Now on the Youtube!

Yes, I have finally managed to get myself on youtube. These videos are my first - me trying to explain my method for reading the Celtic Cross. Mainly it's an attempt to establish a way of reading that uses a more logical/scientific approach in order to jump-start one's intuition. I've found it very helpful but it's certainly not for everyone. It requires knowing the cards' attributions pretty solidly, but I promise if you start practicing, you'll have them down in no time!

The Allegory of the Seasons

My idea for this post probably first hit me last year around this time. I was walking around campus and it was snowing. I'd never really noticed exactly how beautiful snow can be, and how winter is such a sublime season (minus the shoveling and all that). After doing some thinking, it seemed so obvious how the hermetic formula of Tetragrammaton applies to the seasons.

Tetragrammaton is the ineffable name of God, otherwise known as LORD in the Torah, Yaweh, or Jehovah. It is the first four-letter word, consisting of the Hebrew characters Yod, Heh, Vau, and another Heh (we refer to the first Heh as "Heh primal," and the second as "Heh final"). It is considered to be the name that resounds throughout the manifested universe, and provides it with structure and law. Tetragrammaton and the number four are associated with the demiurge, from the Greek demiurgos. This aspect of God is the one responsible for maintaining the order of the universe - perhaps one could even liken it to the source of kosmos (order). A lot of things seem to come in fours, don't they? The four elements, the four Evangelists, four compass directions, and of course, the four seasons!

Also important to remember is that in the hermetic teachings, Tetragrammaton is a revolving formula by which psycho-spiritual/micro-macrocosmic integration occurs. The yod represents the Father, the original unbegotten, active, self-generating, fiery masculine principle. Heh primal is the Mother, or the element of water, which receives the seed of the Father and becomes pregnant with twins. These twins are the vau and heh final, the first one being a male, the second being female. The "princess" is therefore the lowest lifeform in this scheme, but remember that the formula "revolves." The princess marries her twin brother, and because she is of the same substance as her Mother, she replaces the Mother on her throne, and her husband becomes the new Father, and thereby sparks the cycle of creation all over again.

Now, there are people who may disagree with my attributions, but for me, these make the most sense when trying to pair the seasons with the letters/elements of Tetragrammaton. Spring is most obviously fire and the yod. Spring is primarily associated with Aries the ram, the cardinal sign of fire, who is definitively masculine. In fact, the cardinal signs of each element begin a certain season. Cardinal signs represent the initial onset of that element, as opposed to the life of the element as expressed by the fixed signs, and the waning of the element, as expressed by the mutable ones. (Therefore, Cancer is associated with summer, Libra with Autumn, and Capricorn with Winter.) Spring is the season of blooming, when life finally begins anew, after having suffered a not-so-finite death. Things that have died and suffered a non-cyclical death have been recycled into new forms and energies, thereby helping the diversity of life.

Summer is a bit tougher to figure out in all honesty, but I'll do my best to make it work. Perhaps it helps to remember the purpose of the sign of Cancer in the tarot - the Chariot. The Charioteer is the grail bearer, the grail ultimately being a vehicle for the blood of the sun - the primary point of singular consciousness which acts as the main motivation for all motion and energy. (Hence the meaning of the Chariot, in addition to the fact that its path connects Binah, the universal Holy Grail and throne of the Mother Goddess, to Geburah, the seat of all manifested energy and motion.) Is it no wonder then that the days seem to last forever in the summer? The sun is at the pinnacle of its glory, having been reborn in the springtime, and now infusing the earth with light and warmth. Also, it's amusing to think that the slowness of summer, between the long days and the heat, is connected to the Feminine being associated with salt, the alchemical element of slowness, inertia, immobility. (Remember, the hermetic Feminine is all about receptivity. These things are not necessarily negative qualities in and of themselves, but they are negative when taken to excess. They, like all things, must be balanced by their complement, in this case, the Masculine.)

