples. while he was away hercules held up the sky. when atlas returned, he refused to take up his burden again, but hercules persuaded him to do so while he arranged a pad on his head. as soon as atlas had the sky on his shoulders, hercules took the apples and ran. the garden of the hespe rides by frederic leighton (1830 96)

PROMETHEUS

and jove wished to lie with her, prometheus promised jove that he would give him timely warning if he would free him from his chains. and so when the promise was given he advised jove not to lie with thetis, for if one greater than he were born he might drive jove [zeus] from his kingdom, as he himself had done to saturnus [kronos. and so thetis was given in marriage to peleus, son of aeacus, and hercules was sent to kill the eagle which was eating out prometheus heart. when it was killed, prometheus after thirty thousand years was freed from mount caucasus. hyginus fabulae 54 prometheus, son of iapetus, first fashioned men from clay. later vulcanus [hephaistos, at jove s [zeus] command, made a woman s form from cla y. minerva [athene] gave it life, and the rest of the gods each gave come

ought fire from the gods, and did not know how to keep it alive. later prometheys brought it to earth in a fennel-stalk, and showed men how to keep it covered over with ashes. because of this, mercury, at jove s command, bound him with iron spikes to a cliff on mount caucasus, and set an eagle to eat out his heart; as much as it devoured in the day, so much grew again at night. after 30,000 years hercules killed this eagle and freed prometheus. hyginus fabulae 144 the kneeler. others say he is prometheus, bound on mount caucasus. hyginus astronomica 2.6 arrow. this arrow, they say, is one of the weapons of hercules, with which he is said to have killed the eagle which ate the liver of prometheus. it seems not unprofitable to speak of prometheus at greater length. when the men of old with g

ings fashioned of stone and iron, that they may seem to be appeasing prometheus. some also have said that he wore a wreath, as if to claim that he as victor had sinned without punishment. and so men began the practice of wearing wreaths at times of great rejoicing and victory. you may observe this in sports and banquets. but to come back to the beginning of the inquiry and the death of the eagle. hercules, when sent by eurystheus for the apples of the hesperides, out of ignorance of the way came to prometheus, who was bound on mount caucasus, as we have shown above. when victor, he returned to prometheus to tell him that that draco we have mentioned was slain, and to thank him for his kindness since he had pointed out the way. straightway he gave what honour he could to the one that deserv

REGARDIE ISRAEL THE COMPLETE GOLDEN DAWN

consist of a sign, token, grand word, mystic number and pass-word formed therefrom. the sign is thus given. stand with feet together and raise both arms upwards and back, palms up, as if supporting a weight, thus w. it represents you in the path of yesod, supporting the pillars of mercy and severity. it is the sign made by the greek god atlas, who supported the universe on his shoulders and whom hercules was directed to emulate. it is the isis of nature, supporting the heavens. the grip is that of the first order which you received in the preceding grade. the grand word is a name of seven letters, shaddai el chai, which means the almighty and living one. the mystic number is 45, and from it is formed the pass-word which is mem he, the secret name of the world of formation. it should be le

in kether, their thrones are the central portion (of 45o of longitude in extent) in the dominions of the knaves of their respective suits. 1. ace of wands 3. ace of swords 2. ace of cups 4. ace of pentacles star groups (corresponding to above) 1. a part of the tail of draco, fore-feet of ursa major, tail of ursa major, and of the northern dog of canes venatici. 2. head of draco, body and legs of hercules. 3. body of draco. right arm of cepheus, head and body of lacerta. body tree of life in a sphere 597 of cygnus. 4. body of draco. legs of cepheus. tail of ursa minor, and the pole star. legs of cassiopeia. head and neck of camelopardus. 8. princess (knave) of wands. rules from north pole to 45" and from 0" of cancer to 30" of virgo, the end of virgo. the throne of the ace of wands extends

