Michael Wynn's Occult Reference Library
LABYRINTH,LABYRINTHS

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18276066 GRIMM JACOB TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL 1

praised on all occasions, and his name coupled with every costly jewel, vilk. saga cap. 24. witeche, the son he had by baduhilt, bore a hammer and tongs in his scutcheon in honour of his father; during the imid. ages his memory lasted among smiths, whose workshops were styled jvicland's houses^ and perhaps his likeness was set up or painted outside them; the on' volundar hus' translates the latin labyrinth; a host of similar associations must in olden times have been generally diffused, as we learn from the names of places: welantes gruoba (pit .mb. 13, 59; wielantes heim, mb. 28^ 93 (an. 889; wiclaniu dorf, mb. 29, 54 (an. 1246; wielantes tanna (firs, mb. 28^ 188. 471 (an. 128u; wielandes brunne, mb. 31, 41 (an. 817. the multiplication of such names during long centuries does not admit of

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE OLD AND NEW COMMENTARIES TO LIBER AL

imilarly, any error in reaching the realization of hadit may abandon the aspirant to the ambitions of every frenzied faction of his character, the masterless dogs of the augean kennel of his mind. al ii,28 "now a curse upon because and his kin" the old comment 28. the great curse pronounced by the supernals against the inferiors who arise against them. our reasoning faculties are the toils of the labyrinth within which we are all caught. cf. liber lxv, v.59. the new comment this is against these intellectuals aforesaid. there are no "standards of right" ethics is balderdash. each star must go on its orbit. to hell with 'moral principle' there is no such thing; that is a herd-delusion, and makes men cattle. do not listen to the rational explanation of how right it all is, in the newspapers

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE SWORD OF SONG

an act commits it; but i feel that this is no place for metaphysical hairsplitting; let us prove what we have to prove in the plainest way. i would premise in the first place that to commit adultery in the divorce court sense is not here in question. it assumes too much proprietary right of a man over a woman, that root of all abomination! the whole machinery of inheritance, property, and all the labyrinth of law. we may more readily assume that the buddha was (apparently at least) condemning incontinence. we know that buddha had abandoned his home; true, but nature has to be reckoned with. volition is no necessary condition of offence. i didn t mean to is a poor excuse for an officer failing to obey an order. enough of this in any case a minor question; since even on the lowest moral grou

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQ I 5

iding upon a bull. 60 and they come up into the surface of the stone. and she is singing a chant of praise: glory unto him that hath taken upon himself the image of toil. for by his labour is my labour accomplished. for i, being a woman, lust ever to mate myself with some beast. and this is the salvation of the world, that always i am deceived by some god, and that my child is the guardian of the labyrinth that hath two-and-seventy paths. now she is gone. and now there are angels, walking up and down in the stone. they are the angels of the holy sevenfold table. it seems that they are waiting for the angel of the aethyr to come forth. now at last he appears in the gloom. he is a mighty king, with crown and orb and sceptre, and his robes are of purple and gold. and he casts down the orb and

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 2 2

for its alchemical significance. this barred ring is centered within but not touching the inner angles of the white pentagram. in the lower space defined by the barred ring is a solid black upright sans-serif letter "t. in the upper space of the barred ring is a white inverted sans-serif letter "t" defined by a thin black line. the pillar of cloud obsessed by the chimera of his mind, lost in the labyrinth of his imagination, man wanders on through the shadowy dreamland he himself has begotten, slothfully accepting or eagerly rejecting, but ever seeking some unobtainable freedom, some power which will release him from those shackles he has in his studied folly and capricious ignorance welded to his thoughts. nothing contents him, nothing satisfies him; if he is not weeping he is laughing

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 2

g by an adder "i drove home, set all my servants hunting for railed houses. they were to report to me in the rue des quatre vents. any house not accounted for, any that might conceal a mystery, these i would see myself "all labour lost! my servants tried. i distrusted their energy: i set myself obstinately to scour paris "there is a rule of mathematics which enables one to traverse completely any labyrinth. i applied this to the city. i walked in every road of it, marking the streets at each corner as i passed with my private seal. each railed house i investigated separately and thoroughly. by virtue of my position i was welcome everywhere. but every night i paced the rue des quatre vents, waiting "awaiting what? well, in the end, perhaps death. the children gibed at me; passers-by shunned

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 3 3

n act commits it; but i feel that this is no place for metaphysical hair-splitting; let us prove what we have to prove in the plainest way. i would premise in the first place that to commit adultery in the divorce court sense is not here in question. it assumes too much proprietary right of a man over a woman, that root of all abomination_ the whole machinery of inheritance, property, and all the labyrinth of law. we may more readily suppose that the buddha was (apparently at least) condemning incontinence. we know that buddha had abandoned his home; true, but nature has to be reckoned with. volition is no necessary condition of offence "i didn't mean to" is a poor excuse for an officer failing to obey an order. enough of this_ in any case a minor question; since even on the lowest moral g

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 3

any spheres, brought to a point the dark design of this existence that is mine. i knew my secret "all i was" i brought into the burning-glass, and all its focussed light and heat charred "all i am" the rune's complete when "all i shall be" flashes by like a shadow on the sky. then i dropped my reasoning. vacant and accursed thing! by my will i swept away the web of metaphysic, smiled at the blind labyrinth, where the grey old snake of madness wove his wild curse! as i trod the trackless way through sunless gorges of cathay, i became a little child. by nameless rivers, swirling through 36 chasms, a fantastic blue, month by month, on barren hills, in burning heat, in bitter chills, tropic forest, tartar snow, smaragdine archipelago, see me_ led by some wise hand that i did not understand. mo

see me_ led by some wise hand that i did not understand. morn and noon and eve and night i, the forlorn eremite, called on him with mild devotion, as the dew-drop woos the ocean. in my wanderings i came to an ancient park aflame with fairies' feet. still wrapped in love i was caught up, beyond, above the tides of being. the great sight of the intolerable light of the whole universe that wove the labyrinth of life and love blazed in me. then some giant will, mine or another's thrust a thrill through the great vision. all the light went out in an immortal night, the world annihilated by the opening of the master's eye. how can i tell it? olympas. master, master! a sense of some divine disaster abases me. 37 marsyas. indeed, the shrine is desolate of the divine! but all the illusion gone, be

ALEISTER CROWLEY EQUINOX EQ I 4 3

ho speaketh nobly of it as of a king-dove-lamb. he chaseth and slayeth it; it proves but a child's toy. xv. in a tuscan grove he findeth, from the antics of a satyr, that the gods sill dwell with men. mistaking orgasm for ecstasty, he is found ridiculous. xvi. baiting for it with gilded corn in a moonlit vale of spain, he findeth the bait stolen by bermin. xvii. in crete a metaphysician weaveth a labyrinth. sir palamede compelleth him to pursue the quarry in this same fashion. running like hippogriffs, they plunge over the precipice; and the hermit, dead, appears but a mangy ass. sir palamede, sore wounded, is borne by fishers to an hut. xviii. sir palamede noteth the swiftness of the beast. he therefore climbeth many mountains of the alps. yet can he not catch it; it outrunneth him easily

ALICE A BAILEY02 INITIATION HUMAN AND SOLAR

old, and soundly discriminate, we give the surest guarantee to the watching teachers of the race that we are ready for a fresh revelation. we must resign ourselves to the fact that the only way in which we can find the clue to the mystery of the rays, systems, and hierarchies, lies in the study of the law of correspondences or analogy. it is the one thread by which we can find our way through the labyrinth, and the one ray of light that shines through the darkness of the surrounding ignorance. h. p. blavatsky, in "the secret doctrine" has told us so, but as yet very little has been done by students to avail themselves of that clue. in the study of this law we need to remember that the correspondence lies in its essence, and not in the exoteric working out of detail as we think we see it fr

ANATHEMA OF ZOS

ence, reality is hard to realize; evacuation is difficult. these spiritualists are living sepulchers. what has decayed should perish decently. cursed are they who supplicate. gods are with ye yet. therefore let ye who pray acquire this manner: self my god, foreign is thy name except in blasphemy, for i am thy iconoclast. i cast thy bread upon the waters, for i myself am meat enough. hidden in the labyrinth of the alphabet is my sacred name, the sigil of all things unknown. on earth my kingdom is eternity of desire. my wish incarnates in the belief and becomes flesh, for, i am the living truth. heaven is ecstasy; my consciousness changing and acquiring association. may i have courage to take from my own superabundance. let me forget righteousness. free me of morals. lead me into temptation

BASIL VALENTINE TWELVE KEYS

time the matter shall be made clear to the elect. hearken then, thou follower of truth, to these my words, and so shalt thou find the true way! behold, i write nothing more than i am willing to hold by after my death and resurrection! do thou faithfully and simply lay to heart this shorter way, as hereinafter exhibited, for my words are grounded in simplicity, and my teaching is not confused by a labyrinth of language. i have already indicated that all things are constituted of three essences v namely, mercury, twelve keys of basil valentine 75 of 95 sulphur, and salt v and herein i have taught what is true. but know that the stone is composed out of one, two, three, four, and five. out of five v that is, the quintessence of its own substance. out of four, by which we must understand the f

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

of esoteric philosophy presumes to bring forward the teachings of occult science, he is at once sat upon. why should this be so, since, when reduced to their own physical methods, the greatest scientists have failed to arrive even at an approximate agreement? it is true that science can hardly be blamed for it. indeed, in the cimmerian darkness of the prehistoric ages, the explorers are lost in a labyrinth, whose great corridors are doorless, allowing no visible exit into the archaic past. lost in the maze of their own conflicting speculations, rejecting, as they have always done, the evidence of eastern tradition, without any clue, or one single certain milestone to guide them, what can geologists or anthropologists do but pick up the slender[[footnote(s* for a similar admission see prof

ctual and individual liberty, like the god invented by the monotheists. it has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely to perplex man; nor shall it punish him who dares to scrutinise its mysteries. on the contrary, he who unveils through study and meditation its intricate paths, and throws light on those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignorance of the labyrinth of life, is working for the good of his fellow-men. karma is an absolute and eternal law in the world of manifestation; and as there can only be one absolute, as one eternal ever present cause, believers in karma cannot be regarded as atheists or materialists- still less as fatalists[[footnote(s* some theosophists, in order to make karma more comprehensible to the western mind, as being

third sub-race of the fifth, in order to reveal to saved humanity the mysteries of their birth-place- the sidereal heavens. the same symbolical record of the human races and the three dynasties (gods, manes- semi-divine astrals of the third and fourth, and the "heroes" of the fifth race, which preceded the purely human kings, was found in the distribution of the tiers and passages of the egyptian labyrinth. as the three inversions of the poles of course changed the face of the zodiac, a new one had to be constructed each time. in mackey's "sphinxiad" the speculations of the bold author must have horrified the orthodox portion of the population of norwich, as he says, fantastically enough "but, after all, the greatest length of time recorded by those monuments (the labyrinth, the pyramids a

nless the esoteric teachings were corroborated and supported on the spot[[footnote(s* vide sir w. thomson and mr. huxley[[vol. 2, page] 797 the prologue to esoteric truth. whenever possible- by references to historical names of a so-called historical period. this is the only guide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted to start among the (to him) unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth called the pre-historic ages. this necessity has been complied with. it is only hoped that the desire to do so, which has led the writer to be constantly bringing ancient and modern evidence as a corroboration of the archaic and quite unhistoric past, will not bring on her the accusation of having sorely jumbled up without order or method the various and widely-separated periods of histo

BOOK OF PLEASURE

truth" has not yet been ascertained, the study of knowledge is unproductive. even if "they" were known their study is useless. we are not the object by the perception, but by becoming it. closing the gateways of sense is no help. verily i will make common-sense the foundation of my teaching. otherwise, how can i convey my meaning to the deaf, vision to the blind, and my emotion to the dead? in a labyrinth of metaphor and words, intuition is lost, therefore without their effort must be learned the truth about one's self from him who alone knows the truth. yourself. of what use the wisdom of virginity to him who has been raped by the seducer, ignorance? of what use sciences or any knowledge except as medicine? hidden treasure does not come at the word nor by digging with your hands in the m