Fall then is connected with air and the suit of swords. Swords tend to represent suffering and anguish, and let's face it - who isn't sad when summer's over??? But air is also associated with the letter vau, the Son, the Dying Man God formula and all that, the Messiah, the Christ, the True Sun, etc. Therefore, should it not make sense that autumn focuses on the "dying" of the sun, which in turn causes the vegetation to undergo putrefaction? In alchemy, putrefaction and sacrifice is associated with the rainbow, the "coat of many colors" of Jesus and Joseph. The leaves on the trees also go through a similar transformation, shifting gradually from their standard green to yellows, oranges, and reds. We know that this season marks a clear separation from the warmth and splendor of spring and summer, an attribute which is also associated with swords - separation from godhead.

Finally, Winter is the element of earth, that ever mysterious yet simple element. The lowest of the low, earth is equipped to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, and in some ways, is the Kingdom of Heaven (this is a standard Kabbalistic doctrine). Earth is not remotely abstract, nor is it remotely intelligent, yet, it is still the throne of spirit, as it contains it within itself. The heh final with which it is associated though is of course also very similar to the heh primal, so much so that the heh final (the Daughter) is able to rise to the level of the heh primal (the Mother). In order to do this though, the Daughter must first attain Silence: perfect innocence and fertility, and knowledge of the Jungian Self/Kabbalistic Higher Self. Earth in its best form is therefore simple and humble, while also industrious and durable. During the winter, the earth is stripped of all its pretenses and is shown in its most barren form, or rather, we see it as barren, but this infertility actually bears the seeds for new life waiting to blossom in the spring. This "death" is required for newness and creation. The whiteness and silence of snow is enough to explain the purity and innocence inherent in the earth - perhaps it's even more profound to remember that snow is simply frozen water. The cold of winter also forces people indoors, where they have no choice but to contemplate. So next time you complain about winter, remember that it's pretty, and is an allegory staring you in the face. All that shoveling you have to do is similar to the amount of Work one has to do in order to bring the Great Work to completion. (The Great Work refers to the merging of the microcosm and the macrocosm, the integration of the separate selves with the whole self.)

(Picture: Allegory of the Four Seasons by Bartolomeo Manfredi)

Christmas - From an Esoteric Point of View

Around this time of year, one of the biggest questions we often ask ourselves - those of us who are of the Christian persuasion (or those of us who just celebrate it because that's what we've grown up with) - is, "what is the meaning of Christmas?" In capitalist America, it's easy to see why this is such a prevalent question: the meaning has been sapped out of Christmas entirely, so that when you think of it, all you can contemplate is, "what do I have to buy for people, and how much money is that going to cost me?" By emphasizing the material, have destroyed the integrity of a holiday all about redeeming the material through spiritualization. To understand Christmas from a contemplative and allegorical viewpoint, we must look at Mary first and foremost - no longer shunning her as Protestantism has taught us. The Mother of God is an archetype: she is us. Therefore, we must learn through her, as the holiday has a very specific message that we have forgotten.

First of all, what is Christ? Christ is not just a beautiful baby, He is not just holy, he is not just an honorable deity who deserves gifts, and therefore we must mimic this gift-giving ourselves. He is first and foremost the Word, the divine Logos of the Father. The Logos is that which has allowed for division and multiplicity, for the Father is unity, the infinite zero in which all things partake. But the Logos is the reflection of the Father, and being the number two, is capable of multiplication. It is the source of all the forms inherent in creation - by its utterance, things are defined, given shape, given purpose, etc. The Logos is also Mercury and Eros - this is crucial to understand. Eros is the principle that keeps the universe coherent, by drawing all things towards each other. If the Father is unity, it cannot conceptualize anything other than itself - the All. Therefore, change cannot occur, nothing can be learned or experienced without division. The Logos therefore provides for division and union simultaneously. Solve et Coagula - the two guiding principles of all universal action (division and synthesis). Therefore, the Word is deeply important, being the underlying structure of the universe.

The Word also redeems. It manifests itself in the form of the True Sun (a common Christian trope), which sheds light on reality, exposing matter for the falsity it is. It impregnates the soul and and inspires it to share in this vision, endowing it with virtue, harmony, truth, and purpose. In this sense, it is the highest self - the Holy Guardian Angel, the perfect complement to the idea of you - which instructs the soul on its path towards Wisdom (let us here remember that Mary is often depicted as seated on the sedes sapientiae, the throne of wisdom). Matter is capable of redemption in the first place because it is infused with the spirit, it is contained in the One, the Father, and is a manifestation of Him. Out of love - the desire for unity - the Logos descends into matter (the ultimate sacrifice, subjecting the purest essence to the shame of corruption and death - the Crucifixion) to redeem the fallen soul, so that it may reacquire knowledge of its divinity and oneness with God. These are the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Crucifixion in brief.