of denderah, and in the tablet of edfu, that ursa major is represented as the thigh of an ox.-s.r.m.d) 12. princess (knave) of cups. rules from north pole to 45" of latitude and from 0' of libra to 30" of sagittarius in longitude. the throne of the ace embraces from 22"-30' of libra to 7"-30' of sagittarius within the above limits of latitude. star group. head of draco. left arm, body and legs of hercules, part of head, right shoulder and club of bootes. 16. princess (knave) of swords. rules from north pole to 45" latitude and from 0" of capricorn to 30" of pisces longtiude. the throne of the ace extends from 22"-30' of capricorn to 7"-30' of pisces as before. star group. body of draco, part of lyra. head, body and right arm of cepheus, the king and father of andromeda, the whole of cygnus

rom 20" of virgo to 20" of libra. star group. right leg of virgo, body and right arm, and right leg of bootes. beam and part of scales of libra. 11. prince of cups. rules from ecliptic to 45" and from 20" of libra to 20" to scorpio. star group. part of scales of libra, left claws of scorpio, body and legs of ophiuchus, the holder of the serpent. front half of serpent's head, right arm and club of hercules. 5. the king of wands. rules from ecliptic to 45" north latitude and from 20" of scorpio to 20" of sagittarius. star group. top of head and bow of sagittarius, head and right arm of ophiuchus, near half of serpent. 18. queen of pentacles. rules from ecliptic to 45' north latitude and from 20" of sagittarius to 20" of capricorn. star group. top of head, neck and horns of capricorn, left ha

drupled. but although tiphareth and yesod will be concealed, there will be four especial points where the influence of each will be indicated. as projected in the before-described celestial sphere, kether will govem a radius of 10" around the north pole, thus embracing the whole body of the constellation draco. chokmah will be on the 60" north latitude; embracing a radius of 10, the right foot of hercules; the left arm, hand, and part of head of bootes. also on the other side of the heavens, a radius of 10" including the head and shoulders of cepheus, and the head of lacerta. binah, has a similar radius and is posited on the same parallel of <232> latitudes, and includes the pole star of the earth, the head of camelopardelus, the tip of the tail of draco; also lyra and left knee of hercule

RITUEL ET DOGME DE LA HAUTE MAGIE BY ELIPHAS LEVI PART I

d. both desire to know and lose innocence for the honour of the ordeal. both deserve to go down into hell, one to bring back the antique box of pandora, the other to find and to crush the head of the old serpent, who is the symbol of time and of evil. both are guilty of the crime which must be expiated by the prometheus of ancient days and the lucifer of the christian legend, the one delivered by hercules and the other overcome by the saviour. the great magical secret is therefore the lamp and dagger of psyche, the apple of eve, the sacred fire of prometheus, the burning sceptre of lucifer, but it is also the holy cross of the redeemer. to be acquainted with it sufficiently for its abuse or divulgation is to deserve all sufferings; to know as one should alone know it, namely, to make use o

however, the burden of their grossness hinders them from ascending. indeed, they can do so only after infinite struggles, and by the mediation of the just, who stretch forth their hands towards them. during the whole period of the process they are devoured by the interior activity of the captive spirit, as in a burning furnace. those who attain the pyre of expiation burn themselves thereon, like hercules upon mount oetna, and so are delivered from their sufferings; but the courage of the majority fails before this ordeal, which seems to them a second death more appalling than the first, and so they remain in hell, which is rightly and actually eternal; but souls are never precipitated nor even retained despite themselves therein. 16 the doctrine of transcendental magic the three worlds co

er in sex, it occasions in them, or more commonly in the weaker of the two, a complete intoxication of the astral light, which is termed passion par excellence, or love. love is one of the great instruments of magical power, but it is categorically forbidden to the magus, at least as an intoxication or passion. woe to the samson of the kabalah if he permit himself to be put asleep by delilah! the hercules of science, who exchanges his royal sceptre for the distaff of omphale, will soon experience the vengeance of dejanira, and nothing will be left for him but the pyre of mount oetna, in order to escape the devouring folds of the coat of nessus. sexual love is ever an illusion, for it is the result of an imaginary mirage. the astral light is the universal seducer, typified by the serpent of