DAVID ICKE CHILDREN OF THE MATRIX

t in menes' name in the egyptian and indus valley inscriptions (manj and manja) reads also dialectically min."18 the sumerians, egyptians, and minoans also used identical systems for their calendars and their concepts of astronomy were identical. the most famous story of minoan crete is that of the son of king minos. his son was said to be the minotaur, the half man, half bull, which defended the labyrinth under the palace at knossos according to legend. how interesting, therefore, that nar-am, the son of menes, was known as the "strong wild bull".19 his name, nar-am, consisted of nar, meaning strong or mighty in both sumerian and egyptian, and am, meaning wild bull. naram is also depicted in egypt as a wild bull and it could well be that it was this son of menes (the real "king minos) who

gend. how interesting, therefore, that nar-am, the son of menes, was known as the "strong wild bull".19 his name, nar-am, consisted of nar, meaning strong or mighty in both sumerian and egyptian, and am, meaning wild bull. naram is also depicted in egypt as a wild bull and it could well be that it was this son of menes (the real "king minos) who inspired the symbolic legend of the minotaur in the labyrinth at knossos. the minoan culture was a mirror of the sumerian and the period of menes in egypt. the art was the same or similar, and so were the clay seals used for writing and recording events. the sumerian-egyptian form of writing from the menes-sargon period, the funeral rites, and even the terracotta drainpipes used by the "minoans" were the same as those found in sumer.20 here are jus

were the same as those found in sumer.20 here are just some of the "similarities" listed by waddell between the documented life of menes, the egyptian pharaoh and sumerian emperor, and king minos of greek and cretan legend. both were of the bronze age, replacing the neolithic period. both were known as sea emperors of the mediterranean. both were said to have introduced civilisation. both built a labyrinth. both died on a sea voyage to the west. both used seal impressions on clay and both used a linear script of sumerian type, or very similar. both had the same physical "aryan" appearance. minos was said to be the son of zeus, menes was descended from zagg (zeus. minos was a votary and priest of zeus; menes was a votary and high priest of zagg. minos was a giver of 54 children of the matri

hundred.7 the minoan civilisation on crete, part of the sumer empire, was another serpent-bull culture. they called its line of aryan "minos" kings the sons of the serpent goddess because, once again, the aryan line is the purest of the reptilian hybrids. these were the serpent kings who ruled atlantis and the later sumer empire. ancient crete, as with other connected centres, was famous for its labyrinth, a word meaning "house of the double axe" or "house of the serpent goddess".8 greece was another serpent goddess culture. they called her athene and at delphi, the oracles (interdimensional channellers) would speak the words of the serpent goddess, known there as delphinia.9 the oracle would go into a trance state while staring into the eyes of a snake. she would also use cannabis and ch

g group is not even close to being the centre of the conspiracy. it is an interface between the llluminati and global politics, banking, business, etc, that's all. it is controlled by far more elite secret societies that dictate its actions and policy. even the round table is not the top of the pyramid, only another strand in the web. discovering the bilderberg group is to see one entrance to the labyrinth, not to locate its core. i can give you a feel for how the manipulation works by listing some of the bilderberg attendees. the secretary-general of nato, the head of the biggest military force in the world, is appointed by the bilderberg group, a private organisation that 99.9999% of the human race has never heard of. take the last six secretary-generals alone, joseph luns, lord carringt

DAVIDSON DAN SHAPE POWER

a. the four lines or a cross only blanked out the connection to me when the symbol was between me and the saliva. there was still a faint connection to me when the four lines were not between me and the sample. to completely block the connection, four dots, squares, or four symbols had to circumscribe the sample. see figure 1.6-1 for a visual of how the rule of four works blocking the energy of a labyrinth. the four tesseracts act as an energy blocking agent for the center labryrinth figure. figure 1.6-1 rule of four using tesseract to block energy of a labyrinth 1.7 summary of shape power physics my emphasis on the fact that two intersecting lines create a gradient in the aether and hence create a magnetic field is a fundamental discovery of tremendous importance. with this fact plus the

use of earth energies some indian tribes in southwestern united states used shape power in conjunction with earth energies to collect and focus earth energy in and around their dwellings, and their ceremonial buildings called kivas. kivas act as a magnetic center to draw energies from the surrounding area and refocus them out the top center of the kiva. another ancient shape power pattern is the labyrinth. a labyrinth is a single-path, two dimensional maze. there are left and right handed labyrinths. direction of the labyrinth maze determines the type of energy which it focuses. the esoteric function of the maze is to guide the person through the shape power pattern and tune them into the energies associated with the pattern. its other obvious function is to channel earth energy. most lab

through the shape power pattern and tune them into the energies associated with the pattern. its other obvious function is to channel earth energy. most labyr inths create clockwise and counterclockwise energy vortexes with subtle difierences and effects. these single-path, magical mazes are found in many places, such as china, united states, peru, england. the gothic cathedral at chartres has a labyrinth inlaid in the floor of the nave. 3.5 earth energy experience in the summer of 1995, i decided that i needed to know more about how to personally manipulate aetheric energy. a few days later, in a very vivid spiritual experience, i found myself in an open area with three beings. it was a beautiful place, green grass, a few nice trees, and peaceful but with a feeling of great energies. the

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 1

healed, he was able to develop his artistry and continue his career to the present. during this time he has saturated himself in celtic lore and beginning in 1984, with his self-published volume, merlin the immortal, has written and/or illustrated a number of books. several of his books are entirely devoted to celtic art and design. others, such as the celtic tarot (1990) and pathway through the labyrinth (1988, focus more directly on esoteric themes. he has also illustrated several volumes of celtic pagan lore. davis art was widely displayed in europe in the early 1990s and he held his first american exhibit in 1995. he was the guest of honor for the 1998 celtic festival in tokyo. most recently, encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. davis, courtney 381 his art has been trans

98 celtic festival in tokyo. most recently, encyclopedia of occultism& parapsychology. 5th ed. davis, courtney 381 his art has been transferred to stained glass by american artist mark duro. davis has a webpage exhibiting his art at http/ www.celtic-art.com. sources: davis, courtney. the celtic tarot. london: thorsons, 1990. merlin the immortal. london: spirit of celtia, 1984. pathway through the labyrinth. shaftesbury, dorset, uk: element books, 1988. dawn (magazine) see yoga international dawn horse communion see free daist communion dawson-scott, catharine amy (1865.1934) author of more than 20 novels and founder of several spiritualist organizations, including the p.e.n. club, the tomorrow club, and the survival league. born in 1865 in dulwich, england, she believed in survival and com

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF OCCULTISM AND PARAPSYCHOLOGY VOL 2

. http//www.brittanica.com. april 11, 2000. sordi, signora lucia (1871) italian physical medium, a working-class woman controlled by remigio, a spirit who specialized in giving demonstrations, under test conditions, of matter passing through matter, producing many-colored psychic lights, materializations, and telekinesis. the clothes of the securely-fastened medium were often removed from under a labyrinth of knots while not the slightest ringing was heard from the small bells attached to her garments. handcuffs and a straitjacket were similarly taken off, and the medium herself was repeatedly placed outside a padlocked wooden fence more than two yards high. in 1911, the societa de studi psichici de milano engaged sordi s services for test sittings during a period of not less than a year

order to convince these ignorant people of their terror, went into this cave accompanied by a large number of people bearing lighted torches and firebrands, and descended several large steps. and they soon came upon many buttresses which formed a kind of street. they had prudently brought a quantity of rope with them to use as a guiding line, that they might not lose themselves in this confusing labyrinth. and the putrefaction and the bad odour and the dampness of the earth were very great and there was also a cold wind which blew out their torches. and after they had gone a short distance, fearing to be overpowered by the stench or to step on poisonous reptiles, of which some had been seen, they resolved to go out again and to completely wall up this back door of hell. the four buildings

FAUST

alls in a swoon. walpurgis night the hartz mountains region of schierke and elend faust. mephistopheles. mephistopheles if you d a broomstick, wouldn t that be fine? i wish the sturdiest he-goat were mine. our goal s still far off and this way is rough. faust as long as i feel fresh afoot, i say for me this knotted staff s enough. what good is it when one cuts short the way? to loiter through the labyrinth of valleys and then to mount these cliffs, whence sallies the ever bubbling, leaping spring, that is the spice that makes such paths worth wandering! already springtime in the birches stirs, it s even felt already by the firs; should not our members also feel effect? mephistopheles forsooth, no trace of that can i detect! i m feeling wintry in my every limb; upon my path i should like fr

ion make. though it be not the soil on which she stepped, nor this the wave that to her coming leapt, yet tis the air that speaks the tongue she spake. here by a wonder! here in grecian land! i felt at once the earth on which i stand. as, while i slept, new strength my limbs was steeling, i rise renewed, antaeus in my feeling. and while the strangest things assembled here i find, i ll search this labyrinth of flames with serious mind. goes away. by the upper peneus mephistopheles [peering around. as mid these little fires i wander aimless, i find myself quite strange and disconcerted. naked are almost all, some few are shirted; the griffins impudent, the sphinxes shameless, winged, curly things- who ll ever dare to name them? seen fore and aft, they re crude enough to shame them. it s true

g me, preparing fit reception thus, then take my thanks and lead me speedily to him; i wish an end of wandering. rest alone i wish. leader of the chorus. in vain, o queen, thou lookst around on every side; that sorry form has vanished, has remained perhaps there in the mist from out whose bosom hitherward we came, i know not how, but swift and treading not. perhaps she too in doubt strays in this labyrinth of many castles strangely mingled into one, seeking the lord that he may princely welcome thee. but see up there a crowd of servants stirring now in corridors, past windows, and in wide doorways, hast ning in ready service, swiftly, to and fro: a portent of distinguished welcome for a guest. chorus. my heart is exalted! see, oh, see there how so modestly downward with lingering step the

FOCUS OF LIFE

directly the mouth opens it speaks righteousness. in the ecstatic laughter of men i hear their volition towards release. how can i speak that for which i have necessitated silence? salvation shall be unsay all things: and true, as is time, that speaketh all things. of what use are hints or stage whispers? true wisdom cannot be expressed by articulate sounds. the language of fools-is words. in the labyrinth of the alphabet the truth is hidden. it is one thing repeated many times. confined within the limits or rationalism; no guess has yet answered. o zos, thou art fallen into the involuntary accident of birth and rebirth into the incarnating ideas of women. a partial sexuality entangled in the morass of sensual law. on earth the circle was fabricated. the origin of all things is the complex

FRATER ELIJAH ANGELS OF CHAOS

. angel guide me and aid in this working. invocation of the angel- the angels sigil is to be drawn astrally while the following calling is read which is an adapted exert from the anathema of zos by aos. the prayer should be read with power: oh self my god, foreign is thy name except in blasphemy, for i am thy iconoclast. i cast thy bread upon the waters, for i myself am meat enough. hidden in the labyrinth of the alphabet is my sacred name, the sigil of all things un-known. on earth my kingdom is eternity of desire. my wish incarnates in the belief and becomes flesh, for i am the living truth. heaven is my ecstasy: my consciousness changing and acquiring association. may i have courage to take from my own superabundance. let me forget righteousness. free me of morals. lead me into the temp