Therefore, Mary is the soul. She is the Psyche to Apuleius' Cupid. The humble maiden who represents the quiet purity of matter in its most subdued form. She is ego-less. When Gabriel tells her she will bear God, he states it will occur when the Holy Spirit overshadows her. She will be utterly enveloped by divinity, the sense of singularity and separateness will be eternally cracked, and there will be no repairing it. She submits to the will of God entirely, calling her self His handmaiden. This is why she is able to bear God within her - she abolishes her individuality and sacrifices it to the macrocosm. She is prepared to face the reality of universality. And because she bears Christ, she becomes the Queen of Heaven.

Therefore, Christmas is a time to listen to the will of God. It is not a time to feed the ego by buying meaningless things for people. It is a time to contemplate all the ways the self disobeys God endlessly, and to then be grateful for His copious mercy. No matter how many times we ignore him - which is the condition of sin, we must remember; nothing more - He is willing to forgive us. "So now all you people, bend your knees to the Father, that he may reach you his hand (Ergo nunc, omnes homines, genua vestra ad patrem vestrum flectite, ut vobis manum suam porrigat).

Let us also remember that Christmas occurs in the winter - the least fertile and darkest moment in the year. Agriculturally speaking, the Virgin is "plowed" and "sewn" in the Spring, thereby giving birth to the ultimate Light in the winter. Winter, with all its barrenness, its whiteness, its simplicity and purity, is the perfect time for the birth of the Word. The True Sun provides hope even in the darkest time, and represents the never ending fertility of the universe. The more sterile something is, the more fertile it is (this is a doctrine expounded in several modes in Crowley's essay on Atu 0 - The Fool). This is why the Christmas tree is such a powerful symbol! The evergreen remains green year round, as does God's paradisiacal universe, because it is nourished by the True Sun. The Christmas tree is therefore a symbol of Christ. He is the ultimate fertility; the Sun being phallic and related to the plow (also refer to The Fool), the Virgin being a form of Virgo - the supple topsoil that can receive the seed. Let us remember that Virgo is ruled doubly by Mercury - the Logos.

So Christmas must be a time of personal reflection. We must reevaluate who we are - what makes us us - so that we can work to improve ourselves. We should all strive to be like the Virgin, and to be handmaids of the Lord. So next time you feel pressured by capitalist society, think about the holiday in terms of allegory, and stay strong. Gifts are entirely secondary - love in its highest sense is primary.

Happy Holidays!

-Nick

Katy Perry's "Firework" and the New Aeon

Hey! It's been a month! Only because with school I've been mildly crazed. At least in the meantime the world of popular music has delivered us with something to talk about!

I will begin just by saying I absolutely love Katy Perry's new song. By love, I mean I can listen to it on repeat for a day and will want to dance wildly to it throughout the whole process. As it popped up on the radio today though, I couldn't help thinking about it a little more than usual, especially in terms of our present culture (four-hour drives will do that to you). I would like to discuss some of these thoughts with you all and look at the song through the lens of Crowley's explanation of the New Aeon (are you surprised?). The Book of the Law informs us that the current Aeon is all about the conquering child, and will be a period marked by innocence, violence, force, sexual liberality, and heightened individuality.

Textually, the song reflects many of these themes. In it, Perry extolls the virtues of individuality and the value of showing that off to everyone. When life leaves you feeling empty and useless, you have to remember that "there's a spark in you, you just gotta ignite the light and let it shine." Similarly, "it's always been inside of you." This could quite easily be equated with Crowley's concept of Hadit within all of us - the concealed and burning source of individual perspective, the main source of impetus for all action.

Secondly, the metaphors employed by the writer are utterly juvenile. I'm sorry, but the opening line, "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag" is just ridiculous. The comparison between the fireworks and the brightness of the moon-moon-moon is equally simplistic. It really is as if a five-year-old came up with the concepts for this song. However, a firework could be seen as a similar analogy to "Every man and woman is a star." It also expresses the explosively creative divine force present within the self as represented by the point, Hadit. Regardless, the child-like quality of the text with all its cliché statements ("You're original, cannot be replaced," "After a hurricane comes a rainbow.") and lack of profundity is pretty obvious.