RITUEL ET DOGME DE LA HAUTE MAGIE BY ELIPHAS LEVI PART II

everywhere that their reign is for ever ended, provided that they rule always. the great religions have never had more than one serious rival, and this rival is magic. magic produced the occult associations which brought about the revolution termed the renaissance; but it has been the doom of the human mind, blinded by insensate passions, to realize literally the allegorical history of the hebrew hercules: by over-throwing the pillars of the temple, it has been buried itself under the ruins. the masonic associations of the present time are no less ignorant of the high meaning of their symbols than are the rabbins of the sepher the triangle of pantacles 27 yetzirah and the zohar concerning the ascending scale of the three degrees, with the transverse progression from right to left and from

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON ZANONI A ROSICRUCIAN TALE

ved to see this day" while the dictator thus commented on his favourite author, whom in his orations he laboured hard to imitate, the second visitor was wheeled into the room in a chair. this man was also in what, to most, is the prime of life, namely, about thirty-eight; but he was literally dead in the lower limbs: crippled, paralytic, distorted, he was yet, as the time soon came to tell him, a hercules in crime! but the sweetest of human smiles dwelt upon his lips; a beauty almost angelic characterised his features("figure d'ange" says one of his contemporaries, in describing couthon. the address, drawn up most probably by payan (thermidor 9, after the arrest of robespierre, thus mentions his crippled colleague "couthon, ce citoyen vertueux, qui n'a que le coeur et la tete de vivans, ma

THE GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE UNUSUAL UNEXPLAINED VOL

people usually strive to be cheerful and avoid depressions. because of their natural affinity for water, whenever possible they make their homes on the coast or close to a lake or a large body of water. leo, the lion, july 23 to august 23, is a fire sign. leo, the fifth sign of the zodiac, represents the lion, king of beasts, and according to roman astrologers, the savage lion of nemea, slain by hercules. the typical leo is a rather impressive person who dearly loves to t h e g a l e e n c y c l o p e d i a o f t h e u n u s u a l a n d u n e x p l a i n e d prophecy and divination 121 thefour kinds of temperament are sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic. be in the limelight. leo people generally have plenty of energy and strongwill power, and they make trustworthy and loyal fr

y egyptian priests in the city of sais, located in the nile delta, that there was once a land even older in history than egypt, which the greeks acknowledged as being centuries older than their own society. the priests described a large island continent called atlantis that prospered some 8,000 years earlier, which dates atlantis before 8500 b.c.e. the continent was located beyond gthe pillars of hercules, h the greek term for the rocks that form the straits of gibraltar, the westernmost point of the mediterranean ocean. beyond the straits is the atlantic ocean. there were several cities on the continent. the primary city, also called atlantis, was located in the center of a series of concentric rings that alternated between rings of water and land. the water rings served as canals for tra

n of atlantis has been claimed on each of the seven continents, and in several spots in the world fs oceans and seas. additionally, many of the ancient world fs wonders have been attributed to atlanteans who, presumably, escaped the destruction of their homeland and spread their advanced engineering skills elsewhere. the text of plato fs dialogue suggests the atlantic ocean gbeyond the pillars of hercules h as the location of atlantis. as late as the twentieth century, a belief persisted that a landbridge once existed in the ocean and ran between europe and africa and north and south america. such a land-link concept helps explain similarities in flora and fauna existing on continents spread thousands of miles apart. the mid-atlantic ridge, a series of undersea mountains, has been presente

ollina-girard of the university of the mediterranean in aix-en-provence had been studying patterns of human migration from europe into north africa at the height of the last ice age, 19,000 years ago, when his reconstruction of the area revealed an ancient archipelago with an island at the spot where plato wrote atlantis existed. the island was named spartel, and it lay in front of the pillars of hercules to the west of the strait of gibraltar at a time when the sea level was 130 meters lower than it is today. according to collina-girard (new scientist, september 2001, the slow rise of post-glacial sea levels would gradually have engulfed the island and the archipelago 9,000 years before plato. while the concept of an island being swallowed by the sea in the area before the pillars of herc

