“Every country has its Saviours. He whodissipates the darkness of ignorance by thehelp of the torch of science, thus disclosing tous the truth, deserves that title as a mark of ourgratitude, quite as much as he who saves usfrom death by healing our bodies. Such a oneawakens in our benumbed souls the faculty ofdistinguishing the true from the false, by kindlingtherein a divine flame hitherto absent, and hehas the right to our grateful reverence, for hehas become our creator. What matters thename of the symbol that personifies the abstractidea, if that idea is always the same and istrue? Whether the concrete symbol bears onetitle or another, whether the Saviour in whom webelieve has for an earthly name Krishna,Buddha, Jesus or Aesculapius - also called‘Saviour-God’, we have but to remember onething: symbols of divine truth were not inventedfor the amusement of the ignorant; they are thealpha and omega of philosophical thought.”

H. P. Blavatsky

Other Theosophy Trust Books

The Dawning of WisdomEssays on Walking the Path

by Raghavan Iyer

Teachers of the Eternal DoctrineFrom Tsong-Ka-Pa to Nostradamus

by Elton Hall

The Key to TheosophyAn Exposition of the

Ethics, Science, and Philosophyby H. P. Blavatsky

Evolution and Intelligent Designin The Secret Doctrine

The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophyby H.P. Blavatsky

compiled by The Editorial Board of Theosophy Trust

Symbols of the Eternal DoctrineFrom Shamballa to Paradise

Copyright © July 4, 2007 by Theosophy Trust

All rights reserved. No part of this book may beused or reproduced by any means – graphic,

electronic, or mechanical - including photocopying,recording, taping or by any information storage

retrieval system without the written permission of thepublisher, except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Theosophy Trust books may be ordered throughBookSurge, Amazon.com, and other booksellers, or

by visiting:

http://www.theosophytrust.org/online_books.php

ISBN 978-0-9793205-1-4ISBN 0-9793205-1-8

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9832220-4-0

Library of Congress Control Number2007902478

Printed in the United States of America

ToNandini Iyer

Spititual Teacher, Thinker, andan Inspiration to All Who

Have Had the Great Good Karmato Learn from Her

KRISHNA:Men say that the Ashwattha, the eternal sacred

tree, grows with its roots above and itsbranches below, and the leaves of which are theVedas; he who knows this knows the Vedas. Itsbranches growing out of the three qualities withthe objects of sense as the lesser shoots,spread forth, some above and some below; andthose roots which ramify below in the regions ofmankind are the connecting bonds of action. Itsform is not thus understood by men; it has nobeginning, nor can its present constitution beunderstood, nor has it any end. When one hathhewn down with the strong axe of dispassionthis Ashwattha tree with its deeply imbeddedroots, then that place is to be sought after fromwhich those who there take refuge never morereturn to rebirth, for it is the Primeval Spirit fromwhich floweth the never-ending stream ofconditioned existence. Those who are free frompride of self and whose discrimination isperfected, who have prevailed over the fault ofattachment to action, who are constantlyemployed in devotion to meditation upon theSupreme Spirit, who have renounced desireand are free from the influence of the oppositesknown as pleasure and pain, are undeluded,

and proceed to that place which endurethforever. Neither the sun nor the moon nor the fireenlighteneth that place; from it there is no return;it is my supreme abode.

The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. XV

CONTENTS TITLE PAGECOPYRIGHT PAGEINTRODUCTIONSHAMBALLATHE TETRAKTYSTHE ALTARTHE RAVENTHE SWORDTHE PENTAGRAMTHE OWLTHE DOGTHE LABYRINTHTHE HEARTBLOODTHE SPIRALTHE SHIPTHE WINDTHE VOYAGETHE DODECAHEDRON

THE MIRRORTHE DRUMTHE LYRETHE CROSSTHE FOOLTHE DWARFTHE DESERTTHE LAKETHE FISHTHE DOLPHINTHE WHALEPARADISE

INTRODUCTION

Symbols are as old as thinking humanity. They areof such importance that H. P. Blavatsky, who firstbrought Theosophy to light in the modern world,devoted whole sections of her great work, TheSecret Doctrine, to them. Part II of the first volume,dealing with cosmogenesis or the origin of theuniverse, consists of “The Evolution of Symbolism inits Approximate Order,” and Part II of the secondvolume on anthropogenesis or the Theosophicalunderstanding of human evolution, is “The ArchaicSymbolism of the World-Religions.”

H. P. Blavatsky agreed with Gerald Massey, thefamous Egyptologist that “Mythology was a primitivemode of thinking the early thought…. Mythology isthe repository of man’s most ancient science …when truly interpreted once more, it is destined to bethe death of those false theologies to which it hasunwittingly given birth.” But she insistently added that“every symbol in papyrus or olla is a many-faceddiamond, each of whose facets not merely bearsseveral interpretations, but relates likewise toseveral sciences.” Here ‘primitive’ does not mean‘crude’ but rather, as originally the word indicated,‘early’ or ‘first, prime,’ and ‘science’ has the broad

meaning of coherent body of knowledge, broaderthan the restricted use of the word often found today.

Symbols are embedded in the myths of all nationsand times, conditioning and guiding humanperspectives on life and the world, enhancing self-understanding, and in general making sense of whatlies within and beyond the capacity of rigidly definedconcepts and even words to express. Theosophyteaches that each human being is on a long spiritualjourney, a path that rises and falls as individuals actand react to situations presented by karma, passingthrough myriad lives as each soul works out itsdestiny. Symbols are and have always been crucialto that journey, in part because of their multi-facetedrichness of meaning. In this sense, for any individual,a symbol has both an exoteric or public side andesoteric or hidden dimensions. What is exoteric iswhat an individual can understand at the momentwhen reflecting on the symbol. What is esoteric areall the levels and layers of meaning and spiritualnuance that are not yet clear to the individual. Butwhat is obscure to one may be clear to another, andyet both may understand, use and meditate upon thesame symbol in his or her own way. And symbolscan even intimate that which lies beyond allunderstanding. Symbols are thus always invitationsto broader, deeper understanding and awareness,and as such they nurture the spiritual intuition of theseeker. And all are seekers.

Dr. Raghavan Iyer launched the journal Hermes in

1975. Widely recognized by the world for hisphilosophical, ethical and political contributions toIndia, England and America, he imbued the creationo f Hermes with a unique blend of erudition andspiritual insight. He envisaged an article in eachmonthly issue devoted to the elucidation of a symboland invited Helen Valborg to undertake the long-termcommitment to writing them. This she did, eachmonth until 1989, when the journal ceased to bepublished.

At the beginning of each of these fifteen years,Professor Valborg created a list of possible symbolsto be explored and, in consultation with Dr. Iyer,selected the twelve topics that would become theHermes symbol articles for the year. Some arenatural symbols, focusing on such things as theelements or animals. Some are based in mythologyor religious and shamanistic systems. As ananthropologist, Professor Valborg brings to herinvestigation of symbols a broad cross-culturalapproach and utilizes, along with ethnographicstudies, a wide variety of resources from recentscientific research to historical documents and theliterature and poetry of various traditions that oftenelucidate facets of symbolic interpretation.

These eclectic threads are woven into the fabric ofProfessor Valborg’s writing, along with rich andmulti-layered references found in theosophicalwritings. The weave has been created on a loom ofanalogy and correspondence, reflective of the

author’s own journey into the realm of symboliccorrespondences between the intuitive and theempirical. The breadth of research evidenced in thetwenty-eight articles in this volume encouragesreaders to make the connection between thephysical and the metaphysical, the material andspiritual, in attempting to understand symbols andtheir use. Each is infused with hints and suggestionsthat reward the intuition of reflective readers, so thatthey may use these essays in their own spiritualjourneys. May new readers find in them wisdom, truthand the inspiration to broaden their own modes ofinterpretation and understanding.

Prof. Elton A. HallBoise, IdahoOctober 2007

SHAMBALLA

Behind the ice walls of the Himalayas lie the empty desertsand remote mountains of Central Asia. There, blown clear ofhabitation by the harsh winds of high altitude, the plateau ofTibet extends north over thousands of square miles up to theKunluns, a range of unexplored peaks longer than theHimalayas and nearly as high. Beyond its little-knownvalleys are two of the most barren deserts in the world: theTakla Makan and the Gobi. Farther north more ranges - thePamir, the Tien Shan, the Altai, and numerous others -break the horizon until they give way to the great forests andopen tundra of Siberia. Sparsely populated and cut off bygeographic and political barriers, this vast region remainsthe most mysterious part of Asia, an empty immensity inwhich almost anything could be lost and waiting to be found.

Edwin Bernbaum

Wandering in a hidden valley beneath the snow-wrapped shoulders of Dhaulagiri, a lone hunter fromthe region of Dolpo hearkened to the echo of lamaschanting and the beating of drums. Tibetans tell thestory of how this simple transient followed the soundof the music towards its source, which brought him toa doorway in a great cliff. Passing through it, hefound himself in a beautiful valley adorned withverdant rice fields, villages and a graciousmonastery. The people who lived in this valley werepeaceful and happy, and they extended to the huntera warm welcome, urging him to stay. He wasdelighted with their blissful existence but soonbecame anxious to go back to his own family and

bring them to enjoy the beautiful valley. The residentsthere warned him that he would not be able to findthe way back, but he was determined to leave. As hemade his way out through the cliff door, he took theprecaution of hanging his gun and his shoes besidethe entrance to mark it. Confidently he went to fetchhis wife and children, but when he returned to thehidden valley, he found the gun and shoes hanging inthe middle of a blank rock wall.

It is not easy to find such places, but it is almostimpossible to find them again. The hero of JamesHilton’s saga found the fabled Shangri-La onlybecause he crashed whilst flying over the GreatSnowy Range. He was not expecting to discoversuch a place, and it is difficult to know what peculiarcombination of qualities he possessed that wouldhave permitted him entrance into such a lost world.But he was imbued with that which enabled him torecord with appreciation and awe the conditions thathe found. He described the austere serenity ofShangri-La. “Its forsaken courts and pale pavilionsshimmered in repose from which all the fret ofexistence had ebbed away, leaving a hush as ifmoments hardly dared to pass.” A place out of time,it seemed, where timeless wisdom prevailed; suchan aura of wisdom and peace is rarely and onlydimly reflected in the world. When the High Lamathere asked the hero if the Western world could offeranything in the least like Shangri-La, he answeredwith a smile: “Well, yes - to be quite frank it reminds

me very slightly of Oxford.” But of course one neednot fly and come close to death in order to findOxford, for despite its inspiring eminence, it is achild of the world and only points to greater visions ofa pure and perfect land.

Who can find such a place? Many dream of goingthere, and old Tibetan records tell of long and difficultjourneys undertaken by some who are vaingloriousbut successfully accomplished only by Adepts whohave the eyes to see it. Having heard stories of acelestial temple atop a mountain in India, a Britishexpedition in the nineteen thirties climbed the sacredpeak and, having seen no golden temple, mentionedthis to a holy man, who smiled and said, “No, youprobably wouldn’t have.” As such places have beencalled the birthplace of the gods, it is small wonderthat sceptical men would find it difficult to see them.The Greeks believed that only the gods and greatheroes guided by Hermes could know Elysium and“only those mortals were translated thither who hadcome through a triple test in life”. This was theHyperborean land that answered to the pure land ofShamballa where, it is said, the Masters of theSnowy Range assemble every seven years. To findone’s way into the presence of such beings must bedifficult indeed, and yet many have wondered anddreamed and risked all they had in their efforts todiscover the way.

How can anyone begin to find the way toShamballa? In 1775 the Panchen Lama wrote a

detailed guidebook inspired by the vividexperiences and instructions he had received indreams. This Shambhalai Lamyig describes manyordeals and is considered by those who pursuethese mysteries to be one of the main sources ofinformation about the place and the journey to it. Theother major sources are the Kanjur and Tanjur, athree-hundred volume set which is considered thesacred Tibetan Buddhist canon. These palm leavescontain the earliest known mention of Shamballa, thePure Land whose name in Tibetan is bde’byung or‘Source of happiness’. The Buddhists say that thePure Land is not a paradise but a land only for thosewho are on their way to nirvana. They believe thatwhoever reaches it or is reborn there can never fallback into a lower state and that it is the only pureland that exists on earth. The Pure Land Doctrine orSukhavati teaches that a Bodhisattva may make avow of compassion that after he has obtainedsupreme Buddhahood he will establish a Buddha-field wherein conditions will be conducive toenlightenment. Sukhavati is one of the names of theBuddha and is not nirvana itself but a symbol of it,and Japanese Buddhists assert that to be rebornthere is to achieve enlightenment. Thus Shamballa isnot an end in itself but rather an exalted stageleading to something even more incomprehensiblebeyond.

The Sanskrit sham (happiness) bhal (to give) hasthe same meaning as the Tibetan and this

happiness is born of the shedding of illusions.Popular Tibetan tradition suggests that many whoreach there are not immortal nor fully enlightened.They retain some of their illusions and failings, butthey continually strive to become free of them as theymove closer towards rebirth in that blissful place.The kings of Shamballa are enlightened andbelieved to be an incarnation of a Bodhisattva whois in essence a source of happiness. The PanchenLama was a king there and will be reborn as such inthe future as a channel through which the Buddha-state manifests in the world, as though that officewas a reflection of an eternal truth which assertsitself cyclically in time. Just so do other centresappear and disappear like the seven sacredlocalities where the Kabiri created fire on the islandof Samothrace. Such places are reflections ofShamballa which manifest, ripen and becomeforgotten by humanity. They remain in the world asislands or mountains, but their power is doubted andthe aura of transcendence which hovers around theirfloating headlands and barren peaks is sensed onlyby the very few.

The most complex and sacred teaching of theTibetans is the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time), whichis known only to those initiated into its mysteries.Some have pointed out that in recent years theelaborate enactment of the rituals performed in thepresence of uninitiated laymen amounts to adegradation of the teachings of the Kalachakra and

to the idea of initiation itself. But High Lamas havepointed out that those simple peasants orWesterners who witness such proceedings areindeed initiated at a very rudimentary level. So greatis the power of these teachings that even theirsymbolic ritual enactment is believed to bestow a giftof insight, although it is one which marks only thebeginning of a course which will be more fullypursued by very few. It is said that just before hisdeath and final entry into nirvana, the Buddha tookthe form of the Kalachakra deity and gave hishighest mystical teachings to sages and gods.These teachings remained hidden in Shamballa fora thousand years until they appeared in Tibet aroundthe tenth century or after the spread of Buddhismfrom India to Tibet. Since then they have become thesubject of study of those who, like the Dalai Lama,spend their lives as transmitters of the Bodhisattvicsource lying at the heart of the kingdom ofShamballa. Their arcane secrets about the finalmeasurements of time and the mode of attainingliberation from the illusions of this world are like theguidebooks to Shamballa itself, difficult to locate andthrice difficult to follow. Like the Pure Land, they canonly be found through a process of becoming.