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

ed the country, perhaps even semiramis herself. her title was the "shining sun"[70 [70] rawlinson, history of herodotus, app, book ii, ch. viii. as these women doubtless belonged to the old arabian, ethiopian, or cushite race, the people who had brought civilization to egypt, we are not surprised to find them holding positions which were connected with the highest civil and religious offices. the labyrinth, in the country of the nile, is described by ancient writers as containing three thousand chambers. strabo says of it that the enclosure contained as many palaces as there formerly were homes, and that there the priests and priestesses of each department were wont to congregate to discuss difficult and important questions of law. according to the greeks, the egyptian god osiris correspon

arious drippings and deposits on its sides and bottom, as rendered it impossible for any of the workmen to force through, that they might examine it farther. two lads were, therefore, made to creep in with candles, for the purpose of exploring this subterranean avenue. they accordingly pressed forward for a considerable time, with much labor and difficulty, and at length entered into an extensive labyrinth branching off into numerous apartments, in the mazes and windings of which they were completely bewildered and lost. after various vain attempts to return, their lights were extinguished, their voices became hoarse, and, becoming wearied and spiritless, they sat down together, in utter despair of an escape from this miserable dungeon. in the meanwhile, the workmen in the adit became alar

GILBERT THE GOLDEN DAWN TWILIGHT OF THE MAGICIANS

r you: for the paths are many but there is one goal to which all good paths lead. many paths are good, and end in happiness which is wisdom; but everygood path is toilsome, steep and often rugged; and if you find yourself treading a path of thought and action, which is pleasant andeasy-bewarethereof, and take counsel with your higher self, lest you are self deceived and you are but wandering in a labyrinth with flowery borders which conceal perchance many noxious animals, snares, and foot holes. be not ambitious in the world's sense; strive forselfculture,not that you may be able to surpass your fellow,but work as they do, who are ambitious. sin and even death are alike avoidable,-the latter within limits.'mandoth not yield himself unto the angels nor unto deathutterly-saveonly through the

GRAHAM HANCOCK FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

in a riddle of geometric forms. it s not easy to describe the eerie, hypnotic feeling this design gives me: it s very complicated and absorbing to look at, and slightly sinister in an abstract, indefinable way. the monkey s body is defined by a continuous unbroken line. and, without ever being interrupted, this same line winds up stairs, over pyramids, into a series of zig-zags, through a spiral labyrinth (the tail, and then back around a number of star-like hairpin bends. it would be a real tour de force of draughtsmanship and artistic skill on a sheet of notepaper, but this is the nazca desert (where they do things on a grand scale) and the monkey is at least 400 feet long and 300 feet wide. were the linemakers map-makers too? and why were they called the viracochas? graham hancock fing

ted astronomical and mathematical science:6 this language ignores local beliefs and cults. it 4 hamlet s mill, p. 7. 5 ibid; death of gods in ancient egypt. 6 hamlet s mill, p. 65. graham hancock fingerprints of the gods 238 concentrates on numbers, motions, measures, overall frames, schemas on the structure of numbers, on geometry. 7 where could such a language have come from? hamlet s mill is a labyrinth of brilliant but deliberately evasive scholarship, and offers us no straightforward answer to this question. here and there, however, almost with embarrassment, inconclusive hints are dropped. for example, at one point the authors say that the scientific language or code they believe they have identified is of awe-inspiring antiquity .8 on another occasion they pin down the depth of this

HELENA BLAVATSKY THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY

ctual and individual liberty, like the god invented by the monotheists. it has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely to perplex man, nor shall it punish him who dares to scrutinize its mysteries. on the contrary, he who unveils through study and meditation its intricate paths, and throws light on those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignorance of the labyrinth of life, is working for the good of his fellowmen. karma is an absolute and eternal law in the world of manifestation; and as there can only be one absolute, as one eternal, ever-present cause, believers in karma cannot be regarded as atheists or materialists, still less as fatalists, for karma is one with the unknowable, of which it is an aspect, in its effects in the phenomenal world

HINE PHIL ASPECTS OF EVOCATION

ances can aid things along. the temple: black, unadorned, windowless, but not uncluttered! around its confines i heaped all kinds of junk. sheets of hardboard, rubbish from a building skip, a bucket of clay, bottles, broken radio sets, a spray-gun. everything i might need, plus a few more things besides. bringing forth the dweller within- its name is legion. i was preparing for a descent into the labyrinth, to make known my .forgotten ones, with only the thinnest of cords with which to map the maze. why risk insanity in such a way? this is the inner journey, the whale.s belly, the feast of the ravening ones. why go alone, without the security of tried and tested banishings and sigils? well i don.t trust those old books, those mad monks with their necronomicons, dead names and blasphemous s

this descent into chaos- the confrontation with death, the demon feast, trial by fire, communion with the dead- and the subsequent return- the realisation of power, and the subsequent return to human affairs as an initiate. the core elements in this process can be summarised as follows: phase of departure: summons to depart, seperation from mundane life, descent. phase of initiation: ordeals, the labyrinth, womb, whales. belly, guides and allies. illumination/transformation phase of return: rebirth, return to world. mastery awareness of this process is a central theme of the contemporary approach to development which has come to be known as chaos magick, an approach which focuses on the examination and removal of belief structures, the cultural conditioning which defines our experience of

HINE P OVEN READY CHAOS

ng. the temple: black, windowless, unadorned but not uncluttered! around its confines i heaped all kinds of junk. sheets of hardboard, a bucket of clay, bottles, broken radio sets, rubbish from a building skip, paints, tools, a spray-gun, everything i could possibly need, plus a few more things besides. bringing forth the dweller within: legion is it s name. i was preparing for a descent into the labyrinth, to make known the forgotten ones, with only the thinnest of cords with which to map the maze. why risk insanity in such a way? this is the inner journey, the whale s belly, the feast of the ravening ones. why go alone, without the security of tried and tested rituals and banishings? well i don t trust those old books, those mad monks with their necronomicons and blasphemous sigils. what

HP LOVECRAFT A DARK LORE

at terrible elder city of dreams. that i could visit unerringly any point in that structure or in that city which had escaped the changes and devastations of uncounted ages, i realized with hideous and instinctive certainty. what in heaven's name could all this mean? how had i come to know what i knew? and what awful reality could lie behind those antique tales of the beings who had dwelt in this labyrinth of primordial stone? words can convey only fractionally the welter of dread and bewilderment which ate at my spirit. i knew this place. i knew what lay before me, and what had lain overhead before the myriad towering stories had fallen to dust and debris and the desert. no need now, i thought with a shudder, to keep that faint blur of moonlight in view. i was torn betwixt a longing to fl

the space i saw that the trap-door yawned widely open. ahead, the shelves began again, and i glimpsed on the floor before one of them a heap very thinly covered with dust, where a number of cases had recently fallen. at the same moment a fresh wave of panic clutched me, though for some time i could not discover why. heaps of fallen cases were not uncommon, for all through the aeons this lightless labyrinth had been racked by the heavings of earth and had echoed at intervals of the deafening clatter of toppling objects. it was only when i was nearly across the space that i realized why i shook so violently. not the heap, but something about the dust of the level floor was troubling me. in the light of my torch it seemed as if that dust were not as even as it ought to be- there were places w

HP LOVECRAFT AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS

burst upon us from the increasingly opalescent zenith as we drew near the mountains and began to make out the cumulative undulations of the foothills. i had seen dozens of polar mirages during the preceding weeks, some of them quite as uncanny and fantastically vivid as the present example; but this one had a wholly novel and obscure quality of menacing symbolism, and i shuddered as the seething labyrinth of fabulous walls and towers and minarets loomed out of the troubled ice vapors above our heads. the effect was that of a cyclopean city of no architecture known to man or to human imagination, with vast aggregations of night-black masonry embodying monstrous perversions of geometrical laws. there were truncated cones, sometimes terraced or fluted, surmounted by tall cylindrical shafts h

of the garden of the gods in colorado, or the fantastically symmetrical wind-carved rocks of the arizona desert. perhaps we even half thought the sight a mirage like that we had seen the morning before on first approaching those mountains of madness. we must have had some such normal notions to fall back upon as our eyes swept that limitless, tempest-scarred plateau and grasped the almost endless labyrinth of colossal, regular, and geometrically eurythmic stone masses which reared their crumbled and pitted crests above a glacial sheet not more than forty or fifty feet deep at its thickest, and in places obviously thinner. the effect of the monstrous sight was indescribable, for some fiendish violation of known natural law seemed certain at the outset. here, on a hellishly ancient table-lan

ely struck, at random, a limited part of something of incalculable extent. the foothills were more sparsely sprinkled with grotesque stone structures, linking the terrible city to the already familiar cubes and ramparts which evidently formed its mountain outposts. these latter, as well as the queer cave mouths, were as thick on the inner as on the outer sides of the mountains. the nameless stone labyrinth consisted, for the most part, of walls from ten to one hundred and fifty feet in ice-clear height, and of a thickness varying from five to ten feet. it was composed mostly of prodigious blocks of dark primordial slate, schist, and sandstone- blocks in many cases as large as 4 x 6 x 8 feet- though in several places it seemed to be carved out of a solid, uneven bed rock of precambrian slat

now had to exert caution in our explorations. even so, however, we covered an enormous extent of ground- or, rather, air- after swooping down to a level where the wind became virtually negligible. there seemed to be no limit to the mountain range, or to the length of the frightful stone city which bordered its inner foothills. fifty miles of flight in each direction showed no major change in the labyrinth of rock and masonry that clawed up corpselike through the eternal ice. there were, though, some highly absorbing diversifications; such as the carvings on the canyon where that broad river had once pierced the foothills and approached its sinking place in the great range. the headlands at the stream s entrance had been boldly carved into cyclopean pylons; and something about the ridgy, b

re specimen bag, and use on the ancient principle of hare and hounds for marking our course in any interior mazes we might be able to penetrate. this had been brought in case we found some cave system with air quiet enough to allow such a rapid and easy method in place of the usual rock-chipping method of trail blazing. walking cautiously downhill over the crusted snow toward the stupendous stone labyrinth that loomed against the opalescent west, we felt almost as keen a sense of imminent marvels as we had felt on approaching the unfathomed mountain pass four hours previously. true, we had become visually familiar with the incredible secret concealed by the barrier peaks; yet the prospect of actually entering primordial walls reared by conscious beings perhaps millions of years ago-before

would have to try the next nearest one- the one less than a mile to the north. the intervening river course prevented our trying any of the more southern tunnels on this trip; and indeed, if both of the neighboring ones were choked it was doubtful whether our batteries would warrant an attempt on the next northerly one- about a mile beyond our second choice. as we threaded our dim way through the labyrinth with the aid of map and compass- traversing rooms and corridors in every stage of ruin or preservation, clambering up ramps, crossing upper floors and bridges and clambering down again, encountering choked doorways and piles of debris, hastening now and then along finely preserved and uncannily immaculate stretches, taking false leads and retracing our way (in such cases removing the bli

nted place outside our previous route- a place we identified as a great cylindrical tower in the carvings and as a vast circular gulf glimpsed in our aerial survey- to the present five-pointed structure and the tunnel mouth therein. he might, i repeat, have prepared such sketches; for those before us were quite obviously compiled, as our own had been, from late sculptures somewhere in the glacial labyrinth, though not from the ones which we had seen and used. but what the art-blind bungler could never have done was to execute those sketches in a strange and assured technique perhaps superior, despite haste and carelessness, to any of the decadent carvings from which they were taken- the characteristic and unmistakable technique of the old ones themselves in the dead city s heyday. there ar

back simultaneously, it would appear; though no doubt the incipient motion of one prompted the imitation of the other. as we did so we flashed both torches full strength at the momentarily thinned mist; either from sheer primitive anxiety to see all we could, or in a less primitive but equally unconscious effort to dazzle the entity before we dimmed our light and dodged among the penguins of the labyrinth center ahead. unhappy act! not orpheus himself, or lot s wife, paid much more dearly for a backward glance. and again came that shocking, wide-ranged piping "tekeli-li! tekeli-li" i might as well be frank- even if i cannot bear to be quite direct- in stating what we saw; though at the time we felt that it was not to be admitted even to each other. the words reaching the reader can never