Now, also obviously, the text reflects nothing sexual. For that, we must turn to the music itself. Has anyone noticed that popular music lately is ALL dance-based? I haven't heard so many disco beats since... well, ever, at least in my life time. Listening to common music today reminds me of listening to techno from the 90's sometimes, back when that stuff was decidedly not mainstream. Everything has gone electronic, and is based on steady beats you can drink and dance to. And of course, these practices are almost synonymous with youth sexuality in this country. The driving, easy-to-dance-to beat of Firework is contagious. There is a direct correlation between this kind of beat and attention to the body.

The driving beat in conjunction with Perry's vocal style could be considered an expression of that bit about forcefulness. Perry belts that chorus with abandon - to the point where it almost sounds painful (at least to the trained singer). Perhaps it is also amusing to contemplate the fact that Perry is, in the first place, a woman, and we must remember the quote, "let the woman be girt with a sword before me." Women are to take on a more militant posture in this Aeon, whether Crowley thought they were subservient to men or not. (Which he unfortunately did.) Also, the dissonances in the vocal harmonies in the last chorus are intriguing. They seem to speak to the discord of the New Aeon (5 of Wands, anyone?). Even harmony in the modern era has been radically redefined. Dissonance is used to a shocking degree (not that it's a bad thing, it's just unprecedented) to great effect. Firework is no exception.

I suppose you could read this and think, wow, that's the most absurd way of looking at a song I've ever heard. But in my defense, this is a highly medieval way of looking at the world, and this blog, after all, is meant to be medieval. So yes. What do you guys think? Could this be an anthem of the New Aeon? Is there another song you think also would be appropriate for this category? Leave a comment!

The Dreaded 10 of Swords

What makes the 10 of Swords one of the most dreaded cards in the pack? Waite includes "pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation" in his list of divinatory meanings; Crowley writes that it is "reason divorced from reality." For him, it represents the "damping down of the Creative impulse, weakness, corruption, or mirage affecting that principle itself."

But what makes the sun ruling Gemini so disastrous? To understand, we must remind ourselves that 10's are housed in the material, tangible world. As the swords are all about logic, abstract understanding, and theory, it makes sense that they would have little positive capability in this environment. Furthermore, we must equate the sun with the truest, highest sense of self, as well as the redeeming God of creation - the principle which in Tiphareth conjoins physical man to the highest godhead in Kether, and which is a manifested reflection of that godhead. Let us also note that Gemini is a symbol of ultimate division, of two halves constantly struggling against each other to become whole. Gemini's often have "split-personalities," and can change their moods on a dime.

So now we can see the 10 of swords as representing the divine solar principle being refracted by the mercurial principle inherent in Gemini into multiple

parts. The princess of Malkuth (you and I) is unable to perceive herself as one with godhead because she has limited herself by self-imposed mental road blocks. Rather than understanding the freedom of her true self, she has confined her options in order to conform to the incorrect whims of others, and has therefore lost sense of her connection with the solar God through her very identity. Thus, the card represents the breakdown of self, the division of godhead, ultimate isolation as promised by the 3 of Swords. This is the source of suffering - the progeny of Binah/Sophia's great experiment is sadness, complete manifested separation. The card reminds us that the more we think our ways into boxes, the more closed-off we feel, and this is the antithesis to the religious experience as the mystic understands it. The colliding of the sense of "self" with another being is at the heart of the mystical experience, and in order to achieve it, we must shed our mundane, unnecessary, and repetitive thinking, and embrace the possibilities of selfhood as liberally as possible. It also neatly explains Aleister's obsession with destroying Victorianism.