The Greeks spoke of Asteria, the Island of DivineKings, where the gods were born, and Annwfn,Avalon and Elysium are other names given byancient races to that place which is the source ofdivinity and bliss. H.P. Blavatsky noted that all the

dwipas, continents, lokas, globes and islandsreferred to in occult traditions are, in essence, thesame as those ‘Islands’ or ‘Lands’ constantlyreferred to in mythology. Understanding mysticalgeography requires an intuitive and flexibleapplication of the analogical approach involving abroad but imaginative perception ofcorrespondences. One’s understanding of time andspace must be refined and rendered capable ofreflecting the subtleties of patterns emanating from aBuddhic level of consciousness. Thus when anyoneasks where Shamballa is, it is not easy to answer.There is a story which illustrates this difficulty intelling of a young man who set off on a quest to findit. He crossed many mountains and finally came to ahermit’s cave, and when the hermit asked him wherehe was going across these wastes of snow, hereplied, “To find Shamballa.” “Ah well, then,” said thehermit, “you need not travel far. The kingdom ofShamballa is in your heart.”

Now over the trackless snowy range I wend my lonely wayto Bhota, elsewhere called Tibet, where Dharma’s glorioussun pours forth His light and melts the cheerless snows ofdoubt and pain and sorrow vexing mortal men.

Nineteenth Century Japanese Monk The Mahabharata describes Uttarakuru, the land

of enlightened Sages, as lying to the north of MountMeru, although some say it is to be found in theTarim Basin or in Siberia. Arjuna is described astravelling to Lake Manasasarova and then to MountKailas before crossing the Tibetan Plateau leading

on to the Kunlun Mountains and Khotan. Someguidebooks place Shamballa far to the north of this,mentioning the polar regions and the North star.Chinese and Tibetan records identify it as theSacred Island of Adepts which continues to exist in aplace well known to them, whether the surroundingtopography changes or not. The changes and flow ofthe earth’s history are thus acknowledged, whilst atthe same time the changeless nature of Shamballais suggested.

In the guidebooks the directions look easy, but when youtry to follow them it’s difficult: either you lose your way or youget covered with mist.

A Lama’s Warning As in the story about the hunter who happened to

be at the right place and the right moment to see thedoor in the cliff, Rene Daumal showed how thevoyagers trying to find Mount Analogue had to waitand watch in the open sea for a mysterious channelto open up in the waves which, if breached at theprecisely correct moment, would reveal the islandmountain for a fleeting second and enable them tosteer their ship in the right direction. The only peoplewho could find it were those who had heard of it andwho, despite the fact that it could be found on nomap known to geographers or navigators, believedtotally in its existence. Some have thought thatShamballa lies on the edge of physical reality as abridge which connects this world to that which liesbeyond it. But as the traveller draws near to it, thedirections become increasingly mystical and difficult

directions become increasingly mystical and difficultto correlate with the physical world. Most of theguidebooks establish a physical link between theordinary world and that of Shamballa, and they startoff from well known places like the caves of Ajantaand Ellora or the Hollow Hills of Celtic tradition.There is a physical entrance where people go fromtime to time and where, as so many traditions wouldhave it, people disappear from ordinary sight. In theTibetan view, however, the belief persists thateverything conceivable could and probably doesexist somewhere in the world, whether it has beenseen or not. Most lamas firmly believe thatShamballa exists in this world and that theKalachakra may be seen as a symbolicrepresentation of it that can be used to spark thesoul’s memory rather than as a description of whatthe place actually looks like.

In The Secret Doctrine, Shamballa is said to be an‘island’ which still exists as an oasis surrounded bythe Gobi Desert, and that this is what is left of a vastinland sea which extended over much of CentralAsia. Such an island is linked with each of the RootRaces that preceded our own, which werecompared by Siddhartha to Four Islands “whichstudded the ocean of birth and death”. But does thismean that Shamballa exists on the physical plane? Isit merely a Utopia, which literally means ‘no place’,or does it have its roots on earth and its summit (orcentre) in heaven, as is said of Mount Meru? IfShamballa is a community of mystics, it may be a

secret society scattered around the world, or it maybe found only in the heart, as the old hermitsuggested. But the idea persists that there is aShamballa and that it can be found by one who hasthe eyes to see it. Even so, as the old Tibetans warn:“If the time to go there has not come, everything,houses and all, will be covered by thickets and trees,and all will be of the nature of forest and grassland.”

So powerful and tenacious is the idea ofShamballa that some political groups have used it togive a spiritually idealized focus to their otherwiseworldly promises. Sukhe Bator, the founder of themodern Mongolian People’s Republic, introduced abattle hymn to the simple herdsmen and nomads thathe gathered into the mundane fold of twentiethcentury nationalism. Its refrain urged them: “Let usdie in this war and be reborn as warriors of the Kingof Shamballa!”

The prophecy of Shamballa describes a situationsimilar to that of Ithaca in Homer’s story ofOdysseus. Both involve the idea of returning to thesource and both places are threatened withbarbarian invasion. This prophecy tells of the thirty-two kings that will rule in Shamballa and of the rise ofbrutal materialism in the world. It says that when thedungans have become more troublesome than ever,the Panchen Lama will be born as the son of the kingof Shamballa. The dungans will lay waste to Tibet,and the people, following the Dalai Lama, willabandon their homeland to set off for Shamballa,

where they will be received by the new king. Thedungans will subdue Asia and Europe and will eventry to invade Shamballa, but they will be defeated bythe forces of the king and driven back into their owncountry. This great final battle represents aconfrontation between the desire-ridden personalityand the Higher Self, where the true ‘king’ extends hisrule over the vestures of the outside world. But thedetails of the prophecy are so closely mirrored in theshadowy struggles of recent history that it cannot butremind one of the Tibetan world-view whichassumes that everything conceivable probably existsin the world. The great battle between truth andignorance rages at the gates of Shamballa as itdoes in the human heart, and whole nations and theirarmies simply galumph along hideously, acting it outon the gross physical plane.

Going home to Shamballa is like the ‘journey to theEast’, to the birthplace of Apollo and Hermes. It isthe home of the Sons of Will and Yoga who lived onas remnants of the Third Race, and all of the avatarsof Vishnu are said to have sprung from its centre. Inthe Hindu tradition, Kalki will be the last of theseavatars, and according to Tibetan calculations, hecorresponds to Rudra Chakrin, the last king ofShamballa. Just as Rama possessed the aid ofHanuman in the Ramayana as he fought thebarbarian demons, so the king will possess aGeneral Hanumanda who will assist him in that finalgreat battle foretold in the prophecy. The link

between Vishnu and Shamballa is also forged in themysterious teachings of time and cycles, which mustbe understood at some level in order even to enterupon the battleground. This is inextricably interwovenwith the mystery of the Earth itself, whodemonstrates these cycles in all her shifts and flows.It is said that at the beginning of human life, only theNorth Pole of the earth was motionless and dry. Thisisland is a ‘skull-cap’ which prevails during the entiremanvantara of our Round. It is the head of the motherfrom which pure waters flow, to become foul at herfeet. When they return to her heart, they are onceagain purified, for her heart beats “under the sacredfoot of Shamballa”. This heart also lies beneath theSea of Knowledge, which existed where the sandsof the Gobi Desert now stretch in desolation andthrow up miraged outlines of lost cities as though itwere a graveyard yielding forth its ghosts.

The most secret aspects pertaining to the locationof Shamballa and the path leading to it have neverbeen conveyed in written form. Gradually thesemysteries are revealed orally to those who passthrough stages of initiation. The obstacles on theway are many and deadly in their potential toeliminate the seeker from the quest. The Tanjur saysthat “the water from the Mountains of Gold causesdeath, the water from the Mountains of Silver drivesmen mad, and the water from the other mountainsbrings sickness and the loss of skin and hair. But theseeker with the power of mantras will find the waters

of these springs beneficial to drink.” Even if one canbring about this extraordinary internal alchemy, thegreat snow mountain wall surrounding Shamballaacts as an inner barrier thrown up by the deeperlevels of the mind to keep out the impurities of lowerManas. The peaks take on the wrath of demonguardians and inspire the overwhelming fear that thelimitations of the mind might not be transcended.This must be seen through so that the Master withincan carry one, soaring over their awesome height.There are many stories concerning the flight ofAdepts to Shamballa. Most of them tell of a flightmade possible by a wonderful horse, the symbolicnature of which represents the power oftranscendence. It is this power which breaks throughthe bondage of the last doubt, and it is the only waypossible to cross over the encircling ring ofmountains which engulf an even higher range within.The journey is said to consist of dismaying setbackslong before these mountains are reached, but stillsome persist, moving ever closer as they catch thesigns and omens and make fewer and fewermistakes.

There are seductive maidens and sirens along theearlier parts of the way to Shamballa, and thesemust be avoided initially whilst the seeker slowlydevelops control of the centres of power within him.These are the Calypsos and Dakinis who, in theiralluring or monstrous forms, have the ability to side-track a pilgrim indefinitely or to turn him into frozen

stone. Thus in the efforts of Perseus to reachHyperborea, the horrid threat of Medusa had to beovercome, but it was only when Odysseus andPerseus, as well as numerous other heroes, couldcontrol the negative side of these feminine energiesthat they could enlist their necessary aid in helpingthem to realize their goal. In this way, Perseusoutwitted the Graiae sisters, who alone could givehim the information he needed to slay Medusa. Sheguarded the edges of the world, the limits of realitythat mark the beginning of the Hyperborean realmand paralysed the progress of any seeker whoapproached and knew not the secret of her nature.Such are the unconscious forces within man whichcan rise up unexpectedly and cripple him or blindhim or even destroy him as he reaches closer withinhimself towards the goal.

Just as Hermes guides Perseus to Hyperborea, soa tutelary deity guides the pilgrim to Shamballa. Onelama who had a succession of vivid dreamsdetailing the journey to Shamballa early onexperienced the inability to proceed without a guide.Thus in his dream he sent forth a visualized yogimessenger with this request: “Take this messageand go to my father in Shamballa. May my words ofTruth, conquering the mountains of dualism, guideyou along the way and help you to overcome theobstacles that lie before you.” It is difficult to knowhere who is actually giving assistance to whom, butwhen one considers that the messenger is actually a

counterpart of the lama’s Higher Self, it begins toappear that the dialogue between Self and non-selfcan proceed to a very subtle and abstract level. Butthe way to Shamballa is dangerous, and thechecking and waiting, the devotion and trust, allcharacteristic of the nature of the Guruparamparachain, are essential to getting there, perceiving thegreat gates and approaching the palace of the king.

The Kalachakra states clearly that perfect balance,coordination and a guide are required to follow thisPath. And one may move along it, whilst fulfillingthese requirements, at different rates of speed. Oneway of understanding this by analogy is to say thatthe Hinayana pilgrim shuns poison, the Mahayanapilgrim takes it in small doses to build up immunity,but the Vajrayana seeker drinks it neat, realizing thatit is an illusion. In this way the Vajrayana followerattempts to control and make use of the passionsand illusions that keep most people bound to theworld of delusion. This is the Diamond Way, theshortest and most dangerous route to Shamballa,pursued only by the foolish or by persons ofinvincible courage and unwavering clarity ofunderstanding. This mode places emphasis on thecontrol of the vital airs (winds), which at the deeperlevel of interpretation refers to the prajna-upaya orthe inseparable unity of wisdom and compassionwhich constitutes the essence of Enlightenment.

In the Kalachakra work Vimalaprabha, Tsong-Kha-Pa wrote that the Mahayana has two divisions:

prajnaparamita, the ‘causal’ side, and the mantra orside of ‘effects’, which involves initiation in theKalachakra mandala. These are like two wings ofthe Mahayana, both sides composing theBodhisattva vehicle capable of soaring. Tsong-Kha-Pa wrote: “Holding the form of the void is the cause;the fruit is the adherence to incessant compassion.The indissoluble union of voidness (sunyata) andcompass i on (karuna) is called ‘mind ofenlightenment’ (Bodhichitta). “ To achieve thisrealization of and blending of the masculine andfeminine sides, the Tantra called the Vajrapanjarateaches that: “If the void were the means (upaya),there would be no Buddhahood, because the effectwould be no different from the cause.”Contemplation of Voidness has been taught by theBuddhas to ward off the adherence to a lower self,but this must be joined to the awakening of themeans in the mandala initiation so that the disciplemay begin to realize within himself the thirty-twocharacteristics of the Master and the eighty minormarks of the Lord. In this way the means, orawakened powers, are under the tutelage of theGuide but can provide the energy necessary tocomplete the journey to Shamballa.

In the Kalachakra initiation the disciple stands atthe eastern gate and is reborn into the mandala. Heis purified with water and begins to merge, instages, with the central deity. One is reminded thateverything in a mandala exists in relation to its

centre. The passage through different dimensionssymbolized by a series of concentric circles andsquares has meaning only in its movement towardsthe centre. Each circle represents a stage ofinitiation, a level of consciousness, and the initiatedidentifies completely with each part of the mandalapattern as he advances. Finally, “when the yogiidentifies himself with the deity of the central syllable,the features that issue from it come to symbolize thehidden parts of his mind. The mandala spreads hisinner world out before him where he can recognizeand become aware of it.” Such a person thensynthesizes these elements back into the centre,awakening a flow of awareness and energy withinhimself.

The gates of Shamballa in the Kalachakramandala face the cardinal points. The eastern gaterepresents shraddha (faith) which is preliminary toall the rest. The southern gate is virya (the four righteliminations or strivings). The western gate is that ofdharma-pravicaya (mindfulness generated byknowledge of the doctrine and the four bases ofmagical power). The northern gate representssamadhi (control of the five faculties and powers).As one moves through these gates, the DiamondLine (or turning of the wheel by the power of mantra)awakens soul recollection and strengthens thepractice of dharma. At each stage all of theornaments represent collections of virtues enabling acloser approach to the central palace, which

symbolizes knowledge and the erection of an edificeof consciousness. All of the myriad details in themandala pattern can be interpreted as orifices,organs and chakras within the human body, everyone of which is the seat of passion and illusion orpotentially alchemized energy.

Like a lotus opening, the mandala of Shamballasymbolizes the macrocosmic and microcosmic, theawareness of power and the power itself. In anexoteric interpretation it represents the cosmology ofthe universe whilst teaching the mysteries of time,astrology, mathematics and the cyclic pattern offorces. From a more esoteric point of view itdemonstrates the flow of the masculine cause andfeminine effect merged in an active realization ofbalance. The passage of time becomes identicalwith the flow of energy in the body. At its highest levelthis leads to the unification of wisdom andcompassion and the potential to create, at somelevel, a Buddha-field. Having transcended the fear oflosing himself, the disciple discovers a gem-likeawareness in the depths of his mind. The egobecomes a transparent window transforming theview of the world, enabling a glimpse of the PureLand that looms ahead. As one approaches closerto the goal, the eight noble pathways leading to thelotus centre increasingly converge into the disciple’sconsciousness. Like psychic channels, they mergeinto a powerful basis for Buddhic wisdom and thehorse and the rider become as one, soaring over the

last obstacles to the Sacred Isle where the deer isever safe.