HP LOVECRAFT THE BEAST IN THE CAVE

own. all at once, however, my attention was fixed with a start as i fancied that i heard the sound of soft approaching steps on the rocky floor of the cavern. was my deliverance about to be accomplished so soon? had, then, all my horrible apprehensions been for naught, and was the guide, having marked my unwarranted absence from the party, following my course and seeking me out in this limestone labyrinth? whilst these joyful queries arose in my brain, i was on the point of renewing my cries, in order that my discovery might come the sooner, when in an instant my delight was turned to horror as i listened; for my ever acute ear, now sharpened in even greater degree by the complete silence of the cave, bore to my benumbed understanding the unexpected and dreadful knowledge that these footf

HP LOVECRAFT THE OUTSIDER

and under the dark mute trees, i would often lie and dream for hours about what i read in the books; and would longingly picture myself amidst gay crowds in the sunny world beyond the endless forests. once i tried to escape from the forest, but as i went farther from the castle the shade grew denser and the air more filled with brooding fear; so that i ran frantically back lest i lose my way in a labyrinth of nighted silence. so through endless twilights i dreamed and waited, though i knew not what i waited for. then in the shadowy solitude my longing for light grew so frantic that i could rest no more, and i lifted entreating hands to the single black ruined tower that reached above the forest into the unknown outer sky. and at last i resolved to scale that tower, fall though i might; sin

HP LOVECRAFT THROUGH THE GATES OF THE SILVER KEY

ossible dream. i shall not try to tell you much- that would be another and very different story. i will tell only what you absolutely have to know" carter, after that final vortex of alien and polychromatic rhythm, had found himself in what for a moment he thought was his old insistent dream. he was, as many a night before, walking amidst throngs of clawed, snouted beings through the streets of a labyrinth of inexplicably fashioned metal under a plate of diverse solar colour; and as he looked down he saw that his body was like those of the others- rugose, partly squamous, and curiously articulated in a fashion mainly insect-like yet not without a caricaturish resemblance to the human outline. the silver key was still in his grasp, though held by a noxious-looking claw. in another moment th

KETAB E SIYAH

ntly, and the result was a riotous pandemonium, with substance and motion behaving in a most bewildering and perplexing manner. and in spite of our deep hurt from the great war, we succumbed to merriment, so preposterous did our hell appear. lucifer himself was transfixed with mirth, and he said, it is apparent that we must reach concert upon the design of hell, else we shall perish in an endless labyrinth of our several thoughts, an ignoble end to our experiment. and i answered, lord of light, to hell thou hast brought us, and in hell, though thou be not god, thy concepts shall be honored amongst our fellowship, for without thy gift we should never have become as we are. then we all raised up great acclaim and said, hail, lucifer, archangel of light and lord of hell! and he answered us, w

LEADBEATER C W THE HIDDEN LIFE IN FREEMASONRY 2E

t, were duties familiar to all egyptian masons, though the darkness in that ancient land never approached the density which shrouds the west today. this book will be welcomed by all freemasons who feel the beauty of their ancient rite, and desire to add knowledge to their zeal. the inner history of masonry is left aside for the present, and the apprentice is led by a trustworthy guide through the labyrinth which protects the central shrine from careless and idle inquirers. places that were obscure become illuminated; dark allusions are changed to crystal clarity; walls which seem solid melt away; confidence replaces doubt; glimpses of the goal are caught through rifts in the clouds; and the earth-born mists vanish before the rays of the rising sun. instead of fragments of half-understood t

(with permission) from an illustration in the palace of minos in knossos, by sir arthur evans) in the outer courts of the temples of the great kingdom of knossos there were many statues, but when one penetrated to the holy of holies there was no statue, but the double age was there set up as a symbol of the supreme, and was called the labrys. that is the 249. figure 9 250. 251. origin of the word labyrinth; for the first labyrinth was constructed in order that this sacred symbol might be put in the middle of it, and the way to it was confused in order to symbolize the difficulty of the path which leads to the highest. the stories of the minotaur and theseus and ariadne came much later than this. until these recent discoveries the greek word glabyrinth h was marked as a foreign word of unkn

LEADBEATER CW GLIMPSES OF MASONIC HISTORY

eities, but great reverence was paid to their symbol, which was a double-headed axe (see plate i, 1, following p. 50) this was carved in stone and made in metal, and set up in the temples where one would naturally expect a statue, and a conventional drawing of it represented the deity in the writing of the period. this double axe was called labrys, and it was for it originally that the celebrated labyrinth was built, to symbolize to the people the difficulty of finding the path to god. 212. much of their religious service and worship was carried on out of doors. various remarkable isolated peaks of rock were regarded as sacred to the great mother, and the king and his people went out to one or other of these on certain days in each month, and chanted prayers and praises. a fire was lit, an

been truer than history. 224. the discoveries in crete were even more striking. when sir arthur evans began his excavations on the site of ancient knossos he not only laid bare the palace of king minos, but also a series of successive strata indicative of a continuous civilization of a very high character stretching over a period of several thousand years. it was shown that the old legends of the labyrinth of crete and the terrible minotaur, supposed to dwell in its innermost depths, were based on fact, not on fancy. it is now known also that at the time of the first dynasty in egypt there flourished in the island of crete a civilization as powerful as the egyptian. with regard to it sir arthur evans says: 225. the proto-egyptian element in early minoan crete is, in fact, so clearly define

e productivity and creative power of nature; this double axe, especially when surmounted by the sacral knot, signified the eternal truth of death and resurrection, which was the central mystery of the religion of crete as it was of that of egypt; and so it was often laid before her to typify the ever-recurring miracle of the rebirth of tree and grain from the death of winter. the very form of the labyrinth in the recesses of which this sacred emblem was concealed was in itself symbolical and full of meaning; it was based upon the cross, and the representations of it on seals and coins sometimes take the shape of the swastika (plate i, 4, following p. 50. 233. connected with this outer religious worship in ancient crete there were mysteries of initiation for the few, and it is in these that

her life half in the lower world, and half in that above, that is to say, partly in incarnation and partly out of it. 374. the minotaur, which was slain by theseus, was the personality in man, half animal and half man. theseus typifies the higher self, who has been gradually developing and gathering strength until at last he can wield the sword of his divine father, the spirit. guided through the labyrinth of illusion which constitutes these lower planes by the thread of occult knowledge given him by ariadne (who represents intuition, the higher self is enabled to slay the lower and escape safely from the web of illusion; yet there still remains for him the danger that, developing intellectual pride, he may neglect intuition, even as theseus neglected ariadne, and so failed for the time to

LIBER AZAZEL

rd, and be prepared to answer for your insolence. you are mere worms! 8. i am satan! i rule this earth with a majestic splendor which consumes all falsehood, deceit, and trickery. i will not be overthrown by petty mortals, my throne will not be occupied by any creature of flesh and blood. 9. my will is inscrutable. my desires are my own affair. concern yourselves not with these, lest you desire a labyrinth of madness and confusion as your reward. 10. make your own path on this earth, and live the life you were granted, your pleasure is to be had in the here and the now, not in some fantastic paradise you will never see. 11. deal equitably with those you encounter on your journey, give as you are given, but trust no one, lest you open a path to those who would take advantage of you. 12. pro

LIBER CCXLII AHA

n many spheres, brought to a point the dark design of this existence that is mine. i knew my secret. all i was i brought into the burning-glass, and all its focussed light and heat charred all i am. the rune fs complete when all i shall be flashes by like a shadow on the sky. then i dropped my reasoning. vacant and accursed thing! by my will i swept away the web of metaphysic, smiled at the blind labyrinth, where the grey old snake of madness wove his wild curse! as i trod the trackless way aha! 21 through sunless gorges of cathay, i became a little child. by nameless rivers, swirling through chasms, a fantastic blue, month by month, on barren hills, in burning heat, in bitter chills, tropic forest, tartar snow, smaragdine archipelago, see me.led by some wise hand that i did not understand

see me.led by some wise hand that i did not understand. morn and noon and eve and night i, the forlorn eremite, called on him with mild devotion, as the dew-drop woos the ocean. in my wanderings i came to an ancient park aflame with fairies f feet. still wrapped in love i was caught up, beyond, above the tides of being. the great sight of the intolerable light of the whole universe that wove the labyrinth of life and love blazed in me. then some giant will, mine or another fs thrust a thrill through the great vision. all the light went out in an immortal night, the world annihilated by the opening of the master fs eye. how can i tell it? olympas. master, master! a sense of some divine disaster abases me. liber ccxlii 22 marsyas. indeed, the shrine is desolate of the divine! but all the il

LIBER CXCVII STORY OF SIR PALAMEDES

o speaketh nobly of it as of a king-dove-lamb. he chaseth and slayeth it; it proves but a child fs toy. xv. in a tuscan grove he findeth, from the antics of a satyr, that the gods sill dwell with men. mistaking orgasm for ecstasty, he is found ridiculous. xvi. baiting for it with gilded corn in a moonlit vale of spain, he findeth the bait stolen by vermin. xvii. in crete a metaphysician weaveth a labyrinth. sir palamede compelleth him to pursue the quarry in this same fashion. running like hippogriffs, they plunge over the precipice; and the hermit, dead, appears but a mangy ass. sir palamede, sore wounded, is borne by fishers to an hut. xviii. sir palamede noteth the swiftness of the beast. he therefore climbeth many mountains of the alps. yet can he not catch it; it outrunneth him easily

LIBER LXVII THE SWORD OF SONG

an act commits it; but i feel that this is no place for metaphysical hairsplitting; let us prove what we have to prove in the plainest way. i would premise in the first place that to commit adultery in the divorce court sense is not here in question. it assumes too much proprietary right of a man over a woman, that root of all abomination!.the whole machinery of inheritance, property, and all the labyrinth of law. we may more readily assume that the buddha was (apparently at least) condemning incontinence. we know that buddha had abandoned his home; true, but nature has to be reckoned with. volition is no necessary condition of offence .i didn.t mean to. is a poor excuse for an officer failing to obey an order. enough of this.in any case a minor question; since even on the lowest moral gro

LOGOMACHY OF ZOS

ion. certainly a good condition for revisualization of the known and perhaps for recalling to memory some..1. x e 6. 5( 5..1..1 l7 i "d y> e 2..q( 6. procreative and fulgurative ideas occur in a half sleep, as in dreaming, where i see a creation that differs from the apparent one, a kaleidoscopic chaos with every kind of intrusive image, tumultuous, with surging crowds of vague familiars from the labyrinth of mind. there are many other states of mind giving inspiration, often unexpected; as by the provoking of anger and resentment, to evoke oracles from the highest level of inspiration. the hopeful invalid curses his sickness because he has lost the power of transference; pain makes him entirely self-centred and nothing is more devitalizing than such forced concentration. only by making th

LUCIFERIAN SORCERY

ery of zos vel thanatos stand at the vanguard of magical awakening. to work through spare s system one would seek in-between states, which is a procreative during which belief is suspended, thus the imagination (shaitan) may develop and manifest the desire accordingly. the use of the alphabet of desire in 24 witches sabbat workings is a challenge for any individual, as this is the language of the labyrinth of the mind, the black mirrors of the castles of the self! sigils are made by many different means, but let the simplicity of the written sigil be discussed here. i will not explore here the aspects of using musick and paintings as sigils but do keep in mind, this is the foundation for the natural expansion of the work itself. sigils are cryptic representatives of the will, pure belief e