perate climate where a civilization once thrived. antarctica, thus, has been claimed as the site of atlantis and of a similar type of advanced civilization. the question of where atlantis was located still persists. among the many possible sites for atlantis on the seven continents or under the seas, two popular locations are based on areas that, like atlantic ocean regions gbeyond the pillars of hercules, h can be related to plato fs time. one site is the island of crete, where the thriving minoan civilization fell into disarray around 1400 b.c.e. the other site is in present-day turkey, known in ancient times as anatolia, where associations with atlas and his descendants were strong. little was known about minoan culture before the discovery in 1900 of a great palace at knossos on the is

THE KEY TO THE MYSTERIES

reveal itself to that soul which had no tenderness, and he bitterly criticized the hearth of which he did not feel the warmth, and the lamp of which he did not see the light. if religion were such as he saw it, he would have been a thousand times right to attack it, and one would be obliged to fall on one's knees before the heroism of his courage. voltaire would be the messiah of good sense, the hercules destructor of fanaticism. but he laughed too much to understand him who said "happy are they who weep" and the philosophy of laughter will never have anything in common with the religion of tears. voltaire parodied the bible, dogma and worship; and then he mocked and insulted that parody. only those who recognize religion in voltaire's parody can take offence at it. the voltaireans are li

her arms to him, his own lose nerve, and cannot draw back the heavy jar; the fresh fragrance of the spring put him to sleep; the perfumes 120 of the bank intoxicate him. there he is, bent over the water like a narcissus whose stalk has been broken by a child at play; the full jar falls to the bottom, and hylas follows it; he dies, dreaming that nymphs caress him, and no longer hears the voice of hercules recalling him to the labours of life; hercules, who runs wildly everywhere, crying "hylas! hylas" another fable, not less touching, which steps forth from the shadows of the orphic initiation, is that of eurydice recalled to life by the miracles of harmony and love, of eurydice, that sensitive broken on the very day of her marriage, who takes refuge in the tomb, trembling with modesty. so

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES

re was a big red and white glowing thing sitting right in the field. i've got to say that it scared me half to death. i ran back in my house to get my gun. didn't take me more than a minute. but when i got outside again the thing was gone. this circle was all that was left. it took the rest of the night to round up my cows "were any of them lost or missing" i asked "no" he paused "but herk that's hercules my big old collie dog ran off that night and we ain't seen him, since" mary had been with me when i had checked into other missing dog incidents. she gave me a meaningful glance and he caught it "say, you don't think that thing took old herk, do you "no. it was probably just some kind of electrical phenomenon" i answered gently "herk will probably come back "i hope so. we sure loved that

THE STAR IN THE WEST BY CAPTAIN FULLER A CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE WORKS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY

t is lost, and, as a flash of lightning, it must he vivid, bright, flaming for a moment, awful, eloquent, rushing from the darkness of night through the flashing elements of day into the silence of eternity. and this is exactly the poetry we here find. no poems are of any great length, no poems here contain a labour on the part of the reader to attain the end* though in some places the labours of hercules seem insignificant compared with the labours of mental unknotting, but even in such places (where the sense becomes tangled in the reader fs mind) f he loses none of the beauty of rime and rhythm, he never becomes bored, never weary. set in the pure gold of verse and line, lie lyrics of surpassing beauty: tannhauser (the longest of the poems) would be a magnificent contemplation even if w

ine gi h; that unextended absolute passivity, whose dwelling is in that equilibrating activity which balances action and reaction *it should never for a moment be forgotten that any attempt to construct a positive philosophic system from these data would be strenuously repudiated by crowley. the danger constantly recurs, because in the normal (educated) man the reason is master. like the hydra of hercules, its heads grow again; they must be branded by the torch of illuminism, as well as smitten off by the sword of scepticism. hegel (outside the realms of the divine philosophers) was one of the very few who partially grasped the supreme truth of crowleyanity, when he postulated: gbeing and non-being are the same. h he saw that pure being is, in its last analysis, beyond fertilization, devel