In Tibetan tradition it is said that the Water Eye cansee the world, but the Flesh Eye only a distance ofeighteen days’ walk. The God Eye reveals hiddenthings and places, like the door in the cliff, whilst theWisdom Eye penetrates to the core of things and iscapable of opening the Buddha Eye that can discernthe ultimate reality. Before the pilgrim can find thebeginning of the way to Shamballa, he must be filledwith the light of the God Eye. At the end of the greatjourney, the gates, the palace and even the king maymerge as a drop into the Great Void, but the idea,the mandala, the raft, cannot be abandoned until theisland shore is reached. Like a window on the edgeof the world, the glorious and serene kingdom ofShamballa waits. Veiled in mists and hidden beyondall the snowy ranges with their precipitous passesand laboured chasms, it looms and waits for thosewho have the eyes to see it. The door in the blankcliff wall, the opening in the mind, offer themselvesonly for a moment. Grasp that moment and moveonwards.

The way appears but fleetingly,The vision lasts not long.But lifetimes lived in timeAre as ashes to this flame.O dreamed of Shamballa,I come to thy Pure Land.

Hermes, November 1981

THE TETRAKTYS

Pythagoras establishes Unity as the principle of all thingsand said that from this Vnity sprang an indefinite Duality. Theessence of this Unity, and the manner in which the Dualitythat emanated from it was finally brought back again, werethe most profound mysteries of his doctrine; the subject wassacred to the faith of bis disciples and the fundamentalpoints were forbidden them to reveal.

Fabre d’Olivet

The golden light of the candles blurred intoincense-laden shadows which thickened in thecorners of the small village church. The wallsdisplayed the flickering images of saints whosebodies oozed dampness from the sodden earthoutside. Their sad eyes gazed from the gloom, theirfaces boldly Hellenic with narrowed noses andarching brows. Only their pose lacked the distinctivefluidity of pagan heroes and sages. Muted thus, andobscured by the shadows and soot, they witnessedthe re-enactment of an ancient ritual laden witharcane symbolism and mystery. An old priest withtangled grey hair knotted behind his decoratedcrown stood before a low square altar hewn from thenative rock and bedecked with hierophaniesdisplayed for the occasion. To his left and his right infront of him stood a bride and a groom, their bowedheads crowned with wreaths of white satin ribbonand flowers. The mended and altered gown of the

young bride was darkened at the seams with theyellowing of a previous generation, but the freshflowers of her crown reflected the soft glow of thecandle. It shone in response to its companion whichencircled the buoyant locks of the groom’s unrulyhair. Behind them stood a row of witnesses in ahorizontal line of maids and men. They created athreshold separating the actors of the ritual mysteryand the gathered crowd, which stood in duskysilence, transfixed by the illuminated scene.

In a small darkened dome of the church, the AngelGabriel looked down upon them. His practised eyes,gazing from the orbs of a peeling fresco, traced thelines of the pattern below him. The old priest was theapex of a triangle that stood before the square. Thehierophanies, arranged in a mystic triad upon thealtar, marked its prototype and the line of witnessesformed its base. The bride and groom stood at theleft and right angles of the triangle, and a radiantsatin ribbon connecting their crowns strengthenedthe suggestion of their union. As the apex of thetriad, the old priest acted as a solitary liaisonbetween the altar and the couple. Only heunderstood the use of the sacred objects and thenames that would enliven their power. Only he couldmake the gestures that would transmit their spirituallyunified essence in the unification of the man andwoman before him. Old and grizzled as he was, hisheart was filled with the sanctity of this responsibility,and his gnarled hands imparted faithfully the

blessing from on high. Smiling, Angel Gabriel sawthe hidden current of light flow through the humblepriest and unite the simple pair. He knew that fromtheir merger another triad would be born, anotherdivision and union in an endless chain of such, andhe laughed as he withdrew. The crowds belowsighed and, at the completion of the ritual, mingledand mused upon former weddings and those yet tocome. They wept in recalling and comparing noteson dowries and bride-wealth. They gossiped andspeculated upon the prospects of the newly-wedsand basked unconsciously in the luminousness ofthe magic that had just taken place.

Simple villagers that they were, how could theyknow that millennia before their time the ancients,perhaps even some of their own Greek ancestors,had openly recognized this magic in an oath takenby disciples of Pythagoras. Being unfamiliar withsuch mysteries and sensing their presence onlythrough an intuitive understanding of recurringpatterns in nature, they did not realize thesignificance of the triad and the square. Theyglimpsed the beauty of spiritual transmission throughunion but could not grasp the immensity of thepattern nor its noumenal source. If in a dream anancient ancestor came to them and spoke thatsacred oath, their soul’s memory might be aroused,but would they recognize the symbol of theTetraktys? Would they know that it had beenrepresented in their humble village church?

By Him who gave to our Soul the TetraktysWhich hath the fountain and rootOf ever-springing Nature.

The real significance of the Tetraktys is suggestedin the portion of the Pythagorean Oath whichdescribes it as containing “the fountain and root ofever-springing Nature”, It is not merely symbolic ofstatic relations, such as might be imagined to existbetween priest and bride and groom, but enshrinesthe cosmogonical movement of life “evolving out ofprimal unity, the harmonized structure of the whole”.In this way it is a fountain of ever-flowing life. It is alsothe measure of all things. The One becomes themany without losing its essential Unity, expressed ina bond of proportion running through manifestation.Porphyry tells us how followers of Pythagoras sworeby the Tetraktys given by their Teacher as a symbolapplicable to the solution of problems in nature. Theybelieved that the nature of all things could begrasped through the decad as expressed in thesymbol of the Tetraktys. They asserted that it wouldbe impossible for the orderly and universaldistribution of things to subsist without it. Resultingfrom an infinite series of quaternaries was a worldgeometrically, harmonically and arithmeticallyarranged, containing the entire range of number,magnitude and form. The Pythagoreans thus usedan Oath with a key which applied to the assimilationof all things into number.

One of the epithets used to describe the Tetraktyswas ‘key-bearer of Nature1. As the wise Platonist

Thomas Taylor observed: “It is a God after anothermanner than the Triad, because in the triad the firstperfect is beheld, but in the tetrad all mundanenatures are comprehended according to thecausality principle. From its all-comprehendingnature likewise, it is a manifold, or rather, everydivinity. As, too, it causally contains all mundanenatures, it may very properly be called the fountain ofnatural effects. Because likewise it opens and shutsthe recesses of generation, it is denominated, as theanonymous author observes, the key-bearer ofNature, as is also the mother of the Gods, who isrepresented with a key.” Opening and shutting therecesses of generation, the Tetraktys stands like thealtar before the bridal couple, containing all thepotential effects which will manifest partially andidiosyncratically in the microcosmic process ofmeiosis resulting from their union.

It is said that the One, by Itself, does not “exist”.Only when It is united with the Monad and duad isBeing produced. The One is No-number. It is theprimary, undifferentiated soul of the universe, andnumbers arise from it by a process of ‘separatingout’, not as a collection of units built up by addition,but as minor souls, each possessing a distinctnature with certain mystical properties. Theinterblending of these distinct natures producesinfinitely complex harmonies distinguished by theGreeks as replicating tetrachords consisting of threeintervals and four sounds. They believed that the

multiplex expression of these conveyed the music ofstars and planets, and ultimately every expression ofthe replicating duad. The Pythagorean School,pursuing lines of thought akin to the teachings ofOrpheus, considered the problem of the One and themany in terms of ‘the Fall’ of the human soul from theOne. In myth it was said that the reign of Aphrodite,the Age of Love, was a state of bliss whose end washeralded by the Great Oath of the gods (theTetraktys). Putting “trust in strife”, certain daemonswere then banished by the gods and caused to mix,as a cross within a circle, the two streams of loveand strife.

Love and strife - the Higher in the lower. Surely thisis what awaits the rustic bride and groom. They baskfor a moment beneath the reign of Aphrodite, whilstthe greater part of their life involves the struggle tokeep body and soul together and in harmony. But inthe sacred moment of their union, the united ray oftheir Higher Self illuminates their vestures andempowers them with the ultimate creativity of theirinner nature. The primary maxim of the DelphicOracle was “Know Thyself”, and Iamblichus tells usthat the most difficult question posed by Pythagorasto his pupils required them to understand the DelphicOracle as the Tetraktys. In terms of ‘the Fall’, onecan grasp the idea of the Self enveloped in the strifeof the lower vestures, but the Self that is to be‘known’ is the Oath or Word itself, which initiates thestrife inherent in the duad and its endless progeny.

The duad doubled is four, or the tetrad, which whendoubled or unfolded, is the hebdomad. Thus fourretorted into itself results in the first cube, which is afertile number. Philo Judaeus pointed out that four isthe virgin number related to the sacred Tetraktys,whereas the seventh power of any number is asquare and a cube. This potential fertility isexpressed again in terms of ‘the Son’ of theimmaculate Celestial Virgin, who, born on earth,becomes humanity. The triad becomes theTetraktys, the Perfect Square and six (seven)-facedcube on earth. Though tracing this unfoldment fromthe plane of the abstract to the particular is difficult,students of Pythagoras began by identifying twobasic quaternaries: one through addition (of the firstfour numbers) and a second through multiplication(of even and odd numbers starting from Unity). Oddnumbers, symbolizing the limit and formal principleof universe, were set along one side of a triangle (3 -9 - 27), whilst even numbers, or those whichrepresented the tendency to divide according to theirown nature, were arranged along the other side (2 -4 - 8). In this way, by virtue of the numbers from thisTetraktys, growth proceeds from the point to the line,to the surface and the solid cube. It is these numberswhich, in the Timaeus, Plato identifies with thehuman soul.

There is a third Tetraktys which takes its point fromthe second and has the property of constituting anycurved or plane magnitude through point, line,

surface and solid. The fourth Tetraktys is comprisedof the elements - fire, air, water and earth; the fifth isthe pyramid, octahedron, icosahedron and cube;whilst the sixth involves the seed (point), growth(line), the quality of width (surface) and that ofthickness (solid). According to Theon of Smyrna, theseventh Tetraktys is composed of man, family,village and city; the eighth of thought, science,opinion and feeling (parallel to Plato’s Divided Line);the ninth of the four faculties of judgement; the tenthof the four seasons; and the eleventh of the four agesof man. From above below, each of thesedescending levels of the Tetraktys unfolds throughodd and even (male and female) pairs in a processof multiplication that is ever true to the principles laiddown by the first Tetraktys.

As Creator, the Tetraktys is the divine numericalseries of one to four. In this sense numbers aregods. “But”, asked Hierocles, “how does ‘God’ cometo be four?” We are told that Unity, the Absolute One,possesses within it the potential aspect of AbsoluteMotion which, radiating as the Great Breath,manifests the duad, the doubling of Unity. This,accompanied by Infinite Space-Matter, comprisesthree, which is the first number having a beginning,middle and end, thus expressing multitude. From thissprings Fohat, the number four which is sacred toHermes and to the Oath of the gods. This four isexpressed in the four syllables (one hidden) of theAUM. It is said that when the Ain-Soph manifested

Itself in the First Logos, the latter uttered the firstword of his name, a syllable of four letters. This wasfollowed by second, third and fourth syllables whichintoned the number of Deity manifested. One addedto two, added to three, added to four, equals ten orthe figured representation of ten as a triangularnumber. Four and ten were the numbers of divinitiesto the Pythagoreans. In The Sale of PhilosophersLucian represents Pythagoras as asking aprospective buyer to count. When he had counted tofour, the philosopher interrupted, “Lo! what thouthinkest four is ten, and a perfect triangle, and ourOath.” Perhaps it is for this reason that the triangular-shaped) (delta) is the fourth letter of the Greekalphabet, for the delta represents the issuing forth ofthe river of life which proceeds from the Monad till itarrives at the divine Tetrad, the mother of all things;the boundary is the sacred Decad.

In Plato’s dialogue of his name, Timaeus, aPythagorean from the Italian city of Locri, speaks ofthe Tetraktys as a double four (an odd and evenseries of numbers) forming the cosmic psyche.These were produced by the Dyad (identified withRhea or Isis) or the flow of the universe involvingmatter in a constant state of flux. It was held that theTetraktys “completed the process of fluxion wherebyphysical objects are produced from points, lines,surfaces and solids”. In this process the Dyadproduces even numbers by multiplication and oddnumbers by functions of limit, which acts to stop,

equalize and stabilize the propensity of the Dyad tomultiply. Pythagoras, in placing even and oddsequences on either side of the Tetraktys, revealedhis awareness of this necessary interaction even inthe construction of the World Soul.

Between two square numbers there is one meanproportional number. This odd third number acts asthe ‘lock’ or binder between what may be called thebuilding blocks of the universe. This role cannot beplayed by even numbers which, when they aredivided, are empty in the centre and therefore weak.Thus, in the building of the square, the odd number isalways master. It moves beyond the Dyad to thethree and the four and, eventually, the cube. TheDyad contains the One from which issues the Three(the Three-in-One). Put in a slightly different way,“Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul onthis plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on ahigher plane for the manifestation of spirit, and thesethree are a trinity synthesized by Life which pervadesthem all,” From Parabrahm the Three-in-One issuesforth. It is the Tetraktys (the Three and One) fromwhich radiates the One in many - the DhyaniBuddhas. It is the Four-Faced Brahmā, theChaturmukha (the perfect cube) “forming itself withinand from the infinite circle”. Brahma is thusHiranyagarbha, Hari and Shankara, or the ThreeHypostases of the manifesting Spirit of the SupremeSpirit - the one plus three which equals four. TheGreeks identified this Tetrad as the first manifest

deity, and Orpheus said that all of the intellectualorders of gods were “astonished on surveying thisdeity unfold himself into light from mystic andineffable silence”.

The one macrocosm is eternally hidden in theAbsolute. The entire universe is a “microcosmicprojection of that one and only macrocosmos”. Everymicrocosmic reflection follows its parent - projectingitself and becoming the macrocosmos to itsoffspring. The Ray from the Concealed Deity fallsinto primordial cosmic matter, resulting in the DivineAndrogyne or First Logos, which, projecting further,becomes the Second Logos or Tetraktys. FromParabrahm, Mulaprakriti emerges as the basis ofobjective evolution and cosmogenesis. Projectingforth, the First Spiritual Logos provides the basis ofthe subjective side of manifest being and the sourceof all individual consciousness. This highest Logosis expressed through Force, which is transformedinto the energy of the supra-conscious Logoicthought, which is infused into objectivization. ThisPrimal Impress defines the laws of matter, which aresynthesized in the Second Logos or Tetraktys. In itsuniversal form and idea the three become four, butstill the Tetraktys is the formless square giving forthonly the idea of universal order.

In this one can see the results of the first creationdepicted in the Linga Purana as Mahat-Tattwa, inthat it is primordial self-evolution of that which had tobecome (Divine Mind - the Spirit of the Universal

Soul or Maha Buddhi). The intelligible worldproceeds out of the Divine Mind as the Tetraktysreflects upon its own essence and on its beginning.Once one, twice two, and a tetrad arises. At its top isthe essence of Light which illuminates the world ofDeity without burning. Its base becomes the squareplatform of a pyramid, rooted in the world. Looked atonce again, this mystery is that of the doubleTetraktys: the Higher and the lower. The Higher orMacroprosopus is the Absolute Perfect Squarewithin the circle ‘Pass-Not’. The lowerMicroprosopus is the manifest Logos who passesthrough the circle and becomes the triangle in thesquare which is sevenfold - the square which is acube, which unfolds and becomes the cross of flesh.