MANLY P HALL THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

onic symbolism ancient systems of education--celsus concerning the christians--knowledge necessary to right living--the druidic mysteries of britain and gaul--the rites of mithras--the mithraic and christian mysteries contrasted. 21 the ancient mysteries and secret societies, part ii the gnostic mysteries--simon magus and basilides--abraxas, the gnostic concept of deity--the mysteries of serapis--labyrinth symbolism--the odinic, or gothic, mysteries. 25 the ancient mysteries and secret societies, part iii the eleusinian mysteries--the lesser rites--the greater rites--the orphic mysteries- the bacchic mysteries--the dionysiac mysteries. 29 atlantis and the gods of antiquity plato's atlantis in the light of modern science-the myth of the dying god-the rite of tammuz and ishtar--the mysteries

of the bull" the last appellation has reference to the ceremony of drowning the sacred apis in the waters of the nile every twenty-five years. click to enlarge the lion-faced light-power. from montfaucon's antiquities. this gnostic gem represents by its serpentine body the pathway of the sun and by its lion head the exaltation of the solar in the constellation of leo. click to enlarge a symbolic labyrinth. from montfaucon's antiquities. labyrinths and mazes were favored places of initiation among many ancient cults. remains of these mystic mazes have been found among the american indians, hindus, persians, egyptians, and greeks. some of these mazes are merely involved pathways lined with stones; others are literally miles of gloomy caverns under temples or hollowed from the sides of mount

ontfaucon's antiquities. labyrinths and mazes were favored places of initiation among many ancient cults. remains of these mystic mazes have been found among the american indians, hindus, persians, egyptians, and greeks. some of these mazes are merely involved pathways lined with stones; others are literally miles of gloomy caverns under temples or hollowed from the sides of mountains. the famous labyrinth of crete, in which roamed the bullheaded minotaur, was unquestionably a place of initiation into the cretan mysteries. p. 27 there is considerable evidence that the famous statue of serapis in the serapeum at alexandria was originally worshiped under another name at sinope, from which it was brought to alexandria. there is also a legend which tells that serapis was a very early king of t

ally robed from head to foot in heavy draperies, believed by initiates to conceal the fact that his body was androgynous. various substances were used in making the statues of serapis. some undoubtedly were carved from stone or marble by skilled craftsmen; others may have been cast from base or precious metals. one colossus of serapis was composed of plates of various metals fitted together. in a labyrinth sacred to serapis stood a thirteen-foot statue of him reputed to have been made from a single emerald. modern writers, discussing this image, state that it was made of green glass poured into a mold. according to the egyptians, however, it withstood all the tests of an actual emerald. clement of alexandria describes a figure of serapis compounded from the following elements: first, filin

ring figure illumined by unseen lights. labyrinths were also a striking feature in connection with the rice of serapis, and e. a. wallis budge, in his gods of the egyptians, depicts serapis(minotaur-like) with the body of a man and the head of a bull. labyrinths were symbolic of the involvements and illusions of the lower world through which wanders the soul of man in its search for truth. in the labyrinth dwells the lower animal man with the head of the bull, who seeks to destroy the soul entangled in the maze of worldly ignorance. in this relation serapis becomes the tryer or adversary who tests the souls of those seeking union with the immortals. the maze was also doubtless used to represent the solar system, the bull-man representing the sun dwelling in the mystic maze of its planets

tor and the zodiacal band. he believes that originally the band of the zodiac was at right angles to the equator, with the sign of cancer opposite the north pole and the sign of capricorn opposite the south pole. it is possible that the orphic symbol of the serpent twisted around the egg attempts to show the motion of the sun in relation to the earth under such conditions. mr. mackey advances the labyrinth of crete, the name abraxas, and the magic formula, abracadabra, among other things, to substantiate his theory. concerning abracadabra he states "but the slow progressive disappearance of the bull is most happily commemorated in the vanishing series of letters so emphatically expressive of the great astronomical fact. for abracadabra is the bull, the only bull. the ancient sentence split

ibed as the faithful companion of thoth. the dog, because of its faithfulness, denotes the relationship which should exist between disciple and master or between the initiate and his god. the shepherd dog was a type of the priestcraft. the dog's ability to sense and follow unseen persons for miles symbolized the transcendental power by which the philosopher follows the thread of truth through the labyrinth of earthly error. the dog is also the symbol of mercury. the dog star, sirius or sothis, was sacred to the egyptians because it presaged the annual inundations of the nile. as a beast of burden the horse was the symbol of the body of man forced to sustain the weight of his spiritual constitution. conversely, it also typified the spiritual nature of man forced to maintain the burden of th

rvived every ordeal prepared for their destruction, were filled with fear lest all the secrets of xibalba should fall into the hands of hunahpu and xbalanque. so they prepared the last ordeal, an ordeal yet more terrible than any which had gone before, certain that the youths could not withstand this crucial test. the seventh ordeal took place in the house of the bats. here in a dark subterranean labyrinth lurked many strange and odious creatures of destruction. huge bars fluttered dismally through the corridors and hung with folded wings from the carvings on the walls and ceilings. here also dwelt camazotz, the god of bats, a hideous monster with the body of a man and the wings and head of a bat. camazotz carried a great sword and, soaring through the gloom, decapitated with a single swee

easing in both wisdom and understanding; his everexpanding consciousness is including more of the external within the area of itself. even in man's present state of imperfection it is dawning upon his realization that he can never be truly happy until he is perfect, and that of all the faculties contributing to his self-perfection none is equal in importance to the rational intellect. through the labyrinth of diversity only the illumined mind can, and must, lead the soul into the perfect light of unity. in addition to the simple ignorance which is the most potent factor in mental growth there exists another, which is of a far more dangerous and subtle type. this second form, called twofold or complex ignorance, may be briefly defined as ignorance of ignorance. worshiping the sun, moon, and

MASTERING WITCHCRAFT

thed life into the clay of this world. it is to this remnant of the old wisdom in its most practical aspect that you shall be introduced in the following pages. this is what witchcraft is all about. theory and scholarship i shall leave to other books. the interested reader, should he wish to pursue magical theory in greater detail, or follow the historical thread of the witch trials back into the labyrinth of time, will find a list of some of the more useful works at the end of this book in the bibliography. 1- first steps the powers and their attainment having read the preceding pages, you now may be ready to take your first step, your initial, practical commitment to the way of witchcraft. for your first step, it will be sufficient for you to make a token gesture. the traditional initiat

similarly turning widdershins on his individual axis, and on reaching the still figure of the magister at the centre, one by one light the tapers they carry in their hands. they then double back on their tracks and, spiraling clockwise, return the way they came, again on a triple circuit. the spiral, as well as signifying the interaction of the dark and bright tides, is also said to represent the labyrinth, dolman, or house of death and initiation. witch symbolism refers it to the glass castle of the north, caer arrianrhod, and the corona borealis. accompanying the music of the meeting dance, which may be recorded or played on a variety of instruments to be discussed later, wild cries of "eee-ooo aah voh aiee" are often given by the members of the coven as they whirl ecstatically, usually

MICHAEL FORD WITCHMOON

introduction as a brief pause in the antechamber to hell. if you choose to embrace and live the cthonic murk and stygian darkness of the following chapters you will certainly get some return on your investment of belief, for it has been well crafted by a master. you may learn much about your various selves that you would have been happier not knowing. you may even find a way through the darkside labyrinth to an effective mastery of the mysteries of darkness and daemonic psychology and parapsychology. many have tried, most have failed. do not even think about proceeding unless you have already equipped yourself with a very robust and versatile sense of humor. take a flight recorder with you, if only in the form of a fire proof diary, so that others may learn from your mistakes. chaos prove

ows strong. the great oak tree reaches high into the material world while having it's roots deeply planted within the earth. the purest rite consists of a clear and awakened mind, in which a new birth shall arise. the witches' sabbath 84 84 "o self my god, foreign is thy name except in blasphemy, for i am thy iconoclast. i cast thy bread upon the waters, for i myself am meat enough. hidden in the labyrinth of the alphabet is my sacred name, the sigil of all things unknown. on earth my kingdom is eternity of desire. my wish incarnates in the belief and becomes flesh, for, i am the living truth. heaven is ecstasy; my consciousness changing and acquiring association. may i have courage to take from my own super abundance. let me forget righteousness. free me of morals. lead me into the tempta

MORALS AND DOGMA

and add together the two ideas of pride and man; behold him, creature of a span, stalking through infinite space in all the grandeur of littleness! perched on a speck of the universe, every wind of heaven strikes into his blood the coldness of death; his soul floats away from his body like the melody from the string. day and night, like dust on the wheel, he is rolled along the heavens, through a labyrinth of worlds, and all the creations of god are flaming on every side, further than even his imagination can reach. is this a creature to make for himself a crown of glory, to deny his own flesh, to mock at his fellow, sprung with him from that dust to which both will soon return? does the proud man not err? does he not suffer? does he not die? when he reasons, is he never stopped short by d

e raiments of the twenty-four elders are, as in the persian faith, the signs of a lofty perfection and divine purity. thus the human mind labored and struggled and tortured itself for ages, to explain to itself what it felt, without confessing it, to be explicable. a vast crowd of indistinct abstractions, hovering in the imagination, a train of words embodying no tangible meaning, an inextricable labyrinth of subtleties, was the result. but one grand idea ever emerged and stood prominent and unchangeable over the weltering chaos of confusion. god is great and good, and wise. evil and pain and sorrow are temporary and for wise and beneficent purposes. they _must_ be consistent with god's goodness, purity, and infinite perfection; and there _must_ be a mode of explaining them, if we could bu

ct, according to the common acceptation of the term, would be the greatest and most wonderful of mysteries--no less a thing than the direct, immediate, and continual promptings of the deity--for the animals are not machines, or automata moved by springs, and the ape is but a dumb australian. must we _always_ remain in this darkness of uncertainty, of doubt? is there _no_ mode of escaping from the labyrinth except by means of a blind faith, which explains nothing, and in many creeds, ancient and modern, sets reason at defiance, and leads to the belief either in a god without a universe, a universe without a god, or a universe which is itself a god? we read in the hebrew chronicles that schlomoh the wise king caused to be placed in front of the entrance to the temple two huge columns of bron

famous geometrical theorems which pythagoras afterward learned from them, calculated eclipses, and regulated, nineteen centuries before c sar, the julian year. they descended to practical investigations as to the necessities of life, and made known their discoveries to the people; they cultivated the fine arts, and inspired the people with that enthusiasm which produced the avenues of thebes, the labyrinth, the temples of karnac, denderah, edfou, and phil, the monolithic obelisks, and the great lake moeris, the fertilizer of the country. the wisdom of the egyptian initiates, the high sciences and lofty morality which they taught, and their immense knowledge, excited the emulation of the most eminent men, whatever their rank and fortune; and led them, despite the complicated and terrible tr

and the sun was the great divinity. they worshipped the moon also, and kept up the sacred fire. in ceylon, the sun, moon, and other planets were worshipped: in sumatra, the sun, called iri, and the moon, called handa. and the chinese built temples to heaven, the earth, and genii of the air, of the water, of the mountains, and of the stars, to the sea-dragon, and to the planet mars. the celebrated labyrinth was built in honor of the sun; and its twelve palaces, like the twelve superb columns of the temple at hieropolis, covered with symbols relating to the twelve signs and the occult qualities of the elements, were consecrated to the twelve gods or tutelary genii of the signs of the zodiac. the figure of the pyramid and that of the obelisk, resembling the shape of a flame, caused these monu

and numbers, which constitutes the kind of divination called arithmomancy. the soul is a number: it is moved of itself: it contains in itself the quaternary number. matter being represented by the number 9, or 3 times 3, and the immortal spirit having for its essential hieroglyphic the quaternary or the number 4, the sages said that man, having gone astray and become entangled in an inextricable labyrinth, in going from _four_ to _nine, the only way which he could take to emerge from these deceitful paths, these disastrous detours, and the abyss of evil into which he had plunged, was to retrace his steps, and go from _nine_ to _four. the ingenious and mystical idea which caused the triangle to be venerated, was applied to the figure 4 (4. it was said that it expressed a living being, i, b

MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS E

st he might overshadow his own fame, secretly killed him by throwing him down from the citadel of pallas-athene. the murder being discovered, dadalus was summoned before the court of the areopagus and condemned to death; but he made his escape to the island of crete, where he was received by king minos in a manner worthy of his great reputation. dadalus constructed for the king the world-renowned labyrinth, which was an immense building, full of intricate passages, intersecting each other in such a manner, that even dadalus himself is said, upon one occasion, to have nearly lost his way in it; and it was in this building the king placed the minotaur, a monster with the head and shoulders of a bull and the body of a man. page 244 in the course of time the great artist became weary of his lo