THE SECRET RITUALS OF THE OTO

n of the rite of marriage. consider of this. file//c /documents%20and%20settings/michael..0secret%20rituals%20of%20the%20o.t.o/p3c2.html (4 of 12 [12/28/2001 2:05:25 pm] the secret rituals of the o.t.o. vi of classical fables the ancients of every nation report their heroes to have been born of the marriage of gods with mortals. as, romulus and remus begotten of the god mars upon a vestal virgin, hercules of jove, buddha of vishnu in the form of a white elephant with six tusks, jesus of jehovah upon a virgin, and many another. even true gods were born of mortal mothers, as dionysius of semele. also they recount many loves of heaven for earth, diana for endymion, zeus for leda, danae, europa, and the rest; even hades issued from his gloomy kingdom to ravish the maid persephone. there are al

TURNER ROBERT ARBETEL OF MAGICK

ristotle, hippocrates, galen, euclides, archimedes, hermes trismegistus the father secrets, with theophrastus, paracelsus; all which men had in themselves all the vertues of secrets. hitherto also are referred, homer, hesiod, orpheus, pytagoras; but these had not such gifts of secrets as the former. to this are referred, the nymphes, and sons of melusina, and gods of the gentiles, achilles, neas, hercules: also, cyrus, alexander the great, julius c sar, lucullus, sylla. marius. it is a canon, that every one know his own angel. and that he obey him according to the word of god; and let him beware of the snares of the evil angel, lest he be involved in the calamities of brute and marcus antonius. to this refer the book of jovianus pontanus of fortune, and his eutichus. the third way is, dili

TWO ESSAYS ON THE WORSHIP OF PRIAPUS

n arrow, whilst a bow, ready bent, of the ancient scythian form, 1 see plate xxi, fig. 4, from one belonging to me. 2 see plate xxi, fig. 5 and 6, from coins belonging to me. 3 abury, p. 93. 4 see plate ii. fig. 1, and plate iii. fig. 2. of priapus 91 lies by him.1 on his head is a large loose cap, tied under his chin, which i take to be the lion's skin, worn in the same manner as on the heads of hercules, upon the medals of alexander; but the work is so small, though executed with extreme nicety and precision, and perfectly preserved, that it is difficult to decide with certainty what it represents, in parts of such minuteness. the bow and arrows, we know, were the ancient arms of hercules;2 and continued so, until the greek poets thought proper to give him the club.3 he was particularly

g those frauds which merchants and factors are apt to practice upon ignorant people.1 it is probable that their progress in the fine arts, like that of the dutch (who are the phoenicians of modern history, never went beyond a strict imitation of nature; which, compared to the more elevated graces of ideal composition, is like a newspaper narrative compared with one of homer s battles. a figure of hercules, therefore, executed by a phoenician artist, if compared to one by phidias or lysippus, would be like a picture of moses or david, painted by teniers, or gerard dow, compared to one of the same, painted by raphael or annibal caracci. this is exactly the difference between the figures on the medal now under consideration, and those on the coins of gelo or alexander. of all the personages o

uted by a phoenician artist, if compared to one by phidias or lysippus, would be like a picture of moses or david, painted by teniers, or gerard dow, compared to one of the same, painted by raphael or annibal caracci. this is exactly the difference between the figures on the medal now under consideration, and those on the coins of gelo or alexander. of all the personages of the ancient mythology, hercules is perhaps the most difficult to explain; for physical allegory and fabulous history are so entangled in the accounts we have of him, that it is scarcely possible to separate them. he appears however, like all the other gods, to have been originally a personified attribute of the sun. the eleventh of the orphic hymns2 is addressed to him as the strength and power of the sun; and macrobius

it is scarcely possible to separate them. he appears however, like all the other gods, to have been originally a personified attribute of the sun. the eleventh of the orphic hymns2 is addressed to him as the strength and power of the sun; and macrobius says that he was thought to be the strength and virtue of the gods, by which they destroyed the giants; and that, according to varro, the mars and hercules of the romans were the same deity, and worshipped with the same rites.3 according to varro then, whose authority is perhaps the greatest that can be cited, hercules was the destroying attribute represented in a human form, instead of that of a lion, tiger, or hippopotamus. hence the terrible picture drawn of him by homer, which always appeared to me to have been taken from 1 homer, odyss