The Higher Tetraktys, whilst containing thenoumenon of the potential square, is yet in essencethe Triad out of which the Tetrad emerges. TheSecret Doctrine describes how the point thatappears in the circle emanates the first three points,connects them with lines and thus forms thenoumenal basis of the second Triad of the manifestworld before retiring into the silent depths of thecircle. Thus the one contains three which, together,possess the potential quaternary. The emanationfrom the three points is the Monadic reflection in thephenomenal world of its invisible Logoic parent. It isthis Monad which then becomes the ‘parent’ apex ofthe lower triad, the mother and son composing itslower angles. At the baseline they are unified on the

universal plane of phenomenal, productive nature,just as they were unified in essence at the apex inthe causal realm. By the same mystic transmutationwhich is mirrored in the marriage of the bride andgroom, they - triune - become the Tetraktys.

Plato called the Higher Triad ‘Intellectual’ andcompared it to its lower intelligible counterpart. TheTetraktys, it is said “subsists at the extremity of theintelligible triad…. And between these two triads (thedouble triangle) … another order of gods existswhich partakes of both extremes”. The key idea hereis that the Tetraktys ‘subsists’, which is to say, ‘iskept in life’, at the apex of the lower triad as theMonadic soul of mankind expressed as the One inthe many. In its synthesis it bears the potentialqualities of the Dhyani Buddhas or gods of “anotherorder” and is the Higher Tetraktys. Expressed in thephenomenal world, it becomes the Seven Dhyanisout of whom issue the scintillas or souls in the formof Monads, atoms and gods.

The Ray of the Higher Triad falls, and from its pointa lower triad emanates. But even as this is resultingin phenomenal expressions, the lower triad hasbecome inverted, pointing away from the triangleabove. This is the downward-pointing triad ofVishnu, who is called Bhutesa, ‘Lord of the Elementsand All Things’, and Viswarupa, ‘UniversalSubstance or Soul’. This second creation proceedsalong the triple aspect of ahankara, ‘I-am-ness’,which first issues from Mahat. This ahankara is first

pure, then passionate and finally rudimental. Whenthis last occurs, the second hierarchy of DhyanChohans appears - the Seven Rishis who are theorigin of form. The down ward-pointing triad thuscontains the reflected point of the Logoic Ray and soit is shown as overlapping and being overlapped bythe up ward-pointing triangle which contains theessence of the same Logoic point. This is thesymbol of the interlaced triangles called the six-pointed star, which powerfully illustrates the dynamicrelationship between Vishnu and Shiva, or Hari andShankara, within the golden circle of Hiranyagarbha.In the centre of the upward- and downward-pointingtriads is the six (hexagon) and one (point) or seven,which is man. One of the Masters of Wisdom hassaid that “The two interlacing triangles are theBuddhangams of creation. They contain the‘squaring of the circle’, the ‘philosophical stone’, thegreat problems of Life and Death, and the mystery ofevil.”

The Tetraktys is thus the three made four and thefour made three. Put very simply, the upper Triademanates the Quaternary (symbolizing by itself thesexless ‘Heavenly Man’) which becomes aseptenary by emanating from itself the threeprinciples of the lower nature, thus forming theDecad or total Unity of the universe. One can seethis as separate units of 3, 4 and 3, but in trying tounderstand the Tetraktys, it is important toremember that the Triad of the Inner Man is the

Three Hypostases of Atman, and Its contact withNature and man is the Fourth, which makes it aTetraktys or the Highest Self. The upper and lowertriads are not separate, but their very existence onthe heavenly and terrestrial planes is made possibleby the connecting Monadic ‘link’, which makes in turna quaternary out of either and carries forth theprinciple of Unity into generation. This is connectedwith the squaring of the circle, for this greatest of allmysteries takes place at the edge of the ‘Ring Pass-Not’ as it does within the Golden Egg of Brahmā andwithin every egg made fertile on the worldly plane.The key to understanding the squaring of the circle isconcealed in the androgynous nature of the Logos,whose Ray becomes the Tetraktys in man. He whois fully informed by this is an Adept, a Master-magician incarnate.

Pythagoras, knowing these mysteries and beingsuch an Adept, attempted to act as a Demiurge,informing those around him who desired to opentheir minds and hearts to the Higher. That this is adifficult task was borne out by the hostility his effortsaroused in many. But he was wise in the ways ofboth worlds, and he united in a marriage whichproduced an offspring, who later (at the death of herfather), like a ray projected from the familial triad,went out into the world safeguarding the precioustruths that had been entrusted to her. Brave and true,Theona was the indispensable keeper of the flameand embodiment of the Sacred Oath. The sweet

bride standing in the dimly lit church does notpossess her wisdom and courage, but she isconscious of its spiritual presence hovering over her,symbolically emanating from the altar through thepriest and uniting her to the rustic lad by her side. Inher simple fashion, she dreams that her son will be aprince amongst men, a gifted and gentle person,and maybe one through whom the Demiurgosspeaks in noble accents. The Divine Tetraktys was esteemedBy wise men who beheld in dreamsIts emanation from the Three-in-One.And since the Inner Man of allBasks in Its Monadic light,Even the lesser dream bearsThe impress of its sacred projection.

Hermes, March 1982

THE ALTAR

I ask thee of the earth’s extremest limit, where is the centre of the world, I ask thee.I ask thee of the Stallion’s seed prolific,I ask of highest heaven where Speech abideth.This altar is the earth’s extremest limit; this sacrifice of ours is the world’s centre.The Stallion’s seed prolific is the Soma; this Brahman highest heaven where Speech abideth.

Rig Veda I: CLXIV: 34-35

The great southern gate of Pergamon rises up likea brazen shield carved into walls whose foundationsare massive cliffs falling away to hot and dustyplains. No foliage softens their imperious profile, nogentle breeze cools their heated flanks. Before theeyes of the traveller white rocks and barren wallspulsate in the vibrations of summer heat. They glareand invade his consciousness with their irradiatingand seemingly weightless mass. Like the land allaround him, he is parched and moves painstakinglyupwards along the path to the great door. He moveshis hand quickly from its metal handle, which burnshim as he revolves the smaller pedestrian entranceinward and steps into a broad stone courtyard. On

three sides the walls loom and towers cast adarkened shadow across the gleaming flagstonesbeneath his feet. Overbrooding the promontoryentrance-way to Pergamon, they also look downupon a fountain where travellers may refreshthemselves and wash away the heat and dust.Rested and cooled, the traveller emerges from thecourtyard and ascends the broad stairs leading tothe expansive lower agora which separates theHouse of Consul from several gymnasiums and fromthe temples and treasure-houses of the loweracropolis. His eyes rest thoughtfully upon the Doriccolumns of the temple of Athena, and they delight inthe graceful Ionic symmetry of Demeter’s abode.

He muses, thinking of the ancient Thracians andPhrygians whose artistic genius and sense of thedramatic had been matched with a keen awarenessof the military strength afforded by the rocky outcropupon which the city was built. He was aware thatLydians, Macedonians and Greeks had all beendrawn to this kingly seat and had each left theirarchitectural stamp upon the temples and altars andpublic houses. He knew also that they had beendrawn to more than the seat of worldly power, for theland of the Pergamenes was known to have beensacred to the Kabiri of old, whose Mysteries werecelebrated here. He knew all of this and yet none ofhis patiently acquired knowledge could prepare himfor his first glimpse of the Great Altar that rose uponthe terraced slope above the upper agora of

Pergamon.It stood in the centre of a platform paved with

marble, its forty-foot height supportive of the mostcomplete representation of the Greek pantheon eversculpted in one place. Atop the crowningentablature, which extended out to two wings oneither side of the great central steps, were twelvemagnificent life-sized figures of gods andgoddesses. The weary traveller was flooded withawe, for he recognized in their exquisite formscraftsmanship that matched the finest sculpture ofPraxiteles of Athens or Myron of Thebes. His wonderincreased as his eyes moved more carefully, takingin the design of the structure and its artistic details.He realized that the structure was at least onehundred feet deep and well over one hundred feetwide. Twenty-five steps, each seventy-five feet wide,were cut into the huge podium to a thirty-foot depthso that the wings continued to protrude on the sideswhilst one mounted to the central platform and Ioniccolonnade. As he ascended, he found himself at thebase of the podium of the altar, which rose to theheight of three or four men above him and included acrepidoma of five steps supporting a baseornamented with a cornice. Above this was anothermoulding serving as a frame for the mostmagnificent frieze he had ever beheld.

He, a traveller, who had lived in many lands andfought wars alongside Lydians, Persians andGreeks, gazed in astonishment at the great

entablature which adorned all sides of the enormousaltar. All the gods, giants and monsters of the threeworlds were depicted, locked in myriad expressionsof the legendary Gigantomachy, the Great War inHeaven between the kindred and followers of Zeusand the Titans of a previous age. On the easternside he identified the rising Olympians carved infaithful detail, their valiant expressions matched bytheir frightening arms. On the western side variousdivinities of land and sea joined in the struggle,whilst the Titans were banished to the south. Movingslowly around the great altar, his eyes lingered overevery agonized and victorious expression while hissteps paced off close to four hundred and fifty feet.Numerous serpents adorned the bottom of the frieze,coiling through the powerful movements of death,triumph and immortality. Whilst he stood engulfed inthe grandeur of the entire structure, the Mysteries ofthe Kabiri unfolded before him. He felt himself sweptup the altar steps to the place of sacrifice, where agreat fire was being prepared. Kneeling before theflames, he felt his heart rise within him and fly upthrough the battlefield of the gods. Like smoke, hedrifted and smouldered, he fought on every side.And like a spark which escapes into a rareratmosphere, he transcended the struggle, findinghimself in a realm of timeless quietude where flameand smoke, spark and essence of fire, were one.

There is, in the altar, a sense of Divine Presencewhich promises reunion and integration with the

Deity. Written on a set of sixteenth-century Englishaltar rails, the words “I will wash mine hands ininnocency so will I compasse Thine altar O Lord.Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a rightspirit within me” expresses this well. God is presentas a witness in the altar. It is the point wherein meetthe worshipper and that which is worshipped. In mosttraditions, offerings and sacrifices are presented onthe altar in supplication, recognition and sometimesin thanksgiving to God. But an altar may be raised toreceive a god, as in ancient China, where they werebuilt by certain emperors along the banks of the Loand Ho rivers. Gods would appear in the form ofglorious green or yellow dragons, who would ascendthe altars and display divine instructions for thekingdom, written in figures upon their backs. Intemples, cathedrals and churches, altars are usuallyplaced at the east end of the structure, before therising sun, and they are often raised above the levelof the sanctuary by a symbolic number of steps. Inthe Christian church the rise of one step usuallymarks the separation between the choir and thesanctuary, whilst the altar itself is commonlyapproached by three steps.

Altars are the meeting-point with Deity, but they arenot necessarily confined to one sanctified spot. In theworship of Ishtar, small movable prayer-altars wereused by individual worshippers in ancient Canaaniteshrines, whilst an example of what must be the mostportable altar in the world may be found in the

American Indian Sacred Pipe. Super-altars are usedin Christian rituals when they are placed uponalready consecrated high altars for special festivals,whilst some lesser side altars, like the Vedicdhisnyas, were merely heaps of earth covered withsand on which the smaller fires were placed. Easilymoved, built and destroyed, these altars were,nevertheless, focal points for sacred communion.Their varied shape does not detract from the sharedtheme of their function, and it may be, as somehistorians have suggested, that the earliest altarswere pillars or movable idol-images of deities. TheHebrew masseba might answer to this, and Semiticpeople engaged in blood sacrifice would attempt tobring the blood into direct contact with the deity bydaubing it on the cairn or image believed to be thedwelling place of the god. Sailors of the ancientMediterranean world used to perform the old firelesssacrifice at the feet of the brazen pillars of Heraklesat Gades, believing that their prayers were conveyedthrough the pillars directly to the god.

Whatever its form, at the altar the deity is witness,and so countless men have stood, like young Cyrusand the Persian nobleman Orontas before theLydian altar of Artemis, and sworn an oath offriendship. Xenophon and his Ten Thousand passedby here long after this took place and mourned theloss of friends in war. But the power of Lydian altarswas renowned, and later still, Pausanias observedthat “the Lydians, who are called Persians, have

religious precincts in the city of Hierocoesareia atHypaepa. Within each sanctuary there is a buildingand in the building there is an altar with ashes atop.But the colour of the ashes is not normal. When thepriest has entered the building and heaped up drywood on the altar, he first puts a diadem on his headand then chants foreign incantations,incomprehensible to Greeks, to some god or other,reciting from a book. It is required that the wood bekindled without fire, and that the bright flame gleamfrom the logs.”

The great world’s altar stairsThat slope through darkness up to God.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

People dedicate altars to a god because they havereceived assistance, but gods have indicated theirholy places to men in myriad ways. Lord Shiva,pursuing the capricious Vishnu in feminine disguise,is said to have scattered his semen as he ranthrough Aryavarta. Wherever the precious fluid fell, alingam arose as a place of worship, and men, inwonderment, erected beautiful temples wherepilgrims still come to venerate the highest life-givingpower in the universe made manifest. The lingam ispart of the altar where they place their offerings offlowers, and the yoni at its base is the vessel ofsacrifice which holds the Logoic flame.

In the Pawnee creation myth, Tirawa, the Chief ofHeaven, and Atira, his spouse and Sky Vault,overbrooded the birth of a son to the Sun and Moon

and a daughter to the Morning and Evening Star.With the formation of the earth by the elementalgods, these children were placed upon its surfaceand bidden to awake. To them was born a son, andthey realized that they would have to labour to carefor him. To aid them in this, they were instructed andgiven the first lodge and its altar, as well as the fire toburn and the power to speak in prayer. Such a giftwas the buffalo head, used as an altar in theCheyenne Sun Dance, and the Dakota Sacred Pipegiven by White Buffalo Cow Woman. These divinegifts provide a contrast to the notion of the Altar ofthe Earth erected at the Temple of Heaven in ancientChina. Here the altar was identified with the throneupon which the emperor as Son of Heaven wouldpersonally intercede with the gods on behalf of hispeople.

This is similar to the Christian idea that the altarwas the earthly representative of the throne of God.To the right of it was the place of honour becauseGod had said, “Sit thou on my right hand.” Thegospel is supposed to be read on this side and theepitaph of Christ is kept there. In both theseexamples, the altar is made by man to representsomething identified with Deity instead of being, inthemselves, gifts of God. Perhaps the concept of thealtar as a tomb illustrates a mixture of these ideas,for it combines the notion of God’s gift to the worldwith sacrifice and intercession. Indeed, many altarsare in the shape of a tomb or sarcophagus, like

those of the martyrs placed by their Christianbrethren in recesses in the catacombs of Rome.Secreted under arched canopies hewn out of therock by burial teams, the faithful prayed at suchaltars, hoping that the spirit of the martyrs buriedwithin the sarcophagi would intercede with God ontheir behalf and give them strength to endure theirown persecution. Thus, the spirit of God enters theworld, is martyred and entombed before it isreleased to join its Father in Heaven. Menworshipping at the altar-tomb are attempting toreceive this spirit and merge their being with it as itis merged with its source.