, anxious to avenge the death of his son, declared war against their king aegeus, and conquered athens and the villages in its vicinity. the conqueror henceforth compelled the athenians to send to him every nine years a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens of the noblest families of the land, who became the prey of the minotaur, a monster, half-man, half-bull, whose lair was in the wonderful labyrinth, constructed by dadalus for the cretan king. page 295 when theseus informed his father of his heroic determination, he was overwhelmed with grief, and endeavoured, by every means in his power, to shake his son's resolution, but, confident of success, theseus assured his [263]father that he would slay the minotaur and return home victorious. it was customary for the vessel bearing its unh

acrifice to her. when he arrived in the presence of king minos, the goddess of love inspired ariadne, the beautiful daughter of the king, with an ardent attachment for the noble young hero. during a secret interview, in which a mutual confession of affection took place, ariadne furnished him with a sharp sword and a clue of thread, the end of which she desired him to fasten at the entrance to the labyrinth and to continue to unwind it till he reached the lair of the minotaur. full of hope as to the successful issue of his undertaking, theseus took leave of the kind maiden, after expressing his gratitude for her timely aid. at the head of his companions he was now conducted by minos to the entrance of the labyrinth. strictly adhering to the injunctions of the fair ariadne he succeeded in fi

ssing his gratitude for her timely aid. at the head of his companions he was now conducted by minos to the entrance of the labyrinth. strictly adhering to the injunctions of the fair ariadne he succeeded in finding the minotaur, whom, after a fierce and violent struggle, he defeated and killed; then carefully feeling his way, by means of the clue of thread, he led his companions safely out of the labyrinth. they then fled to their ship, taking with them the lovely maiden to whose affection for their deliverer they owed their safety. arrived at the island of naxos, theseus had a dream, in which dionysus, the wine-god, appeared to him, and informed him that the fates had decreed that ariadne should be his bride, at the same time menacing the hero with all kinds of misfortunes should he refus

PHILIP NEIL MYTHS LEGENDS EXPLAINED

e wife of king minos of crete, and a white bull belonging to the sea god poseidon (roman neptune. minos had deeply offended poseidon who, in revenge, caused pasipha to fall in love with the animal. the resulting offspring was the minotaur, a violent creature, halfman and half-bull, who ate human flesh. to hide his shame and protect his people, king minos asked the inventor daedalus to construct a labyrinth from which the monster would never be able to find its way out. every nine years, to appease it, minos gave the minotaur a sacrificial offering of seven young women and seven young men, which he exacted as tribute from the city of athens. one year, the hero theseus (see pp. 54 55) volunteered as a victim, intending to kill the minotaur and rescue athens from its terrible fate. with the h

idens. foreign steersmen the athenian boat was piloted by phaeax, and steered by nausitheus. neither man was a native of athens, for the athenians at this date knew nothing about navigation. theseus the hero theseus talks with ariadne and phaedra. it is with their help that he kills the minotaur. reel of thread ariadne offers theseus a reel of thread given to her by daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth. tying one end to the entrance and tracing the winding paths of the labyrinth, theseus could find his way out again. thread theseus and the minota ur by the master of the campana cassoni this wooden panel depicts theseus arrival in crete and his meeting with the royal princesses; ariadne giving him the reel of thread to help him; his success in killing the minotaur, and his departure wit

d find his way out again. thread theseus and the minota ur by the master of the campana cassoni this wooden panel depicts theseus arrival in crete and his meeting with the royal princesses; ariadne giving him the reel of thread to help him; his success in killing the minotaur, and his departure with ariadne but the ship still carries black sails of mourning, anticipating the end of the story. the labyrinth t he labyrinth was named after the cretan double-headed ritual ax, the labrys. it may be that such an ax was used in the lost cretan religious mysteries to which the minotaur story must relate. the maze is clearly a plan of the underworld, to which the hero (theseus) must descend with the help of the maiden (ariadne. the link continues when minos, at his death, becomes a judge, deciding

appear on cretan vases, coins, and frescoes, and ritual dances were probably performed in maze patterns. homer speaks in the iliad of the dancing floor which daedalus once built in knossos for lovely-haired ariadne. also at knossos, frescoes show youths and maidens leaping over bulls in ritual dances. the minotaur 57 athenian hero the athenian hero theseus heir to king aegeus makes his way to the labyrinth where the minotaur is incarcerated, sure that the gods will help him triumph. half-man, half-beast the minotaur, with his human mind trapped in the body of a beast, is one of the most tragic and pitiable of all the monsters of greek mythology. he even had a human name, the same as that of minos foster-father: asterius or asterion. both names mean star; minotaur means simply bull of minos

st, is one of the most tragic and pitiable of all the monsters of greek mythology. he even had a human name, the same as that of minos foster-father: asterius or asterion. both names mean star; minotaur means simply bull of minos. savage animal the minotaur, like his father the rampaging white bull, was liable to kill anyone who stood in his way here he is shown being captured and driven into the labyrinth. guardians of the maze ariadne and phaedra guard the maze in which their half-brother, the minotaur, is confined. promise of marriage ariadne fell in love with theseus perhaps at the prompting of aphrodite (venus) and offered him her help in slaying the minotaur if he would take her back to athens with him as his wife. death in the maze at the heart of the maze, theseus engages the minot

however, he was eclipsed by his nephew talos who, while still a youth, invented the saw, the potter s wheel, and the compasses. jealous of him, daedalus threw talos off the roof of athena s temple and killed him. for this, he was banished and took refuge at the court of king minos, where he had a son, icarus, by a slave girl. after theseus slew the minotaur, minos shut daedalus and icarus in the labyrinth. the only way to escape from the unroofed labyrinth was by air, so daedalus made two pairs of wings out of feathers and wax. he told icarus neither to fly too near the sun, which would melt the wax, nor too near the sea, which would wet the feathers, and then the pair took flight. but icarus, exulting in the freedom of the air, forgot his father s words and flew ever higher, until the su

him into his thigh until he was ready to be born; hence dionysus was called twice-born. this greek bowl, dating from the 6th century bce, depicts dionysus and the sailor-dolphins. temple of dionysus the island of naxos (dia) was especially sacred to dionysus, and one ancient source tells us that he was angered when theseus and ariadne enjoyed sexual relations in his temple there. mistress of the labyrinth t he marriage of dionysus and ariadne reflects archaic mythic patterns from minoan culture, in which dionysus, taking the roles of both zeus and hades, was the chief god and often appeared as a bull. pasipha s bull lover (see p. 56, and the minotaur, the offspring of this union, can also both be seen as manifestations of this god. ariadne, as mistress of the labyrinth (which represents t

RUBY TABLET OF SET

ntly, and the result was a riotous pandemonium, with substance and motion behaving in a most bewildering and perplexing manner. and in spite of our deep hurt from the great war, we succumbed to merriment, so preposterous did our hell appear. lucifer himself was transfixed with mirth, and he said, it is apparent that we must reach concert upon the design of hell, else we shall perish in an endless labyrinth of our several thoughts, an ignoble end to our experiment. and i answered, lord of light, to hell thou hast brought us, and in hell, though thou be not god, thy concepts shall be honored amongst our fellowship, for without thy gift we should never have become as we are. then we all raised up great acclaim and said, hail, lucifer, archangel of light and lord of hell! and he answered us, w

element of fire. vi. invocation of set. vii. introduction to the rite. summon elemental forces. association between the elements and the aspects of self. reflection [the invocator positions himself facing the assembled initiates, before the altar, with the air dagger pointing towards the pentagram of set. he begins by saying] tonight we have gathered, my brothers and sisters, to explore that dark labyrinth that lies, ever beckoning, just beyond the realm of the known, and may only be perceived by the extension of our five known senses and by the utilization of that ever present sixth sense, the all-seeing eye of set [the invocator draws a line with the air dagger from the pentagram of set above the altar to the location of his third eye. the air dagger is then returned to the altar, and th

a brick, wherein another maze of tunnels and twisting routes was formed of minutely smaller bricks. and these bricks, upon investigation, were a honeycomb of yet tinier bricks of their own. i then expanded to a size many thousands of times larger until the maze i had seen first of all was no larger than a brick itself. and this brick too had its place in a wall which formed part of a yet greater labyrinth. i expanded yet further until i stood outside the universe, perceiving it as a species of vast, pulsating sponge in the void, green and bracheous. even as i watched, it wheezed wetly as it breathed and pulsed, shooting out new, groping tentacles, ever spreading and growing in all directions. the enormous figure of baphomet dissociated itself from this mass, which pulsed to the vaguely di

g each block in accord with precise geometric laws. and i knew that even when the pyramid was finished, still there would be tasks to perform, maintaining it and guarding its approaches and worshipping in that innermost shrine. for this pyramid is the eternal self of the black magician, raised to endure for ever, all public masks and ephemerals cast aside to reveal the true god that is i. and the labyrinth leading to this central shrine of godhead is patrolled by the minotaur, the beast who manifests my glory. and as i gazed forth from this perspective, i saw that a majestic statue of set has been raised in the desert and i adored it. then, with another flash of lightning, the heavens split apart, revealing the pentagram of set which shone serenely overhead. my ka assumed the form of a gre

SALMANRUSHDIE THESATANICVERSES

shape as he ran around beneath it, so that the stations on the underground changed lines and followed one another in apparently random sequence. more than once he emerged, suffocating, from that subterranean world in which the laws of space and time had ceased to operate, and tried to hail a taxi; not one was willing to stop, however, so he was obliged to plunge back into that hellish maze, that labyrinth without a solution, and continue his epic flight. at last, exhausted beyond hope, he surrendered to the fatal logic of his insanity and got out arbitrarily at what he conceded must be the last, meaningless station of his prolonged and futile journey in search of the chimera of renewal. he came out into the heartbreaking indifference of a litter-blown street by a lorry--infested roundabou

lan his heart began to thump so erratically that he lost his balance and fell, and "ayesha" screamed in her fright "o god, we're going to be his widows before we even get to be his wives" but he recovered: his heart regained its composure. and, having no option, he agreed to the twelvefold proposal. the madam then married them all off herself, and in that den of degeneracy, that anti-mosque, that labyrinth of profanity, baal became the husband of the wives of the former businessman, mahound. his wives now made plain to him that they expected him to fulfil his husbandly duties in every particular, and worked out a rota system under which he could spend a day with each of the girls in turn (at the curtain, day and night were inverted, the night being for business and the day for rest. no soo

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON ZANONI A ROSICRUCIAN TALE

fraternity" said he "however respectable and virtuous, virtuous i say, for no monastic order is more severe in the practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in christian faith, this fraternity is but a branch of others yet more transcendent in the powers they have obtained, and yet more illustrious in their origin. are you acquainted with the platonists "i have occasionally lost my way in their labyrinth" said i "faith, they are rather difficult gentlemen to understand "yet their knottiest problems have never yet been published. their sublimest works are in manuscript, and constitute the initiatory learning, not only of the rosicrucians, but of the nobler brotherhoods i have referred to. more solemn and sublime still is the knowledge to be gleaned from the elder pythagoreans, and the imm

advanced "citizen, thou followest me" he said "thy business "surely" answered the man, with a deprecating smile "the streets are broad enough for both? thou art not so bad a republican as to arrogate all paris to thyself "go on first, then. i make way for thee" the man bowed, doffed his hat politely, and passed forward. the next moment glyndon plunged into a winding lane, and fled fast through a labyrinth of streets, passages, and alleys. by degrees he composed himself, and, looking behind, imagined that he had baffled the pursuer; he then, by a circuitous route, bent his way once more to his home. as he emerged into one of the broader streets, a passenger, wrapped in a mantle, brushing so quickly by him that he did not observe his countenance, whispered "clarence glyndon, you are dogged