estructive power destroying its own force by its own exertions? or is the single attribute personified taken for the whole power of the deity in this, as in other instances already mentioned? the orphic hymn above cited seems to favour this last conjecture; for he is there addressed both as the devourer and generator of all (pamfage, paggentwr. however this may be, we may safely conclude that the hercules armed with the bow and arrow, as he appears on the present medal, is like the apollo, the destroying power of the diurnal sun. on the other side of the medal3 is a figure, somewhat like the jupiter on the medals of alexander and antiochus, sitting with a beaded sceptre in his right hand, which he rests upon the head of a bull, that projects from the side of the chair. above, on his right

purpose occur in almost every page of the iliad and odyssey. 3 levit. ch. xvii. ver. 11& 14. of priapus 99 by ulysses;1 by which their faculties were renewed by a reunion with the divine emanation, from which they had been separated. the soul of tiresias is said to be entire in hell, and to possess alone the power of perception, because with him this divine emanation still remained. the shade of hercules is described among the other ghosts, though he himself, as the poet says, was then in heaven; that is, the active principle of thought and perception returned to its native heaven, whilst the passive, or merely sensitive, remained on earth, from whence it sprung.2 the final separation of these two did not take place till the body was consumed by fire, as appears from the ghost of elpenor

TYSON DONALD NEW MILLENNIUM MAGIC

tacted. the earth center is equivalent to the chakra located at the lower bowel, which has been linked in this work with yesod and the planet saturn (see chapter 14. t. earth is a mixture of the three higher elements, or more precisely, is their pre- i cipitate in the physical world. the elemental earth principle is used to empower* the three higher elements. it is significant that in the myth of hercules where the god wrestles the giant named antaeus, the giant gains his immense physical power from his repeated contacts with his mother, the earth. hercules only defeats antaeus by holding him aloft and crushing him. here is a lesson for the magus, who will take care that his or her earth center is never cut off when employing the weapons, as this will deprive them of all their power. the f

WEOR SAMAEL AUN ESOTERIC COURSE OF KABBLAH

ber sido devorado por la serpiente. nadie puede ser devorado por ella sin haber trabajado en la fragua encendida de vulcano (el sexo. la llave de la cristificaci n es el arcano a.z.f. el mantram del gran arcano es i.a.o. i (ignis, fuego: a (aqua) agua; o (origo, principio, esp ritu. 18 mars descends into the flaming forge of vulcan in order to retemper his sword and to conquer the heart of venus; hercules descends in order to clean the stables of augias2 with the sacred fire and perseus descends in order to cut off medusa's head. remember beloved disciples that our divine mother is nuit [pronounced noot] and her word is (56) fiftysix. this number is kabbalistically added as follows: 5+ 6= 11, then 1+ 1= 2. one is the father; two is she, nuit, the divine mother kundalini. practice: 1. lay d

ne ages. in the authentic initiation, this return to the point of departure is nothing more than the descent into the ninth sphere, which is a test of action for the supreme dignity of the great hierophant of mysteries. the flaming forge of vulcan is found in the ninth sphere (sex. there, mars descends in order to retemper his flaming sword and conquer the heart of venus (the venusian initiation. hercules descends in order to clean the stables of augias (our lower animal depths. perseus descends in order to cut off the head of medusa (the psychological "i" or the terrestrial adam) with his flaming sword. all of the great masters of humanity such as hermes, buddha, jesus, dante, zoroaster, etc, had to pass through this utmost test. the following phrase is written upon the frightful threshol