Another powerful symbolic interpretation of the altarlies in its identification with a table upon which ameal is spread for God. The Mayans constructedtheir altars so that the sun would descend upon theirtops at midday in order to consume the sacrifice.Thus, they said, the fires arose at noon and things ofthis earth were transported to heaven. The Egyptian

hieroglyph for altar was or hetep, which meansboth ‘altar’ and ‘offering’. They believed that the altarpossessed the power of transmuting the offeringslaid upon it and turning them into spiritual entities ofsuch a nature that they became suitable food for thegod Osiris and his spirits. This belief is very old andwidespread in the world, as can be witnessed by thecommon ritual of offering food to the household godas well as the many first-fruit ceremonies where thefirst and best of the harvest is placed upon an altar

table dedicated to the deity. Early Christian altarswere often referred to as ‘Christ’s Board’ inremembrance of the communion table laid out forJesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. For thisreason the Eastern Orthodox Church continues touse the wooden table form for its altars to this day.

In the rest of the Christian world wooden altarswere gradually replaced by heavier ones of stone,some of which resembled a tomb, some acommunion table. For the most part, the stone slabtops were very plain and were commonly markedwith five crosses at the corners and the centre.These symbolize the five wounds of Christ, and atthe consecration of the altar a little fire is made ateach one of them and they are smeared withsanctified oil. Though the bareness of the altarsignifies penitence, an amazing array ofecclesiastical service has become standardaccompaniment to altar ritual. Chalices, patens,cruets, pyxes, censers, chrismatories, crosses andcandles are all used in conjunction with cloths andvarying coloured frontals which change with theliturgical season. As the altar became more loaded,it increased in size until the whole church treasurycould be displayed on festal days. The pomp andceremony of such rituals easily obscured the idea ofsacrifice, and for many Christians the brocadefrontal of the royal throne became much moreinteresting than the linen altar cloth whichrepresented the shroud of Christ.

In Chinese as well as Hebrew and Christian altars,there was often a cavity in which relics were placedbefore being sealed with an inset of stone. In manytraditions it is believed that there is contagiouspower in the remains of saintly people, and theconsolidation of that power within an altar has beenconceived of as beneficial to the communion withGod. The more numerous the relics, the greater thebenefit. One descriptive parchment enclosed withinan early English altar informs us that on December7, 1214, the altar was dedicated to the honour of St.John the Baptist and that the relics placed thereinwere numerous indeed. They included portions ofthe vestures of Christ and the Virgin Mary, the bonesof John the Baptist, St. Peter and St. Paul, someblood of St. Stephen, the bones of ten masculinesaints, ten feminine saints and four martyrs, and theoil of St. Nicholas! Clearly, the emphasis here wason the altar as a tomb and on the powers ofintercession believed to be possessed byexemplars of religious faith.

The ideas of intercession and appeasement weremixed in the various practices of blood sacrificesknown to man. The Vedic horse sacrifice was basedupon the belief that the prayers of the priest could beconveyed heavenward by the spirit of an animalbelieved to embody the elemental powers of thegods. Human sacrifices involved the giving up ofman’s most treasured gift by proxy in the hope thatthis supreme gesture would inspire the Deity to

reciprocate in a shower of rain or assistance ofsome sort. The descriptions by the Spaniards ofscenes witnessed at Aztec sacrificial altars reflecttheir horror of this practice. The great beauty of thealtars was lost to them in the confusion and shockwhich they felt in the presence of the awesome godsHuitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca, whose grimcountenances looked down upon the bloody remainsof burning human hearts. The Aztecs would, nodoubt, have been equally horrified with theknowledge that Christians dismembered their saintsand used the separated remains as relics, but themain theme in both practices is intercession.

At the heart of the symbol of the altar is the themeof sacrifice. More fundamental than all the ideas ofintercession and appeasement, sacrifice is the mostdirect means of establishing reunion with the Sourceof all that lives. In attempting to merge the fire and itssmoke with the source of the spark, man builds asacrificial fire upon the altar and prays in phrasesthat may be similar to the beautiful words of the RigVeda:

May we adore thee in thy loftiest birthplace,And, with our praises, in thy lower station.The place whence thou issued forth I worship:To thee well kindled have they paid oblations.

Rig Veda 11:IX:3

The “loftiest birthplace” is the heavenly solar fire,whilst the “lower station” refers to the firmamentwhere Agni is born as lightning. The place where

“thou issued forth” and are “well kindled” is the altarwhere the sacrificial fire burns. Sacrifice performedin this manner is the outer symbol of an inner work,the inner exchange between gods and men, mangiving what he has and the gods giving in turn the“horses of power”, “the herds of light”, and “theheroes of strength”.

That which refuses to give itselfIs still the food of the Cosmic Powers.The eater eating is eaten.

The altar is the meeting-point of sacrifices fromabove and from below. The archetypal sacrifice fromabove sets the stage and hands down to the humanrace the legacy of the greatest and foremost Law ofNature. In Hindu myth the Altar of Brahma calledSamantapanchaka is said to rest atop MountHimavat. Upon it a great sacrifice was performedfrom which came into being a creature the colour ofthe blue lotus, with sharp teeth, slender waist,enormous strength and at whose birth the wholeearth trembled and the ocean rose in great waves.This being was Asi, ‘the Sword’, who was born toprotect the gods. It was passed down from Rudra toVishnu and to Marichi, who turned it over to theSeers from whence it passed to Vasava, the worldGuardians, and finally to Manu in the shape of theLaw. Thus, sacrifice is the first law and lays the basisfor all other patterns operating in the interdependentuniverse. Owing to this fact, and as man is capableof being intelligently involved in this process, manmust live by sacrifice in order to become more

godlike. One of the Sanskrit words for altar means,literally, ‘udder’, referring to the generous flow of milkfrom the Akashic abode of Vach on high. Man’sgreatest task is to become a pure part of thatgenerous flow.

The more exacting Sanskrit word for altar is vedi, afeminine term describing the shallow bed dug in thesacrificial court which will contain the fire during aritual ceremony. Being narrow in the middle, it is likea woman’s waist; hence the term vedi-madhya(‘having a vedi-shaped waist’). One of the names ofDraupadi was Vedi-Sambhava, she who was bornor produced of the altar, and her marriage to the fivePandavas took place in a vedi-ka or vedi-shapedopen pavilion prepared for weddings. Draupadiexemplifies sacrifice. Her life reminds us of thesacrificial yoni at the base of the lingam, and it isfitting that the kindled flame of Agni should beginhere with the feminine sacrificial side of Nature. Inthe bosom of the Mother, the Law of Sacrifice reignssupreme, and it is in this aspect of his own naturethat man must find the kindling to nurture the altarfire.

The Vedic fire altar is the world centre, the “earth’sextremest limit”, “the uttermost end of the world”. Theclay from which it is built represents the earth, thewater with which it is mixed are the primeval waters,and the lateral walls mark the farthest extent of theocean of space. The altar is based upon threecircular perforated bricks or stones symbolizing the

three worlds, the lowest being related to Agni, themiddle intermediate to Vayu, and the highest to the‘Eye’ opening upward to heaven, the realm ofAditya. The continuous opening running throughthese levels is both a passage for the ascending fireand a corridor to the higher world, leading out ofdeath and darkness into immortality and light. Madeof three hundred and sixty-five bricks, the fire altarrepresents time materialized, and the sacrifice itselfrestores the whole to an original timeless unity, anever new beginning.

The principal elements brought together on theVedic sacrificial altar are kindling for the divineflame, the offering of ghrita (clarified butter), thesoma-wine and the chanting of the Sacred Word.Ghrita is the precious yield of the Cow of Light andsymbolizes the rich clarity that comes to theilluminated mind. The kindled fire represents theunification of Light with the Power within man. Itsymbolizes the communication and interchangebetween the mortal and the Immortal, the flamegrowing to become the force of Divine, supra-mentalTruth. Soma-wine is the immortal delight, theananda which is the very basis of existence.Expressed as sense-mentality in man, the secretdelight in existence is translated into terms ofsensory awareness. When soma is distilled, purifiedand intensified until it becomes luminous and full ofenergy, then and then only does it become the foodwhich can be sacrificed to the gods. The Sacred

Word binds all these elements together at the altar,focussing them in an expression of illuminatedThought which is formed in the heart, shaped in themind and arises out of the soul.

The soul is the altar upon which the Divine Flame ofAgni burns. Inherently pure and untouched by theimpurities upon which he feeds, Agni rises in thevedi-nature of man and forces evil towardsgoodness, burning in order to purify, destroying inorder to save. When the body of the sadhaka isburnt up with the heat of tapas, it is Agni which roarsand devours all that attempts to obscure and envelopthe soul. Without this Divine Fire, the sacrificialkindling will remain as dead wood upon the altar ofthe soul, which will remain hidden, wrapped in coldand hard stone. The uttermost limit of the world is tobe found at its centre and there, at that heart, mustthe altar be prepared. There, on the very edge ofthings material, does man face the presence of theGod within. This is why he must make a burning-ground of his heart whilst raising the altar of his soullike a pillar of light shining within him, irradiating allaround him. Thus did the Holy Kabiri teach theinitiates of Pergamon, and thus did the Vedic sagesexemplify by their lives of sanctified sacrifice. Man isa suppliant soul whose greatest and most beautifulpurpose in living is to make of one’s whole life analtar-place of devotion to Krishna, a sacrificialburning-ground for the sacred Fire of Shiva within.

The world is the altarOf our lifelong session of sacrifice.Let us be great soulsAnd sacrifice like the gods.

Hermes, August 1982

THE RAVEN Then, this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smilingBy the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou “, I said, “art sure no craven,Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore:Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Edgar Allan Poe

When the Tower of London was bombed during theSecond World War, all of the ravens that had livedtherefor centuries flew away. It had long beenbelieved that when they deserted their nesting place,that place itself became doomed, and, according tolegend, if they deserted the Tower of London, thewhole of England would fall. This dire calamity wasnarrowly averted by a quick-witted Winston Churchill,who imported a large supply of young ravens fromScotland and Wales and clipped short their wings.

The precaution was wise, for the raven has beenhastening away from thickly settled areas for manyhundreds of years. There is no arctic island tooremote to be visited by it in the summer, and the

great shadowed loneliness of the boreal forestsfinds an animated complement in the bird’s solitaryflight across the verdant desolation. Bird of omen,the raven delivers portents from a dark and far-offland and yet bears a profound symbolic messagewhich has inspired warriors and shamans, prophetsand poets, all over the world. Many have written, likeGeorge Peele, of “the fatal raven, that in his voicecarries the dreadful summons of our death”, andlegion are the tales of its insatiable appetite andravenous ways. But equally numerous are the richtraditions which associate the bird with heroes andsolar gods and the light of the sun itself. Betweentwo wings of a most ambivalent nature, the raven hassoared and plummetted its way through humanhistory. It “peeps forth from the mists of time andthickets of mythology as a bird of slaughter, a stormbird, a sun and fire bird, a messenger, an oracularfigure and a craftsman or cultural hero”.

According to popular Christian interpretation,Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem about the ravencasts the bird in the role of messenger reportingfrom the devil to the man who has sold his soul in avain attempt to recover his dead love. Thisinterpretation is in accord with the symbolismattached to the raven within the Judaeo-Christianand Islamic traditions, where the raven is oftencharacterized as a veritable incarnation of sin. Theraven sent out from the ark of Noah representsunrest and uncleanliness and is associated with the

fall of Spirit into that which is impure and enjoyscarnage. Added to this is the idea of deceitfulnessand cunning, due to the fact that the raven did notreturn to the ark until the waters had dried up fromthe earth. The raven had defected from its entrustedduty of locating land and had fed its insatiableappetite upon the floating carrion instead. Even thecry of the raven, “Cras! Cras!” (“Tomorrow!Tomorrow!”), is seen in these traditions as standingfor spiritual procrastination on the part of the sinner.As St. Augustine said: “I tell you, when you make avoice like a raven you destroy yourselves.” Thesinner was warned that the eyes of such as he wouldbe picked out by the ravens of the valley or by thevery devil himself.

In its blackest-seeming role the raven is shown asthriving on bloodshed, panic and war. Old Norsepoetry is filled with references to the raven who iseager for the carrion remains of war. But in theNordic tradition, as in that of the Celtic and Teutonic,the ‘Raven of Battle’ was the name given to the heroassociated with the goddesses of war (theValkyries). Ravens assisted in the work of theValkyries and flew to do their bidding, and somenotable birds gained great fame for saving the livesof warrior-heroes. They would sit atop the warrior’sshoulder or on his helmet and attack the eyes of anyadversary. Others would hunt and peck away theeyes and flesh of the fallen, leaving only bones andscraps to tell the tale. The Zoroastrians of Persia

observed this habit of the bird and thought of theraven as pure because it removed pollution from theface of the earth, whilst for this same reason theJews and Christians considered it impure.

Another characteristic contributing to theambivalent nature of the raven’s reputation is thewidespread belief that the black raven was oncewhite. When the raven did not return to Noah in hisark, it was turned black as sin for its defection.Greek tradition maintains that when Apollo’s ravenrevealed to him the fateful news of the infidelity of thebeautiful Thessalian nymph Koronis, the heart-broken god cursed the bird and turned his whiteplumage raven-black. Myths of American Indians,Eskimos, Arabs and Jews also contain equallyquaint stories depicting this radical mutation,causing one to ponder the significance of thecontrast between white and black in time, as well asin terms of the condition that might be symbolized bythe presence and absence of light. Equallymysterious is the fact that even within the Christiantradition, where the raven’s character has beenespecially blackened, the bird is associated withsolitary saints whose lives are white with purity andwho have received help and succour from attentiveravens. When the prophet Elijah hid from the wrath ofAhab, he was fed by ravens at the command of theLord, and it was a raven who brought food andprotected St. Benedict from the poisoned loaf.

Despite its association with saints, the largely

negative focus upon the raven in Christianity doesreflect the Semitic obsession with purity andpollution and a Manichaean stress upon dualism,There is considerable focus upon clean or uncleananimals to eat or to be sacrificed, and detailedinstructions are given as to how to avoid uncleanlives. The raven is depicted pecking out the eyes ofa dead man, whilst the white dove flies back with theolive branch. The raven loves the gore of thebattlefield, whilst the dove unfolds its snowy wings inthe name of peace and harmony. Even thetransformation of the white to the black raven can beinterpreted as the passage from a Solar Age of truthand righteousness to a dark age of pollution and sin.Perhaps this is what the ancient Greeks were hintingat in the telling of the myth about Apollo and Koronis,whose loss of innocence is marked by theblackening of the bird. Such a dramatic transitionsuggests a strong sense of loss, the folk-memory ofa fall from grace very much like that associated withthe pollution of the Holy of Holies around whichrevolves the tenacious Karma of Israel.

Seizing upon the raven symbolically to carry thisburden has been a relatively easy course to adopt,for its association with warlike adventures wasalready well developed in classical times by theMediterranean and Nordic peoples as well as theHindus and Ceylonese. Two ravens led theexpedition of Alexander the Great across thetrackless desert to the oasis of Ammon, and many

ancient warrior-navigators like the Vikings used totake ravens with them on their innumerable voyagesthrough the fog-bound vastitudes of the seas.Confident that the birds would always guide them toland, they sailed further and further abroad and veryoften in the cause of plunder and war. The whitedove of peace, symbolically linked with the humansoul, easily stood in marked contrast to the hoarsecroaking raven, whose ominous arrival from acrossthe sea so frequently inspired an anxious watch ofthe ocean’s curve for the cluster of tiny, ever-enlarging ships that might follow.