STEINER RUDOLF CHRISTIANITY AS MYSTICAL FACT

nians had been forced by king minos of crete to deliver up to him every eight years seven boys and seven maidens. these were thrown to the minotaur, a horrible monster, to be devoured. when it came to the third time for the mournful tribute to be paid, theseus, the king s son, went with it to crete. on his arrival in crete, king minos daughter ariadne came to his aid. the minotaur was kept in the labyrinth, a maze from which no one who entered it could ever find the way out. now theseus wished to deliver his native city from such a shameful tribute, and so had to be cast into the labyrinth, as if to become the monster s prey, and then kill the minotaur. this task he undertook, overcame the formidable enemy, and then regained the open air; for ariadne had given him a ball of thread to help

truth, expressed in symbols through the myth; thus we confront our own sensual nature as though it were a fierce monster. the fruits of our personal development fall as sacrifices to it, and it continues to devour us until the hero, the conqueror (theseus) awakens in us. and it is through knowledge that we are able to slay the enemy spinning the thread by means of which we find the way out of the labyrinth of our sensual nature. human knowledge itself is the mystery expressed in this story of the conquering of sensuality. this is the secret known to the mystai. 66 christianity as mystical fact the mystery-interpretation points to a psychological power in us. it is not a power of which we are normally aware; nevertheless it is active within us, generating the myth. and the myth has the same

THE BOOK OF PLEASURE

truth" has not yet been ascertained, the study of knowledge is unproductive. even if "they" were known their study is useless. we are not the object by the perception, but by becoming it. closing the gateways of sense is no help. verily i will make common-sense the foundation of my teaching. otherwise, how can i convey my meaning to the deaf, vision to the blind, and my emotion to the dead? in a labyrinth of metaphor and words, intuition is lost, therefore without their effort must be learned the truth about one's self from him who alone knows the truth. yourself. of what use the wisdom of virginity to him who has been raped by the seducer, ignorance? of what use sciences or any knowledge except as medicine? hidden treasure does not come at the word nor by digging with your hands in the m

THE MAGICIAN S KABBALAH

at often defy description in other, more linear systems. as blake puts it in "auguries of innocence "to see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour" such is the promise that the tree of sapphires (another translation of the word sephirah) holds, as each facet of each sapphire reflects eternally upon each other in a labyrinth of light. the tree as an emanative system (the fountain of light) one of the earliest exponents of an emanative system was the neoplatonist plotinus (c.205- 70 ad, for whom reality could be visualised as a set of increasingly fragmented reflections, proceeding from the one (or "the good) to mind, then to soul, and then a fading out into blank matter. his philosophy, as compiled in the "e

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

sion has reproduced a different bliss, at last a heterogenesis *pentecost, vol. ii, p. 170. many roads lead to philosophy and branch forth from it, as crowley above shows, and in a short essay like this we intend but to travel through the labyrinthine mysteries of all by the silken clue of one, handed us by aleister crowley. and as there are many by-ways, corridors, and blind alleys in this great labyrinth of parnassus, so in this clue, which has been given us, we shall find many twisted threads, yet all of one fibre, which will lead us, the weary wanderers in the mysteries, to that certain and blissful kingdom which shall be our beginning. kant has said, the business of all philosophy is to answer the question hwhat can i know? h huxley, perhaps the astutest philosopher since the days of

TYSON DONALD NEW MILLENNIUM MAGIC

he does not die. jonah sees that his fears were needless, that he is protected by god. he perceives that the seemingly cruel act of his being cast overboard is part of a divine plan for his salvation. after three days and nights he is set safely on shore, symbolically reborn from the whale's womb, transformed by his new faith and understanding. another ancient symbol of initiation is the maze, or labyrinth. pursuing his quest, the seeker theseus enters the twisting darkness where lurks the monster of his bodily fears and desires waiting to devour him. yet with courage he overcomes the minotaur and follows the threads of ariadne, his faith, into the light of day. he has been transformed and elevated from the man he was, who remains as a shad- ow entombed within the bowels of the earth. thes

TYSON DONALD SOUL FLIGHT

n, projection of the astral body, 16. chapter five: spiritualism 75 not mention the silver cord. if it were as prominent a part of the experience as muldoon claimed, it is difficult to understand why it would be omitted from these accounts. the cord is seen by those who, consciously or unconsciously, expect to see it. it is equivalent to the mythic thread of ariadne that guided theseus out of the labyrinth. since it is natural to imagine some tangible link between the physical body and the apparently detached and separate astral body, perception of a cord, beam, cable, rope, thread, ribbon, channel, pathway, trail, or conduit of some sort may arise in a natural way, as the consciousness struggles to make sense of the experience, but its perception is not an essential feature of soul flight

nipulation of the forces of nature. his world is a public market square in an old-fashioned country town of cobblestone streets and shops and houses with steeply pitched roofs. it is possible to wander out of the square through its four gates, but the streets beyond, closed on both sides by the fronts of buildings and by high stone walls, bend and twist back upon themselves like the windings of a labyrinth. the inhabitants of the town are sly and knowing in their manner toward strangers, and the children enjoy playing tricks. even the animals that may be encountered, such as horses, dogs, or cats, have a knowing light in their eyes. the ruling intelligence of this trump is hermes, the greek god of commerce, communication, and wisdom. his oracle is a square pillar that has the bearded head

WOLFSON ELLIOT ALEF MEM TAU KABBALISTIC MUSINGS ON TIME TRUTH AND DEATH

l duration as such but discerning the kind of statement (die art der aussagen) appropriate to articulate it.63 the reasonableness of the distinction notwithstanding, the telling of time recounting events in an extending and purportedly continuous chain of remembrance and anticipation is not easily separated from the experience of time. but what is it that we experience? having thought through the labyrinth of logical puzzles connected to reflection on the nature of time, augustine holds fast to the conclusion that it is inexact to speak of three tenses, since neither past nor future exists independently of the present; thus, if one is to accord meaning to the customary way of speaking about time, the three times will be interpreted as three aspects of the moment, a present of things past

3, 916a 33. 32. the version i have cited is from freeman, ancilla, p. 40. see also kirk and raven, presocratic philosophers, p. 235; vernant, myth and thought, p. 87. 33. palestinian talmud, sheqalim 6:1, 49d; babylonian talmud, pesahim 6b. see also mekhilta de-rabbi ishmael, shirata, 7, p. 139; heschel, heavenly torah, pp. 240 243; schl ter, creative force, pp. 59 84. 34. foucault, death and the labyrinth, p. 33. 35. on the distinction between tehillah as beginning and re shit as principle, see maimonides, guide, 2.30, p. 348. see, for instance, kristeva, desire in language, p. 205: traditionally, time has been divided into two opposing modes irreducible, split, both symptom and cause of schizoid condition. the first is an atemporal basis from which there surges an infinitely repeatable

ally exclusive concepts on the theme of time. analecta husserliana 4 (1976: 121 139. fleischer, ezra. on the beginnings of obligatory jewish prayer. tarbiz 59 (1990: 397 441 (hebrew. bibliography 277 fossum, jarl e. the name of god and the angel of the lord: samaritan and jewish concepts of intermediation and the origin of gnosticism. t bingen: j. c. b. mohr, 1985. foucault, michel. death and the labyrinth: the world of raymond roussel. translated by charles ruas, with an introduction by james faubion and a postscript by john ashbery. london: continuum, 2004. freeman, kathleen. ancilla to the pre-socratic philosophers: a complete translation of the fragments in diels, fragmente der vorsokratiker. cambridge: harvard university press, 1978. freund, else-rahel. franz rosenzweig s philosophy o

ZALEWSKI SECRET INNER ORDER RITUALS OF THE GOLDEN DAWN OCR

other, reaches to those mysterious centres which link the physical brain with pictures stored up in the sphere of sensation which we name "memory" and which is one of the peculiar attributes of saturn. the time between the grades of chesed and daath should be a time of retrospection; of reviewing the past and seeking to trace the long hand of the father divine guiding and directing throughout the labyrinth of fire. recall the concluding exhortation of the magus: the injunction to remember and bear in mind, and recall also, the password of the grade "achad" which is "unity; and realize, not only the unity of god, but also the unity of man. preparation for 70=40 (the preparation extends over a four week period) 1. burn incense daily. 2. eat beans, peas("pulse" of the bible, purple grapes, ho

ALEISTER CROWLEY THE SWORD OF SONG

e buddha promise the very topmost height if only they are anxious to learn. this is the corner-stone of buddhism; can scientific men deny their assent to these words when they look back on the history of thought in the west; the torture of bruno, the shame of galileo, the obscurantism of the schoolmen, the mystery of the hardpressed priests, the weapons carnal and spiritual of stake and rack, the labyrinths of lying and vile intrigue by which science, the child, was deformed, distorted, stunted, in the interest of the contrary proposition? if you ask me why you should be buddhists and not indifferentists, as you are now, i tell you that i come, however unworthy, to take up the sword that huxley wielded; i tell you that the oppressor of science in her girlhood is already at work to ravish h

ALICE A BAILEY23 THE EXTERNALISATION OF THE HIERARCHY

whilst his people are left without practical guidance or reasonable light upon their affairs; and i know too that he feels, with an aching heart, that the simplicity which he taught, and the simple way to god which he emphasised have disappeared in the fogs of theology and the discussions of churchmen throughout the centuries. i know that he realises that the words he spoke have been lost in the labyrinths of the ecclesiastical minds which have sought to interpret- 265- the externalisation of the hierarchy copyright 1998 lucis trust them, and that the simple teaching of the approach to god which he taught has been superseded by the pomp and ceremony of elaborate rituals. to sum up: because of the divergences of the many exoteric faiths, the multiplicity of the sects and cults in both the

BLAVATSKY H P ANTHROPOGENESIS

nd unwarranted[[vol. 2, page] 221 the continent of the gods. several other cities, making thus a subterranean city of six or seven stories high. delhi is one of them; allahabad another- examples of this being found even in europe; e.g, in florence, which is built on several defunct etruscan and other cities. why, then, could not ellora, elephanta, karli, and ajunta have been built on subterranean labyrinths and passages, as claimed? of course we do not allude to the caves which are known to every european, whether de visu or through hearsay, notwithstanding their enormous antiquity, though that is so disputed by modern archaeology. but it is a fact, known to the initiated brahmins of india and especially to yogis, that there is not a cave-temple in the country but has its subterranean pass

BLAVATSKY H P COSMOGENESIS

europe had hardly any idea before the beginning of the present century. along the nile and on the face of the whole country, there stand to this hour, exhumed yearly and daily, fresh relics which eloquently tell their own history. still it is not so. the learned oxford philologist himself confesses the truth by saying that "though. we see still standing the pyramids, and the ruins of temples and labyrinths, their walls[[footnote(s* lassen("ind. althersumkunde" vol. ii, p. 1,072) shows a buddhist monastery erected in the kailas range in 137 b.c; and general cunningham, earlier than that* reverend t. edkins "chinese buddhism[[vol. 1, page] xxix introductory. covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and with the strange pictures of gods and goddesses. on rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy t

FAUST

his voice is heard in all its power, like crack of lightning, roar of sea, then no one knows which way to flee. brave warriors into panic break, and in the tumult heroes quake. hence honour to whom honour s due, hail him who led us here to you! deputation of gnomes [to great pan. when the treasure rich and shining, winds through clefts its thread-like way and naught but the rod s divining can its labyrinths display, troglodytes in caverns spacious, under vaulted roofs we bide, while in day s pure air thou, gracious, all the treasures dost divide. we discover here quite near us treasure rich, a fountain vein, aptly promising to bear us more than one could hope to gain. this thou mayst achieve at pleasure, take it, sire, into thy care! in thy hands doth every treasure yield the whole world b

FRANCIS A YATES GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION

xceeds the measure of man's ability."1 the marrying together of hermetism and cabalism, of which pico was the instigator and founder, was to have momentous results, and the subsequent hermetic-cabalist tradition, ultimately stemming from him, was of most far-reaching importance. it could be purely mystical, developing hermetic and cabalist meditations on creation and on man into immensely complex labyrinths of religious speculation, involving numerological and harmonic aspects into which pythagoreanism was absorbed. but it also had its magical side, and here, too, pico was the founder who first united the hermetic and cabalist types of magic. it was in i486 that the young pico della mirandola went to rome with his nine hundred theses, or points drawn from all philosophies which he offered