An Apology of Sorts

So recently I have been tremendously humbled by information that I really should have known before, but simply was ignorant of. As you may have read, I wrote a post earlier this month defending Aleister Crowley on the grounds that people were misunderstanding his interpretation of the word "will." I would essentially like to rescind that defense, as, after reading more about him in a lovely book on the history of sex magic by Hugh B. Urban, I have found that Mr. Crowley was in fact culpable of intense hedonism. Now, I had already known about his sexual antics and drug use, but I was unaware that he filed these practices under the heading of "do what thou wilt." Needless to say, I am heartily disappointed. As a side note, the ego for Crowley is based on the Freudian concept, which in turn is based on the sexual identity. Therefore, by completely destroying the conventional sexual self, one can supposedly liberate the ego from its restrictions - this would explain why the eating of feces in the heat of sexual passion if one is motivated to do so is not necessarily a bad thing... At least according to Crowley. I'm not sure how I feel about that, frankly. I believe that there is something to that that could be considered relevant, however, at the same time, much of these believes of his were invented to feed his own growing drug addictions and personal licentiousness.

With that being said, I feel it is necessary for me to redefine law contained in The Book of the Law for myself as such: submit to the virtues of the highest-self, and commit to fulfilling this will with a sense of courage and purpose. Take it upon yourself to interpret the Law as works best for you as an individual, but do not take it upon yourself to blaspheme the Law by appropriating it to fit the cravings of your lowest-self. To do this seems utterly backwards to me, seeing as hermeticism arises from a tradition focused intently on the redemption of the lower-self through the glory of the highest-self.

Ultimately, perhaps I can't shake off my upbringing as a Christian. Maybe part of me just really wants to hold on to those traditions that I appreciate so much in medieval culture. However, I still respect Crowley for his sophisticated and witty writings, as well as his penchant for testing the boundlessness of God. I respect that he is one of the few Qabbalists to stand by the fact that if God has created everything and is truly omnipotent, then God must be equally "evil." Crowley tried very hard to prove that the darker aspect of life, what we term "evil" because we are afraid of it for whatever reason, is not necessarily evil in the eye of God. God transcends the limitations of "good" and "evil," and does not consist wholly of one or the other. It would be naive to assume that It does.

Anywho, this is just some further food for thought. This also does not mean that I will stop using the Thoth Tarot, nor will I stop contemplating what Thelema could mean for people, being a highly individualistic belief system. But I will admit that I have lost some faith in one of my main esoteric teachers and influences. This is what we must do as contemplative beings though; take piecemeal what we admire in one person's cosmology and forge to it our own, or the thoughts of others, until we have a vast network of concepts that is equally independent of the influence of others and is entirely unique unto ourselves. To be sure, each man is a master of his own temple - that's one Crowley quote that I'll keep under my belt.

Cybele and the Queen of Wands

So recently I had to read about the cult of Cybele for one of my religion classes, and I was so intrigued by the description of her in our text book. In her book Religions of the Hellenistic Roman Age, Antonia Tripolitis writes that "In the earliest extant representations dating from ca. 6000 B.C.E., she is seated on a rocky throne, a woman of immense proportions. On either side of her throne stands a leopard, and on each leopard's head she rests a heavy hand protectively and triumphantly." This is quite clearly the same description of the Queen of Wands from Crowley's Thoth Tarot.

The connection is intriguing, as Cybele is a goddess associated with domination and ecstasy, and is revered with wild dancing and loud music. She is also incredibly magnetic and jealous, as her beauty alone caused her consort Attis to castrate himself out of awe. This would explain the Queen of Wands' swooning facial expression, as well as her Bacchic staff symbolizing the mysteries of bliss attributed to that god, and her hand placed on top of the leopard. Furthermore, Cybele was known as "the mother of the gods," and was associated with Chronos's wife Rhea. This matches perfectly with Crowley's Liber 777, in which he too equates Cybele to Rhea and places them in the sephira of Binah, as Binah is also the Great Mother.

This begs the question then: what are the attributions of the other queens in the Thoth deck? I have a guess that the Queen of Disks is a form of Juno, and that the Queen of Swords is Kali (which would explain the random sarong she's wearing), but I can't seem to nab the Queen of Cups. Could she be another iteration of Isis? Her lotus resting upon the ibis crane because she was the mother of all invention in the Hellenistic period? Perhaps.

If anyone knows of a source that explains this, either in Crowley or in Israel Regardie (these would be the first authors I would check), please let me know! I'd love to know if anyone has noticed this before, and if this kind of logic is useable for the entire court. Some of the Princesses are relatively easy to decipher, but the Princes are pretty difficult to pin down, perhaps for a reason.