In the story of the flood described in the Earth-Divermyths of the Woodland Indians, stress is laid uponthe importance of the raven sent out by the Sun tomeasure the size and extent of the new worldemerging out of the flood. This is reminiscent ofmany Siberian traditions like those of the Voguls,who believed that the raven was associated with theDivers in the remaking of the world. It was sent to flyaround in progressively longer intervals in order toestimate and report on the increasing size of theemerging earth. The function of marking size and,correspondingly, cycles, is echoed in the Germaniclegend about Frederick I Barbarossa, who is said tosleep under Raven’s Hill at Kaiserlautern ready tocome forth in the last emergency of his country.When a shepherd accidentally stumbled across himin his grotto, he awoke and asked: “Are the ravensstill flying around the hill?” When the shepherd told

him that they were, the king sighed: “Then I mustsleep another hundred years.” Attendant of gods andcultural heroes, ravens frequently play a part in thegreat cycles of the sun and the deluge. Ravenmythology in this regard is strikingly homogeneousacross Siberia, Kamchatka and into North America,as well as amongst Germanic and Celtic peoples.Such ideas must be very ancient and deeplyembedded in the Race mind to have spread so farand lasted so long. Indeed, many thousands of yearsafter a painter at Lascaux depicted a raven standingbeside a dying hunter, a statue of another dying herowith a raven on his shoulder was erected tocommemorate those executed in the Irish Rebellionof 1916.

Where bad priests become ravens,Bad nuns become crows.

French Peasant Saying

It has been said that “crows seem to have been allthat the raven was, only, as befitting their size, in alesser degree”. And though there is truth to this, bothzoologically and symbolically, there has been atraceable deterioration of the image of the crow inrecent times. From noticeable tendencies to stealbright objects the general characteristic of cheatinghas been inferred. To ‘rook’ someone (the rookbeing a close relative of the raven and crow) is aterm indicating a particularly devious way of settingup someone to be cheated. To have ‘crow’s feet1 isundesirable, and certainly no one wants to be called

an ‘old crow’. It is significant that these allusionssuggest indirect and feminine qualities as opposedto the warlike masculine raven, but cunning is indeedshared by both birds, though the raven’s is mostoften exhibited singly. Crows tend to work togetherwhen embarked upon the business of getting food ortaking what they want. Frequently one watches outwhilst the other does the job, an arrangementillustrated in an amusing if lurid fashion in the balladof “The Twa Corbies”, where one crow instructsanother:

Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane,And I’ll pike out his bonny blue een:Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair,We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.

The recurring theme of pecking out the eyes has astrange twist to it in the old Celtic belief that blind folkwho are kind to ravens will regain their eyesight. Thesymbol of the eye is very closely connected with theoccult symbolism of the solar orb itself. There can belittle doubt that the raven’s habits provide a linkbetween the sun and its analogous counterpart inman as he goes through the process known asdying. Surely this is why during the Mithraicceremony in which the migration and purification ofthe soul after death was represented, there was aflapping of wings and cawing of ravens. Thefollowers of Mithra saw this as a corollary to the firststage of initiation into the Mysteries wherein theraven is regarded as the Messenger of the Sun.Indeed, it was called the Morning Bird of Joy and

Light after assisting Beowulf in his spiritual victoryover the monstrous Grendel. The Northwest CoastIndians have many myths telling how Raven stole theSun and brought light to the dark world below. Inseveral of these myths Raven pierces the ball of thesolar light with his beak so as to release the spiritualfire from the confines of a heavenly realm. In astriking reversal of this process, the raven, hoveringover the corpses of the dead, pierces their eyes andsymbolically releases the fluid of life from theconfines of the dying body. Perhaps the perceptionof a correspondence such as this led to the graphicdepiction of the Raven of Death with the pineconeand the torch of light and life. The raven carries theorb of light and shows the way back to Valhalla -back to the spiritual source. This is why it is said thatthe raven makes the complete journey to the end ofthe earth, to the boundary where the sun sinks intothe sea, to the edge of the cycle where time ceasesto be measured and the darkness of pralaya lies inwaiting.

The Tlingit say that in the beginning, before life aswe know it, there was no daylight, and Raven-At-The-Head-Of-Nass (the One God) had a house withsun, moon and stars within. There also were twoaged men called Old-Man-Who-Foresees-All-Trouble-In-The-World and He-Who-Knows-Everything-That-Happens, whilst Old-Woman-Underneath was the world itself as well as sister tothe One God. Though Raven-At-The-Head-Of-Nass

tried to prevent his sister from giving birth to a son,she circumvented his intent by swallowing a red-hotstone from which she gave birth to Yetl, the RavenDemiurge of the world. A Haida version of the mythdescribes how the god tries to destroy his sister’schild by putting on a huge hat of rain clouds whichflood the earth. Yetl is, nonetheless, born and fliesheavenward as the hat of his uncle rises. When hereaches the limit of the sky, Yetl pushes his beak intoit, piercing his way to the light. With his beak thusfixed, he pushes down upon the watery hat with hisfoot until, at last, his celestial uncle is drowned. Afterthe deluge the surviving beings of the former age aretransformed into animals, humans are created andthe present order of the world is established by Yetl.

The Bringer of Light, Raven is also the Transformerand Trickster. He is half Demiurge and half clownand characterized as greedy, selfish, gluttonous (henever gets full) and, yet, the supreme hero ofmankind. He constantly destroys or chases otheranimals in order to take their food, and thoughsometimes slain in the myths, he continually returnsto the realm of the living to recommence hisawesomely autocratic but sometimes clownish role.In the old days people used to leave food on thebeaches for Raven and he is still much talked about.But he is not an object of worship, being one ofthose hero-deities of the past about whomindecorous tales may be told without sullying thespirit of reverence shown to him. The Haida call him

Nankilstlas or He-Whose-Voice-Must-Be-Obeyed,because whatever he told of came to pass and theutterance of his word was considered a creative act.The trickster element is closely related totransformation or shape-changing. The raven takeson any form and enters all worlds from dark to lightand back again. Transcending the ordinaryboundaries between light and darkness, black andwhite, he glides beyond the confines of worldlymorality as well as the appeal of relative truth. Aswith Lord Krishna in the Hindu epics, what is theblackness of night to the raven is the light of day tomankind, and in their darkness he sees radiatinglight. Thus, what looks like cunning, trickery, greedand cheating is a kaleidoscopic reflection ofsomething quite different from what it seems to be.The fact that the Semitic traditions have steadfastlyfailed to recognize such transformational subtleties,which, in fact, indicate levels of reality experienced inspiritual initiation, is explainable only in terms of theirhaving lost the knowledge of the Mysteries, leavingthem a two-dimensional perspective focussing backand forth on black and white.

The idea that the Creator might take the form of araven was not limited to the northwest coast ofAmerica. In the Pymander of Hermes, SevenPrimeval Men are spoken of who are one and thesame as those depicted on the Cuthah Tabletscontaining the Babylonian legend of creation, whichwas overseen by seven human prototypes having the

faces of ravens. These are the Elohim, the Dhyanisand the Manus of other traditions, who represent theraces of mankind to unfold on this globe. Such aperspective lends a remarkable significance to therole of the raven as totemic ancestor to a whole clan,as it is to the Raven people of the Haida tribe. Greatheroes have been lent a primordial and godlikequality through their close association with ravens bythe clans and races who identify with them. Thus it issaid that King Arthur visits his favourite haunts inCornwall and Wales in the guise of a raven, whoseshape he assumes when flying from Avalon. TheCeltic hero Bran’s very name means ‘Raven’ and thebird was often identified as the familiar of both godsand heroes. No wonder the old Scots say “Nae gudeever cam’ o’ killin’ black ravens”, whilst Siberian folkwent further and stated simply that anyone killing araven would soon die. One could never know if thebird they saw was a mere animal or what the Haidacall a sgana quedas, a werefolk or human being inraven form who is capable of assisting the humanrace with its magical power.

To raven is to plunder. This is what the wordmeans. To have a ravenous appetite suggestsgreed and lust and insatiable desires. It is not at allsurprising that theologians of the dualistic Semitictraditions should be revolted by the habits of the birdso named. The Greek names for the raven do notdetract from this nefarious reputation one bit.

(adifagos) means ‘glutton’,

(aplistos) refers to being ‘insatiable’, (arpazo) indicates ‘to seize or carry away’,

(hemovoros) means ‘bloodthirsty’, and (korakas) is the bird’s generic name,

referring to its unpleasant voice and literally means‘to croak’. Indeed, its hoarse cry seems to match itssalacious appetites and can be truly alarming,bellowing forth from a body measuring up to twenty-five inches in length, held aloft in flight by a wing-spread of up to fifty-six inches, and topped off with avery large head and beak. Amongst the biggest ofperching birds, the raven is a member of the familyCorvidae and distinguishable from the crow by itsgreater size and shaggier plumage about the throat.Being keen-sighted, extremely sagacious andnotably wary, the raven survives by its wits; it hasnever been protected by law. It is a hardy birdthought to live as long as a hundred years largely onthe periphery of populated areas. Shunning man’sgreater numbers, the raven cleaves to the northerlywild areas where it builds gigantic nests of sticks onthe edges of cliffs or the tops of very large trees.Ravens have a spectacular courtship flight involvingall manner of aerial acrobatics, the wild twists andtricks of which are largely unwitnessed byhumankind. They are noisy and aggressiveomnivores who will feed happily on carrion andwhose feathers are so black as to cast a purplishiridescence, rendering their total absence of colour asource of indigo light. They are passerine predators

and soar like true hawks, their intelligent aim nevermissing its mark, never blurring the unrelentingnature of their intent.

When a Siberian shaman conjures up the spirit of araven, the spirit speaks in a human tongue, unlikeother spirits which have their own languages. Theability of the raven to acquire human speech islinked by many people to the belief that it is amessenger of the gods. There are many referencesto talking ravens in classical literature wherein theraven’s oratorical talents are usually linked withprophecy. Porphyrius declared that sixty-fourdifferent intonations of the raven’s cry wereinterpreted by soothsayers of his day, but Plinydescribed a raven that uttered whole sentences ofseveral words each whilst “frequently learning stillmore words in addition”. The great fascination ofsuch a talented bird lies in its presumed powers ofprophecy rather than its clever ability to mimic. Aswith the Haida He-Whose-Voice-Is-Obeyed, thingsuttered were believed to come to pass. The ravenspoke of that which was and would be with the sameunrelenting intent as it displayed in its action as aninsatiable predator. The raven of Apollo did not blurthe biting truth of the infidelity of Koronis. It did notmiss the target, the eyeball, the scorching sun oftruth. Thus, the voice of the raven was dreaded evenwhilst it fascinated, even whilst it imparted theunwanted truth.

I n A Fable for Critics, James Russell Lowell

suggested that the raven of Edgar Allan Poe wasreally the bedraggled pet raven called Gripbelonging to Charles Dickens. With his ownunrelenting brand of critical wit, he wrote: “Therecomes Poe with his raven like Barnaby Rudge,three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.”But Poe did succeed in capturing the ominouspower of what the Celtics call ‘raven’s knowledge’,which sees and knows all about the living as well asthe dead. The unwanted truth, like the doleful knell ofunalterable fate, intones throughout the poem. “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here

ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted - On this home by Horror haunted – tell me truly, I implore: Is there – is there balm in Gilead? – tell me – tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”… “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us, by that God we both adore, Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore: Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name

Lenore.” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Death, war and endless loss are cold thrusts fromthe beak of Karma-Nemesis, but there is never anyassurance of comfort in the bald truth. Like necessityoperating under law through nature, disintegration,loss and death follow as closely upon the heels of

birth and growth and life as does a shining black birdpecking at seeds dropped along the ground one byone. Its appetite is insatiable and it never misses aseed. It does not stop to wonder if anyone would likeit to lose the trail or leave a few for a later time. Tothe rough dweller of the North who worshipped forceinstead of aesthetic subtleties, the sable raven ofpowerful wing and unyielding nature was anawesome and admirable creature. The hardships oftheir lives were facts unflinchingly embraced andthey lived as though they were agents of Nemesis -standard-bearers of the raven’s unwanted truth. It isnot surprising that the more aesthetic southernpeoples looked to the north with dread andcombined in their thoughts the raven, the cold ofwinter and the boisterous savagery of the barbarianswho descended from those boreal wastes from timeto time.

To the Norsemen the raven was the emissary of theSupreme Odin, god of force, intellect and initiation. Itis not surprising then - “that a bird black as night andits mysteries, a familiar of the lightning-riven pineand the storm-beaten crag, a ghoulish attendant ofbattling men and feasting on their slain, mutteringstrange soliloquies, and diabolically cunning withal” -that such a creature should have appeal to Odin’sVikings. Did not that god bear the name of RaafnaGud (‘Raven-god’) and did he not have as ministerstwo ravens called Hugin and Munin (‘Reflection’ and‘Memory’) who ranged everywhere and reported to

him all that was and was to be? These ravens, then,were the emblem of the Vikings, their standard onthe banners carried by them and borne by theirships. The Danes called their standard Landeyda(‘Land-waster’) and believed implicitly in itsmiraculous virtues. They said that if they were to wina fight, the raven in the midst of their flag wouldflutter, as if it were alive. Britain and other landscame to know only too well that dread flag. In thewords of James Thomson: “The Danish raven, luredby annual prey, Hung o’er the land incessant.”Ravens on the battlefield were seen as men andbirds and both seemed to lust after the carnage of itall. In the blackened soil of such fields the Ravens ofthe Valkyries (‘the Choosers of the slain’) peckedout the eyes of those selected to die and to cross theRainbow Bridge to Valhalla.

Victims of such onslaughts could never haveshared this sense of glory in such a death, andindeed no people are so pure in motive as to justifytheir acting as collective instruments of Divine Will.But a faithful though worldly reflection of the greatmythic struggles involving the pledge of Odin’s eyeto gain knowledge, and the ceaseless battles withthe forces of the nether world, were often mirrored inthe attitudes of the Vikings as well as of others whoshared in the broader Eddie mythical tradition. Theloss of an eye or both eyes was commonlyassociated with initiation into a life of spiritual vision.In myths the raven loses an eye and then imparts

magical craftsmanship. Man loses an eye to theworld only to understand hidden things which arerevealed to him. In the Irish sagas the god Lug wasfather of the raven-hero Cuchulainn, whose eye wasstruck out whilst dying, and Lug himself, along withOdin, Ogmios and Tochmarc Etaine, were all one-eyed gods and heroes gifted with spiritual sight andmagical craftmanship. The eye that remains with theworld is the eye of Time but the eye that is pledgedis that of Eternity, the orb of Prophecy filled with thepure wisdom-light of the sun. The raven flies to andfro between the solar orb of eternal life and the dyingeyes of man in time. He mercilessly pecks away atthe delusions formed like veils over the cornea’sshield until he penetrates to the darkness of thepupil’s cavity and releases the invisible light within.