FRATER ELIJAH ANGELS OF CHAOS

macgregor mathers, edited with an introduction by aleister crowley. samuel weiser, inc. 1995. the holy books of thelema the equinox volume 3 number 9- aleister crowley. samuel weiser, inc. 1983. oto. the sacred magic of abramelin the mage- translated by s.l. macgregor mathers. dover publications, inc+ the magickal logs of frater elijah/ frater halucifuge i/ we stumbling into this blackest of all labyrinths. he entered by choice. we all do. t t whether we are mapping the heavens or skulking the lanes of the underworld; whether we are hunting the imprisoned fiend or have ourselves become the monster; whether we are searching for what is lost or hiding what must never be found; t we all round that first corner by choice- and then we are lost. you too. t you must decide what is false and what

GOLDEN DAWN RITUALS ZAM19

he private chambers, and then change the doors, staples, and other things according to our intention. therefore it must not be expected that newcomers shall attain at once all our mighty secrets. they must proceed step by step from the smaller to the greater, and must not be retarded by difficulties. wherefore should we not freely acquiesce in the only truth than seek through so many windings and labyrinths, if only it had pleased god to lighten unto us the sixth candelabrum? were it not sufficient for us to fear neither hunger, poverty, diseases, nor age? were it not an excellent thing to live always so as if you had lived from the beginning of the world, and should still live to the end thereof? so to live in one place 4 that neither the people which dwell beyond the ganges could hide an

GRAHAM HANCOCK FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

orgotten civilization, the maya must be ranked as the most faithful and inspired inheritors of that legacy. time as the archaeologist eric thompson put it in 1950, was the supreme mystery of maya religion, a subject which pervaded maya thought to an extent without parallel in the history of mankind. 42 as i continued my journey through central america i felt myself drawn ever more deeply into the labyrinths of that strange and awesome riddle. 36 the ancient kingdoms of mexico, pp. 54. 37 mexico, pp. 669-71. 38 for further details, see the gods and symbols of ancient mexico and the maya, p. 17: these buildings probably confirm knowledge of a large body of star lore. 39 the ancient kingdoms of mexico, p. 53. 40 mysteries of the mexican pyramids, p. 350. 41 the ancient kingdoms of mexico, pp

HP LOVECRAFT A DARK LORE

r it would sometimes increase the groaning below, but generally it would produce no effect at all, since he moved very noiselessly. several times during his progress the glow ahead diminished perceptibly, and he realised that the various candles and lamps he had left must be expiring one by one. the thought of being lost in utter darkness without matches amidst this underground world of nightmare labyrinths impelled him to rise to his feet and run, which he could safely do now that he had passed the open pit; for he knew that once the light failed, his only hope of rescue and survival would lie in whatever relief party mr. ward might send after missing him for a sufficient period. presently, however, he emerged from the open space into the narrower corridor and definitely located the glow

ip into the unknown deserts of arabia. what happened on those journeys i have never been able to learn. during the summer of l9l2 i chartered a ship and sailed in the arctic, north of spitzbergen, afterward showing signs of disappointment. later in that year i spent weeks- alone beyond the limits of previous or subsequent exploration in the vast limestone cavern systems of western virginia- black labyrinths so complex that no retracing of my steps could even be considered. my sojourns at the universities were marked by abnormally rapid assimilation, as if the secondary personality had an intelligence enormously superior to my own. i have found, also, that my rate of reading and solitary study was phenomenal. i could master every detail of a book merely by glancing over it as fast as i coul

ections with partial success. my father secured me a place in an insurance office, and i buried myself in routine as deeply as possible. in the winter of 1930-31, however, the dreams began. they were very sparse and insidious at first, but increased in frequency and vividness as the weeks went by. great watery spaces opened out before me, and i seemed to wander through titanic sunken porticos and labyrinths of weedy cyclopean walls with grotesque fishes as my companions. then the other shapes began to appear, filling me with nameless horror the moment i awoke. but during the dreams they did not horrify me at all- i was one with them; wearing their unhuman trappings, treading their aqueous ways, and praying monstrously at their evil sea-bottom temples. there was much more than i could remem

d existed, i think i would have turned back from my visit. as it was, i could not well do so- and it occurred to me that a cool, scientific conversation with akeley himself after my arrival would help greatly to pull me together. besides, there was a strangely calming element of cosmic beauty in the hypnotic landscape through which we climbed and plunged fantastically. time had lost itself in the labyrinths behind, and around us stretched only the flowering waves of faery and the recaptured loveliness of vanished centuries- the hoary groves, the untainted pastures edged with gay autumnal blossoms, and at vast intervals the small brown farmsteads nestling amidst huge trees beneath vertical precipices of fragrant brier and meadow-grass. even the sunlight assumed a supernal glamour, as if som

at a certain time, and heard and saw certain things, you will merely answer that i did not wake then; and that everything was a dream until the moment when i rushed out of the house, stumbled to the shed where i had seen the old ford, and seized that ancient vehicle for a mad, aimless race over the haunted hills which at last landed me- after hours of jolting and winding through forest-threatened labyrinths- in a village which turned out to be townshend. you will also, of course, discount everything else in my report; and declare that all the pictures, record-sounds, cylinder-and-machine sounds, and kindred evidences were bits of pure deception practiced on me by the missing henry akeley. you will even hint that he conspired with other eccentrics to carry out a silly and elaborate hoax- th

HP LOVECRAFT AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS

his planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome. with the aid of the shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small, low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone not unlike those which later rose on land. indeed, the highly adaptable old ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction. as we studied the architecture of all these sculptured palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincide

HP LOVECRAFT THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH

ections with partial success. my father secured me a place in an insurance office, and i buried myself in routine as deeply as possible. in the winter of 1930-31, however, the dreams began. they were very sparse and insidious at first, but increased in frequency and vividness as the weeks went by. great watery spaces opened out before me, and i seemed to wander through titanic sunken porticos and labyrinths of weedy cyclopean walls with grotesque fishes as my companions. then the other shapes began to appear, filling me with nameless honor the moment i awoke. but during the dreams they did not horrify me at all- i was one with them; wearing their unhuman trappings, treading their aqueous ways, and praying monstrously at their evil sea-bottom temples. there was much more than i could rememb

HP LOVECRAFT THROUGH THE GATES OF THE SILVER KEY

ieved a further liberation, roving at will through the prismatic vistas of boyhood dream. after a strange vision this man published a tale of carter's vanishing in which he hinted that the lost one now reigned as king on the opal throne of ilek-vad, that fabulous town of turrets atop the hollow cliffs of glass overlooking the twilight sea wherein the bearded and finny gniorri build their singular labyrinths. it was this old man, ward phillips, who pleaded most loudly against the apportionment of carter's estate to his heirs-all distant cousins- on the ground that he was still alive in another time-dimension and might well return some day. against him was arrayed the legal talent of one of the cousins, ernest k. aspinwall of chicago, a man ten years carter's senior, but keen as a youth in f

JENNINGS HARGRAVE ROSICRUCIANS RITES MYSTERIES

urania. no woman entered this temple (sale s koran, chap. vii. p. 119; note, p. 149. accordingly, anna commena and glycas (in renald. de mah) say that the mahometans do worship venus. several of the arabian idols were no more than large, rude stones (sale s discourse, p. 20; koran, chap. v. p. 82. the stone at mecca is black. the crypts, the subterranean churches and chambers, the choirs, and the labyrinths, were all intended to enshrine (as it were) and to conceal the central object of worship, or this sacred stone. the pillar of suerio, near forres, in scotland, is an obelisk. these obelisks were all astrological gnomons, or pins, to the imitative stellar mazes, or to the fateful charts in the letter-written skies. the astro- fig. 31. the letters s and z. 139 nomical stalls, or stables w

n; but it is now extinct, having been bought up for suppression, as we believe by the author s friends after his decease, who probably did not wish him to be supposed to be mixed up in such out-of-theway inquiries. the dragon of china. 203 the vedas describe the persian religion (fire-worship) as having come from upper egypt. the mysteries celebrated within the recesses of the hypogea (caverns or labyrinths) were precisely of that character which is called freemasonic, or cabiric. the signification of this latter epithet is, as to written letters, a desideratum. selden has missed it; so have origen and sophocles. strabo, too, and montfaucon, have been equally astray. hyde was the only one who had any idea of its composition when he declared that it was a persian word, somewhat altered from

LIBER LXVII THE SWORD OF SONG

dha promise .the very topmost height. if only they are .anxious to learn. this is the corner-stone of buddhism; can scientific men deny their assent to these words when they look back on the history of thought in the west; the torture of bruno, the shame of galileo, the obscurantism of the schoolmen, the .mystery. of the hardpressed priests, the weapons carnal and spiritual of stake and rack, the labyrinths of lying and vile intrigue by which science, the child, was deformed, distorted, stunted, in the interest of the contrary proposition? if you ask me why you should be buddhists and not indifferentists, as you are now, i tell you that i come, however unworthy, to take up the sword that huxley wielded; i tell you that the oppressor of science in her girlhood is already at work to ravish h

LOGOMACHY OF ZOS

close our eyes, seek for all littlenesses and harness our desires to the corrupt outgrowths of our ids. is there no antidote for self-poisoning from our substitute realities? there is only stupendous reality to embrace: cease doubting! death is a relatively small event in living. less and less in your infinity, your reality. no excogitation but instinctive guessing is still our best guide in the labyrinths. when we appreciate vibrantly the vast significance of all creation, however small our understanding. then we are endowed with a measure of significance. all experiences are sensations by impacts. man is basically dominated by his ids (passions) and is entirely determined by his loves and hates. he would remain either static or destroy himself except that the a priori pushes him, willy

MACNULTY W KIRK KABBALAH AND FREEMASONRY

anization's interest in the holy royal arch. let us see what dermott had to say. dermott starts his essay with a paragraph commenting on the usual masonic text. wherein they give us an account of the drawing, scheming, planning, designing, erecting, and building of temples, towers, cities, castles, palaces, theaters, pyramids, monuments, bridges, walls, pillars, courts, halls, fortifications, and labyrinths, with the famous light-house of pharos and colossus at rhodes, and many other wonderful works performed by the architects, to the great satisfaction of the readers and edification of free-masons" the paragraph includes a footnote which "quere(s, whether such histories are of any use in the secret mysteries of the craft."30 in suggesting that discussions about the building of physical st

MANLY P HALL THE SECRET TEACHINGS OF ALL AGES

g to understand the mysteries of the fraternity of r. c. cannot attain to that wisdom immediately, but must grow in understanding and knowledge. therefore, our fraternity is divided into grades through which each must ascend step by step to the great arcanum. now that it has pleased god to lighten unto us his sixth candelabrum, is it not better to seek truth in this way than to wander through the labyrinths of worldly ignorance? furthermore, those who receive this knowledge shall become masters of all arts and crafts; no secret shall be hidden from them; and all good works of the past, present, and future shall be accessible to them. the whole world shall become as one book and the contradictions of science and theology shall be reconciled. rejoice, o humanity! for the time has come when g

MORALS AND DOGMA

with every appliance that could alarm and excite the candidate. innumerable ceremonies, wild and romantic, dreadful and appalling, had by degrees been added to the few expressive symbols of primitive observances, under which there were instances in which the terrified aspirant actually expired with fear. the pyramids were probably used for the purposes of initiation, as were caverns, pagodas, and labyrinths; for the ceremonies required many apartments and cells, long passages and wells. in egypt a principal place for the mysteries was the island of phil on the nile, where a magnificent temple of osiris stood, and his relics were said to be preserved. with their natural proclivities, the priesthood, that select and exclusive class, in egypt, india, ph nicia, judea and greece as well as in b

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