WICCA EIGHT SABBATS OF WITCHCRAFT

rites, and roman mithraism. that is why both martin luther and john calvin abhorred it, why the puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it (to them, no day of the year could be more holy than the sabbath, and why it was even made illegal in boston! the holiday was already too closely associated with the birth of older pagan gods and heroes. and many of them (like oedipus, theseus, hercules, perseus, jason, dionysus, apollo, mithra, horus and even arthur) possessed a narrative of birth, death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably close to that of jesus. and to make matters worse, many of them pre-dated the christian savior. ultimately, of course, the holiday is rooted deeply in the cycle of the year. it is the winter solstice that is being celebrated, seed-time of the yea

WICCA MAGICK OCCULT THREE GREEN BOOKS DRUIDISM

roverbs on human conduct proverbs on virtue proverbs on cooperation and contentment proverbs on opportunity proverbs on human beings proverbs on nature proverbs on leadership more wisdom of the african world wisdom of the hindus and greeks frogs desiring a king the bat, the birds and the beasts the dog and the wolf the fox and the grapes the lion and the statue the man and his wives the two crabs hercules and the waggoner the man and the wooden god the miser the bundle of sticks the buffoon and the countryman the serpent and the file green book volume three oriental and monotheist wisdom zen koans see his buddha nature yueh holds it pai-yuns black and white the dry creek yueh-shan s lake living alone nan ch uan s rejection thoughts from confucius tao of pooh the stone cutter the cork te of

e sour. it is easy to despise what you cannot get. the lion and the statue a man and a lion were discussing the relative strength of men and lions in general. the man contended that he and his fellows were stronger than lions by reason of their greater intelligence. come now with me, he cried, and i will soon prove that i am right. so he took him into the public gardens and showed him a statue of hercules overcoming the lion and tearing his mouth in two. that is all very well, said the lion, but proves nothing, for it was a man who made the statue. we can easily represent things as we wish them to be. the man and his two wives in the old days, when men were allowed to have many wives, a middle-aged man had one wife that was old and one that was young; each loved him very much, and desired

you will soon have nothing to yield. the two crabs one fine day two crabs came out from their home to take a stroll on the sand. child, said the mother, you are walking very ungratefully. you should accustom yourself to walking straight forward without twisting from side to side. pray, mother, said the young one, do but set the example yourself, and i will follow you. example is the best precept. hercules and the waggoner a waggoner was once driving a heavy load along a very muddy way. at last he came to a part of the road where the wheels sank halfway into the mire, and the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels. so the waggoner threw down his whip, and knelt down and prayed to hercules the strong. o hercules, help me in this my hour of distress, quoth he. but hercules appeare

WILLIAM WESCOTT NUMBERS THEIR OCCULT POWER AND MYSTIC VIRTUES

ers--th eir occu lt power an d mys tic vir tu es by w. wyn n wes tcott 50. chapter eight the tetrad, four, 4. he pythagoreans, said nicomachus, call the number four the greatest miracle, a god after another manner, a manifold divinity, the fountain of nature, and its key bearer. it is the introducer and cause of the permanency of the mathematical discipline. it is most masculine and robust; it is hercules and aeolus. it is mercury, vulcan, and bacchus. among the muses, urania. they also called it feminine, effective of virility, and an exciter of bacchic fury. in harmony, it was said to form by the quadruple numbers--th eir occu lt power an d mys tic vir tu es by w. wyn n wes tcott ratio, the symphony dis-diapason. they called it justice, as the first evenly even number. as a type of deity

12. original apostolic college. 13. college completed by st. paul. the nine muses of ancient greece were called daughters of zeus and mnemosyne (memory, and were calliope, poetry; clio, history; melpomene, tragedy; euterpe, music; erato, love, inspiration and pantomime; terpsichore, dancing; urania, astronomy; thalia, comedy and polyhymnia, eloquence. the novensiles are the nine sabine gods: viz. hercules, romulus, aesculapius, bacchus, aeneas, vesta, santa, fortuna and fides. the sabines became merged with the romans about 266 b.c. 90. the nine gods of the etruscans were juno, minerva, tinia, vulcan, mars, saturn, hercules, summanus and vedius; the etruscans also became united with the romans. note in macaulay s poem of horatius, lars porsena of clusium by the nine gods he swore, in 596 b

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