Odin the Raafna Gud was, like Brahma in theHindu tradition, born in and out of time. He, like theraven, knows this and the other worlds, and thus, thepast and future are one to him, and the cycles of lifereduced in complexity to a simple circle whosecentre is everywhere. How prophetic, then, are thesongs of the three Norse goddesses “to whom thenames of Odin whisper of the past and the future, asthey flutter around their abode of crystal beneath theflowing river”. They tell of the renewal of the world interms of the past which is yet to be. The unwantedTruth is told and its insatiable desire to express itselfmay produce terror and loathing in one who is notprepared to give up all to its insistent glare. In

anguish, Poe’s protagonist attempts to releasehimself from the compelling fate embodied in theraven’s presence. “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked

upstarting: “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian

shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that He thy soul hath

spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my

door!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

The raven will not take its beak from out his heartthrough which, in the poem, his eye has seen. Theloss of love is the loss of a dream replaced with thecold light of an arctic dawning. That which knows thebeginnings and endings of vast cycles does notpause to embalm the fancies of a lover’s romance.Whatever essence of truth lies at its core will rise likethe Bird of Joy and Light when the delusive andearth-bound elements are abandoned in the field.The raven’s beak pierced the heart of the eye just asit pierced the heavens in the Haida myth, boring itsway through the firmament to the realm beyond theworld where the blackest dark is pregnant withiridescent light. The soul reaches up and restsbetween the great bird’s arching wings. But they areblack! And the neck of this raven bird is not long andsleek but thick and ragged to the touch. The Ravenwarns its rider: “It is not into a dream we fly but over

fields of soon-to-be-broken illusions and openlywanton carnage right to the end of the world. Be sureyou are ready for alt this before choosing to comewith me.” “I come,” the soul replies, “because of allthe hopes and fearful desires that have bound andtried to consume me, there is one which, beyondthem all, is far greater.” “And what is that?” asked theRaven. “It is the desire to know what is and what willbe. To know the Truth which is True through all timeand space. To see the future in the past and thebeginning in the end. To fear nothing and hope fornothing but welcome utterly the penetrating light ofEternal Truth.” “So be it. Then come along,” quoth theRaven, “and ye shall know it ever more.”

Thus, the black wings arched aloft and began theirwandering to the edge of the world - to the limits ofmanvantara and the beginnings of pralaya, whereblack becomes white and black as night again.Whispering of the past and future, hoarsely echoingthe prophecy of antique ages yet to come, the greatbird courses on along the current of primevalwisdom flowing out of the precosmic Source of all.He is one of the raven-faced Host of Dhyan Chohansbeyond which all is darkness. He is Odin, born inand out of time, and his great wing traces thefeathered edge of darkness slowly receding beforethe beginnings of a new day. In larger spheres the Raven flies,Small floods will not detain him.

His prophecies know broader skies,The Earth cannot contain them.Nor could his flight be curbed by day,But night would fast surround it.Blending with his blackened wing,Till light could ne’er have found it.And yet his hoarsely whispered cry,Echoes within my hearing.Into the dark woods I would fly,Beyond the realm of fearing.Soaring, beyond the realm of time.

Hermes, December 1982

THE SWORD

Here beginneth the story of the sword, the anvil, and themarble stone, and of how that sword was first achieved byan unknown youth, until then of no renown, whether in armsor of estate.So hearken unto that which I have hereinafter written.

The Story of Arthur and His Knights

When Sir Kay’s sword broke on SirBalamorgineas’ helmet during the great tournament,he sent his younger brother, Arthur, to fetch anotherfrom their father’s pavilion. Finding no sword there,Arthur’s thoughts rushed to that which he had seenthrust into the anvil before the cathedral nearby. In hisinnocent youth he did not know the significance ofthis mighty weapon nor, surely, did he possess anyclue which might have suggested that it was Merlinwho, by his magic, caused it to be placed there. Heapproached the block of marble and laid his handson the hilt. Bending his body over it, he drew uponthe sword with all his strength and it came forth in hishands with marvellous ease. The brilliance of themystic blade was so intense that he covered it withhis cloak and hastened to his impatiently waitingbrother. But when Sir Kay saw the sword, he wasastounded. A cunning arose in his heart wherefromhe conceived the desire to take advantage ofArthur’s simple innocence and claim the deed of

having extricated the sword from the stone.Destiny, however, would not be denied its rightful

king and the test posed by Merlin could not be metby the ambitious Sir Kay. When Arthur confessed totheir noble father that it was he who had pulled forththe blade, the old knight told him how, eighteenyears previously, Merlin had set a meeting with himat the postern gate of Uther-Pendragon’s castle. Heexplained to him that when they had met at midnight,Merlin gave a swaddled infant into his care to raiseas though he were his own son. “Nor have I until nowever known ought of who was thy father; but now I dosuspect who he was and that thou hast in thy veinskingly blood. And I do have it in mind that perhapsthy father was Uther-Pendragon himself. For who butthe son of Uther-Pendragon could have drawn forththat sword as thou hast done?” After repeated butvain attempts to draw the magic sword, the otherknights gathered there came to see that only Arthurcould draw forth and return it to the stone. Most ofthem bowed down and willingly accepted him astheir new king, but there were those who persisted inquestioning his credentials and would not join insupport of him. Thus the drama of the strugglebetween knightly heroes and the forces of evil wasset, at the centre of which the wondrous swordExcalibur was destined to play a decisive role.

Perhaps the old Roman belief that the iron swordcould ward off evil lingered in the British Isles andinspired some of the legendary powers attributed to

Excalibur, but others in the world have held similarbeliefs. In the Islamic tradition the sword is symbolicof holy war against the infidel and of man against hisown evil. This belief was equally shared by theChristian knights who fought against them in thebloody crusades. For the Grail Knight it was seen asan instrument of good in overcoming evil. In myth thesword is believed to possess supernatural powerswhen found under the earth or submerged in water,where it bears a close association with mysticalbeings like the mysterious Lady of the Lake. In thehand of this Lady or embedded in earthly stone, thesword is masculine, asserting the power ofprotection, authority, justice and courage. Sometraditions single out the western straight-bladedinstrument as solar and masculine in distinction tothe Oriental curved blade, which could be thought ofas lunar and feminine, but the more widelyrecognized feminine attribute is the scabbard inwhich the sword is sheathed. The sword in itself issymbolic of psychic and spiritual decision as well asphysical extermination, relating to lunar as well as tosolar principles in its ability to cut through andpenetrate. Its power to wound is also its power toliberate and manifest the superiority of strength andcourage over prevarication and self-defense. Thehard steel of its blade suggests the transcendentaltoughness of the all-conquering spirit and theinviolability of the sacred. Its fierce cutting edgespeaks of discrimination, spiritual decision and thepenetrating power of the intellect. As in the case of

Excalibur, in the right hand the sword is capable ofdividing good from evil and carving out in precisedesign the character of the hero’s struggle for theGrail. What to earlier races had been a sword god tobe sacrificed to became an instrument to be wieldedas a mighty human power.

Very famous swords have names and, likeExcalibur, are addressed as ‘he’ as though they hada life and power of their own. Their origins areshrouded in mystical wonder, as in the case of thedivine sword of Japanese Shintoism calledKusanagi. Being one of the three sacred objects ofthe imperial regalia, this mighty blade wasdiscovered by Susanowo-no-mikoto, the storm godof the early Shinto pantheon. In the ancient Nihongithe account is given of how this god descended fromheaven and proceeded to the headwaters of theRiver Hi. There he found an old man and womanweeping because all their daughters but one hadbeen devoured year after year by an eight-forkedserpent. This great heavenly serpent controlled therainfall affecting the crops and had been exacting itsgruesome payment from those on earth in thismanner. The power to initiate the rain lay in a brilliantlightning sword hidden in its tail, and whenSusanowo-no-mikoto slew the marauder and cut itinto pieces, he discovered it lying there in all itspotent splendour. Being profoundly awed by thisprecious and powerful instrument, he sent it up toheaven to become the property of the Shining Deity,

who is Light herself.The Kusanagi sword (like the sacred mirror and

jewel regalia) thus came to find its source in thepossession of its prototype, which is this bright andovermastering heavenly light. It is fitting thatKusanagi became part of the royal regalia, as theImperial Dynasty itself is considered to be Hitsugi(hi = light, sun, fire; tsugi = succession) or lightsuccession’. Of these sacred objects, the sword isbelieved to be the dwelling-place and symbol of ara-mitama, or the ‘rough spirit’ of the goddess of light,whilst the mirror is the dwelling-place of nigi-mitama,her ‘gentle spirit’. The former is lightning, the latter isthe sun, whilst the third (the jewels) represents themoon. Together they form a triad of wisdom,benevolence and courage. The lightning fire of thesword symbolizes the activated human will and thedesire for purification, which can result from thechastening force of the element of fire as well as thecold steel of the blade’s decisive edge. Swordspatterned after this great weapon were deemedcapable of possession only by those who ardentlysought after this purity. It has always been held that asuitable offering to the gods had to possess purity,rarity and value. Great swords have all threeelements and were sometimes offered by samuraias a votive sacrifice on the altar of their own spiritualaspiration.

The Kusanagi sword is called in full Kusanagi-no-tsurugi, or ‘Grass-mowing sword’, because it saved

the life of the hero Yamato-Takeru-no-mikoto whenhis enemies set fire to the grass surrounding him inthe battlefield. Many tales depict the desperateattempts made to steal it but, like other swords sucha s Doji-giri, the Monster-Cutter, or those made byToshiro Yoshimitsu which brought good fortune tothe Tokugawa clan, the sword exerted a life of itsown and would not be separated from its rightfulpossessor. Great care went into the making of suchswords. Masters, whose rank stood highest amongstthe artisans, followed a ritually rigorous disciplinewhilst engaged in their manufacture. Those few whostill exist continue to lead a semi-religious andabstemious life, beginning each day of work withcold ablutions, abstaining from sexual intercourse,liquor or animal food. Their food is cooked over asacred fire and prayers are offered at each stage ofthe forging. Several pieces of metal are heated,stretched and folded lengthwise repeatedly. Whenmalleable, the metal, derived from iron ore or sand,is pounded until tempered. Gradually the pieces arefashioned into a blade, involving a repetition of theentire process as many as thirty times. Each time apiece is folded, a smith must exercise great care tosee that all air and dirt are excluded so as to ensureagainst weak spots which can lead to breakageupon use. The proper degree of hardness has to beascertained in proportion to the exact grade of steel,and the blade is carefully baked with a covering ofclay paste for the final tempering. For these final andmost critical operations, the smith dons the court

noble’s ceremonial costume and the smithybecomes, for the time being, a sanctuary whoseapproach is hung with the Shinto straw rope to wardoff evil influences. In this atmosphere the blade is, atlast, quenched in water of a suitable temperature,after which it is polished for two weeks.

Like the mediaeval swords of the Occident whichwere painstakingly categorized according to design,the Japanese sword has evolved minute variationson a central functional pattern. Points of blades canbe divided into four types, but these in turn can beseparated into ten classes according to theirtempered lines as well as whether their ridge linesare raised or flat. On the blade itself many elementssuggest identifiable categories: there are eight typesof grooves, four types of groove ends, twenty-sixtypes of tempered lines with names like frog-shapedor clover-tree flower. There are five types of back ortop ridges, several classifications of curves, fourtypes of tangs, five tips of tangs and twelve patternsof file marks on tangs. This is only the beginning ofthe categorizing process which then goes on toconsider the hilt and all its parts and clearly capturesthe rapt attention of only the connoisseur.

Perhaps one of the reasons why the classificationof swords has absorbed some is because of thespecial status ascribed to the owner of the weaponas well as its own symbolic power. To carry a swordin mediaeval Europe was the prerogative of knightsand high dignitaries. In China the founders of ancient

cities wore them, and they were called “the livingsoul of the samurai” in Japan. An emblem of hisvirtue, valour and strength, the sword was believed tohave the power to “stiffen” his resolution and guardhim from any temptation to unworthy deeds. The icypurity and self-restraint of its metal, as well as theenergy and the zest of the fire that helped to forge it,were transposed as characteristics attributable to itsowner.

In Europe the sword was the emblem of higherforms of knighthood, leaving the lance to representthe lower classes. It was “a most noble weaponwhich once had high significance in the minds ofmen, and fulfilled the most vital and personal servicein their hands”. The average weight of the mediaevalsword was two to three pounds, and it was balancedcarefully according to its length. The knightly swordwas derived, via those of the Vikings, from the longiron ones of the prehistoric Celts which were usedbefore and during the Roman period. These evolved(around A.D. 900) to be about thirty inches long andtwo inches wide at the hilt. The old Norse swords,which were very beautiful and wonderfully made,were used for a lifetime and passed down for oftenover a century in duration. Excellent swords of latercenturies continued to be made at famous weapon-making firms like those in Milan, Passau, Augsburg,Cologne or Bordeaux.

Aside from museum and private collections, theappearance of these can be verified in the

wonderfully accurate sculpture that graces suchedifices as the cathedrals of Chartres, Notre Damede Paris, Freiburg, Naumburg, Canterbury and St.Mary’s Church at Warwick. Short and long swords,sabres, rapiers and cutlasses are all depicted,including the double-edged sword whose dualpowers symbolized the inverse currents of creationand destruction in manifestation. A treatise on the“Ordinances of Chivalry” in the Hasting’s manuscript(c. 1450) explains “how a man schal be armyd at hisese when he schal fighte on foote”… i.e.: “Hedaggere upon hys righte syde. And then hys shorteswerde [from the Old Norse sverth] upon hys lyftesyde in a rounde rynge all nakid to pulle it out lightli… and then hys long swerde in his hande.”

The sword and the tree symbols have beenentwined as long as their parallel theme of war andpeace. Whereas the sword represents spiritualevolution, the tree has to do with involution andproliferation instead of physical extermination. TheWord of God, the appearance of lightning and theimplacable justice of universal law are all capable ofbeing symbolized by the sword. Indeed, the sword ofDamocles, which represents danger in the midst ofseeming prosperity, seems to relate to theimpersonal and awesome justice capable of cuttingto shreds the delusions harboured by those ignorantof the mysterious causes and effects of karma. Suchswords are like the penetration of spirit into theworld, and initially play the part of gods or their

attributes. In the book of Genesis a flaming swordwas placed in Paradise to keep man out.

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as oneof us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth hishand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and liveforever … Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from thegarden of Eden … and placed Cherubims, and a flamingsword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree oflife.

Genesis 3:22-24

Here the involution of the spirit of God into theworld has taken place, but self-consciousintelligence has been ‘stolen’. To use thisintelligence to achieve immortality requires comingto terms with the flaming sword that protects the tree,not a task easily contemplated. Here again thesword is in the hands, as it were, of God and seemsremote from the human grasp. It is like the ancientHittite sword god struck into the stone as a portent ofthe earth’s fertility and of rebirth through death. Onlyunder very special ritual circumstances may the kingalone draw it from its stony scabbard so as torepresent and uphold the Law of God to His peoplein the world. Thus did the fertility of divine powerenter into the mortal realm, but individual men had noright to try to touch it or to do ought but make humblesacrifices to its worldly form. Conscious immortalitywas not for unregenerate men, and even kingsmerely passed down their borrowed power throughthe sword god to their successor when they died.

The death and resurrection of kingship was linked

with the annual cycles of winter and spring. Therebirth through death which vitalized a people wasritualized in ancient sacrificial practices wherein thesword slowly shifted from its implacable station inthe stone into the hands of dancers and mummers,who dramatized the death and resurrection of acentral character through the highly stylized use oftheir swords. Thus, in the sword dances of NorthernEngland, the morris dance of the Midlands and theSouth, and the mummer’s drama of England andScotland, which are ancient rites preserved untilfairly recent times, the focus was upon this theme ofdeath and resurrection by sword. Such sworddances (which were also practised elsewhere inEurope) provide a link between the ancient worshipof divinity manifested through the sword and theenactment of this cyclic rite by ordinary villagers whotemporarily wield the sword in their own hands. Thenext shift which places the sword more firmly in thegrasp of man marks the beginning of the HeroicAge. Instead of the latter-day collective dilution of themost ancient mysteries taking the form of countrydrama and dance, the Heroic Age was marked bythe extraordinary courage and effrontery (in the eyesof the gods) of individual heroes engaging in thequest for their own immortality. From the sword ofinvolution linked up with the protection of the tree andall the edicts that form the cornerstone ofBrihaspati’s power, the process of self-consciousevolution emerged.

The heroes of evolution step out from the fearfullyworshipping mass of humanity and begin to acquiretheir own flame-tempered swords. Typically they areraised in secrecy, unknown by the world, and likeTheseus, they must extract a sword from the stonebefore becoming a true king. The drawing of thesword can be seen as emblematic of the extricationof the hero out of the impersonal ritual of cyclicrecurrence. To initiate this, a god like Odin mayplunge a sword into a tree-pillar to be drawn only byhis mortal heir, Sigmund. In the case of Galahad, theunknown youth saw a sword fixed in stone floatingdown a river. Only he could draw it forth and set it inhis empty scabbard. Of the four knights gathered atCamelot who later achieved the Grail in varyingdegrees of reality, he alone received the coronation“amongst the spiritualities”, repeating at the end ofthe Arthurian era the king’s experience at itsbeginning. When such an age wanes, the sword isno longer to be found placed in the stone by a god ora Master Magician, but it is sometimes handeddown broken. In mediaeval legends the broken orburied sword, which marks a state of destruction anddecay, often appeared as the inheritance which hadto be reconquered by personal valour. Thus, as ayouth, Siegfried discovered the pieces of the swordBalmunga, which Odin had stuck into the pillar to bedrawn by Siegfried’s father, Sigmund. Mime, theblacksmith, was unable to reforge it, but Siegfriedsucceeded in doing so. In the Arthurian legend,Gawaine was likewise given a broken sword, but he

was unable to repair it completely, symbolizing hisinability to penetrate to the core of his undertaking.

The Quest is brought powerfully to life in the greatepics of the Ramayana, the Iliad, the Odyssey, theAeneid and the Holy Grail. Knights dedicated to thediscovery of the Grail, or even to the salvation ofJerusalem, carried their swords like a cross ofrighteousness. Where the blade and the guardconjoined, the vertical and horizontal symbols of lifeand death were linked in the form of a cross. Indeed,the guard was called the Cross, and inscriptions onthem and on the blade were so placed that theycould only be read if the hilt was held uppermost.Inscriptions such as “Cristus Vincit” and “CristusImperat” assert the presumed sanctity of theirfervently sought-for victory. But the quest for the Grailinvolved a more inward struggle leading to anuncharted condition in a land only known by thename of Truth. The hero of this quest assumes astance which can be portrayed as one of activespiritual aggression. To paraphrase William Blake,he will not cease from mental fight, nor will his swordsleep in his hand. All becomes the highestembodiment of a chivalrous code from which there isno relaxation.

At this point the powers of discrimination anddecisiveness become paramount. The Buddhisttradition stresses that they cut ignorance at its roots.“As the sword cuts knots, so should the intellectpierce the deepest recesses of Buddhist thought.”

Manjusri, as the embodiment of wisdom, is showncarrying the sword of discernment in his right hand.Its point emits the light of the indestructible vajrawhich destroys the heterodox mind and drives awaythe enemies of Dharma. The hero cannot simplyreach out and grasp the sword that stands in thegarden of paradise. He must reach within the stone,within the sevenfold anvil of his own being, in orderto draw forth a weapon which is capable of cuttingthrough to the goal. Like the swordsmith, he mustheat, stretch and fold the substance of his natureover and over again so that its layers merge andmelt into perfectly tempered pieces, to be graduallyfashioned into a blade. Each time the heating andstretching and folding takes place, he must be verycareful to make sure that all the tiny air pockets andbits of dirt are excluded. Even one small inclusion ofsuch impurities can ruin the forging of an otherwisewell made sword. It may be capable of cutting a fineline of discrimination, but when the pressure ofpiercing decisiveness is called for, it will break. All ofthe care and reverence shown by the Japanesemaster sword-maker are analogous to the innerpreparation the hero must make in order to drawforth his sword. He is unknown to the world becausehe does this within himself in silence. It is only whenhe has drawn the sword and begins to exercise thefaculty of his higher Divine Will that men aresurprised and suddenly sense the presence of ahigher intelligence acting in the world.

Excalibur takes its name from ex, meaning ‘out of’,and calibre, which means ‘the weight of character,standing or importance of something’. It signifiesbeing out of or beyond all calibration or ability togauge the excellence of. There are no empirical orworldly indices that can be used to describe orcompare this sword. When Merlin took Arthur to theLake of Enchantment, he saw rising from the watersa woman’s arm “exceedingly beautiful and clad inwhite samite, and the hand of this arm holdeth asword of such exceeding excellence and beauty thatno eye hath ever beheld its like”. The raven-hairedLady of the Lake tells Arthur that no man may win thesword unless he be without fear and beyondreproach. She calls forth a boat whose brass prow isfashioned in the shape of a woman’s head andwhose sides bear the wings of a swan. Thus, throughthe agency of Buddhi, which bears him up over thewaters of chaos, Arthur reaches his sword. He learnsthat its sheath is Faith, which possesses the powerto protect its owner’s life, whilst the sword is Truth,only to be used in serious battle. Through the graceof his Buddhic nature, the pure-minded Arthur wonhis sword, but his greatest trials lay before him,including the treachery of the evil Morgana le Fay,who, deluding his trusting mind, succeeded inobscuring his higher intuition, causing him to lose hissword’s protective sheath of faith.

In stealing the sheath and throwing it into the lake,Morgana demonstrated the danger of the lower

psychic mind which continually measures things interms of the fragmented world and cleaves to likesand dislikes even in the presence of universallyrecognizable goodness. Arthur’s goodness neededto be alloyed to the cool steel of discrimination andthe impersonal probes necessary to expose theconvolutions of the lower mind in oneself and inothers. To do this the Higher Will must be activatedand used without hesitation or timidity. In the wordsof the Lady of the Lake, the wielder of this swordmust be without fear and beyond reproach. He mustbe pure and selfless in motive and, grasping thelaser sword, he must let its blade thrust home. Thereis a great distinction made in fencing between theparry (defence) and the attack. “A fencer, eventhough he possesses a perfect mechanism, willnever be developed except through the execution ofscientific or reasoned movements, based principallyupon the theory of attack.” The parry is nothing morethan a corrective measure, remaining only a passivefactor. The attack involves the imagination, whilst theparry is merely instinctive.

The hero who would reach the Holy Grail mustsharpen his sword with the powers of discriminationand decisiveness and be prepared to venture if hewould strike to the core of Truth. He does not sitback and soak in Arthurian legends, waiting forsomeone else to win the fight. He does not wait forsomeone else to prove to him that good can triumphover evil, that faith and love can vanquish despair

and hatred. He does not participate in anxiousvicarious contests, sweated through by mereobservers who stand on the sidelines, laying betsand waiting for the outcome. Instead, the true herohas sized up the contenders. He has recognizedthem for what they are and fully grasped that they arewithin himself and not out there on the tournamentfield or the battleground. He has quietly cherishedhis quest throughout the ages, and, arriving at thistime in human history, he knows that the world canno longer expect to be uplifted in its dead weight andcarried along by the Christs or Gandhis. He isshowing the way for each individual to cut awayignorance and impurities of mind, to cleanse theheart of every power to wound by piercing to itsdiamond core. He parries only out of compassion,never out of self-protectiveness, and is alwaysprepared to dare, to grasp the sword of Truth andattack the muddle of rationalizations andobscurations that cloud men’s minds and hearts.With his brilliant and nobly drawn sword he points outthe way across the lake to the outstretched arm, tothe marble stone and anvil, to the sacred smithy’sshop where the secret forging will be done. He is ourGrail Knight, our Odysseus and Galahad, ourManjusri. He is our heroic and eternal Higher Self. The dancers moved encirclingRound the body of the Fool.But the young lad on the edge

Of the wildly laughing throngSlipped away to the river’s edge,Where before his wondering gazeA beauteous Lady roseAnd presented him a sword.

Hermes, February 1983

THE PENTAGRAM

It becomes the task of the fifth Hierarchy - the mysteriousbeings that preside over the constellation Capricornus,Makara, or “Crocodile” in India as in Egypt - to inform theempty and ethereal animal form and make of it the RationalMan.

The Secret Doctrine, i 233

Ask anyone to draw a star and they will almostalways draw a pentagram. True, there are those fewwho might respond with a four-pointed figure; theDakota painted these on their ghost shirts. But ifsomeone mentions a star, most people think of apentagram without really knowing the reason why. Itmay occur to one to wonder why pentagrams arecalled stars. Why are stars called “stars” and madeto look like pentagrams? Is it because they arebright, shining and fiery, which is the meaning of theGreek word aster? That they are figures withradiating points? This seems a simple explanation,but their generally spherical shape is not lost inradiation, which suggests a less obvious connectionwith the pentagram. Perhaps the fact that theyoccasionally “fall” or that they are thought to have soprofound an influence upon human destiny hassomething to do with it. Do pentagrams “fall” or“shine” even symbolically? Why was the pentagramthe great (enigma or riddle) of the

Pythagoreans, their (highestsymbol) whose occult meaning remained hiddeneven whilst it was expressed as a sign of recognitionamongst initiated members of the Brotherhood?

Only he who is familiar with geometry shall be admitted here.

Plato

Iamblichus wrote that the sign of the pentagon wasso jealously guarded that when the PythagoreanHippasus published a construction of spheres madeup of twelve pentagons, his impiety was thought tobe responsible for his subsequently perishing in ashipwreck. For a similar act, Hippocrates of Chioswas expelled from the fraternity which persisted intransmitting the secret as part of a whole body ofesoteric cosmological and philosophical studies.The pentagram continued to be passed down insecret through the centuries long after Pythagorasand the Pythagoreans were gone. It was kept aliveas an occult paradigm for architects and mastermasons (transmitted from father to son or adoptedson) as a secret recognition symbol, and as anactual element of magical ritual. Architects andphysicians took an oath of secrecy mirroring thattaken by the privileged followers of Pythagoras inantiquity.

The symbol of the pentagram has played a

significant role in scholarly discussions concerningthe question of the survival of Pythagoreanism afterthe fourth century B.C. Some who argue that centrescontinued to flourish after this time refer topentagrams on buildings and stones in variousMediterranean sites, whilst numismatists point to theabundance of coins bearing the pentagram designwhich were used in Italy as well as Syria, Gaul andSpain until several centuries AD. Some scholarshave tried to show a connection betweenPythagoreans and Celtic Druids of Gaul throughsuch coins, which are also similar to certain typesused in the British Isles during the second centuryB.C. These pentagrams may be taken as evidencefor a continuous Pythagorean influence in the ancientworld, or, since most of them on coins were smallsigns outside the central design, they can beinterpreted as merely indicating trade or profession.Such was the case under Roman rule, where a smallpentagram on a coin represented the “Builders”(Masons).

The case for the continuance of Pythagoreanthought need not rest upon such limited empiricalevidence. Neo-Pythagorean and neo-Platonic ideasstimulated and affected pre-Christian and Christianthinking in many more archetypal ways, fromphilosophical considerations to architecture anddesign. Arcane knowledge was passed downthrough the Stone Masons from the CollegiaOpificum during the Roman Republic to the

architectural workshops of the Benedictinemonasteries and the secular medieval guilds ofBuilders and Masons who revered Pythagoras andHermes as revelators of the secrets of geometry tothe human race. The predominant ratios in Egyptian,Greek and Roman architecture were based upondivisions of five or ten within a controlling circle oforientation. This naturally introduced the theme of theGolden Section and displayed the Pythagoreansecret of constructing a pentagon in a circle forelevations as well as for plans.

The pentagon and its element, the pentagram,were treated with geometric precision, as theyrelated to the mystery of cosmic manifestation andits reflected structuring in the world. But some claimthat the secret recognition sign of the Pythagoreanswas drawn as a flowing figure. They assert that itwas not an equiangular uniform figure but, instead,one which resulted from the division of the square bythe acute-angled triangle and the placing of thesacred cut so as to halve the square. This introducesthe square as a parent figure rather than thepentagon or a circle and suggests morecomplexities concerning the meaning and origin ofthe pentagram. Was the pentagram originally ageometric figure emerging from the pentagon togain elevated cosmic significance leading to itsassociation with the stars and planets? Or, was itoriginally a slanted, long-legged design signifyingmerely the microcosm as man? A more deductive

approach raises the question of whether thepentagram is self-evident in the cosmic process. Isthis why it is said to be endless in its design? Whydoes the Book of Dzyan say that Aditi, the GreatMother, lay with the pentagram in her bosom, readyto bring it forth?

Since Pythagoras studied mathematics in Babylon,many believe the pentagram to have originatedthere, going back as far as the Uruk IV period (c.3000 B.C.). By the same token, his apprenticeshipin India could suggest a South Asian origin for theidea and, indeed, the ancient Vedas reveal hints ofthis. One of the oldest known meanings ascribed tothe symbol is the idea that it represents thequintessence acting upon matter. In its parent form itis the square of matter overbrooded by the one apexwhose fiery pyramidal point high above is free fromany disturbance in the tetrad below. It symbolizes thefour limbs controlled by the head, the four fingerscontrolled by the thumb, and four cardinal pointsrelated to their centre. Once the pentagon is formed,the pentagram joins its vertices and emphasizes thefive in an unending interplay of triangles. In this guisethe pentagram represents “the spirit of life eternaland the spirit of life and love terrestrial - in the humancompound”. It signifies the hierosgamos, or theunion of the principle of heaven (3) with that of themother (2), and it is the symbol of marriage andgeneration, the bringing together of the masculineand the feminine in an endless “lover’s knot” which

ceaselessly delivers itself.The structural symmetry of the pentagon is a

common characteristic in Nature, and man is aperfect illustration of it. He combines all of thecosmic elements at the microcosmic level, so thatearth, air, fire and water are overbrooded by Spirit,forming the fifth and topmost point of the pentagram,which represents the head seated in control over thelimbs. The Pythagoreans associated this form withhealth and referred to the pentagram as or“Health” itself, a practice which clearly revealed theirrecognition of the importance of man’s uprightposition, the supremacy of his thinking principle overthe body and the significance of an ideal balanceand symmetry in his structure. This corresponds withan upright and geometrically equiangular pentagramwhose balance was believed to be fundamental tothe harmony basic to good health.

A central theme running through these classicalideas is that man combines in his nature heaven andearth and possesses the means, through intelligentspiritual control, of maintaining his own microcosmichealth and harmony in relation to the greater balanceof forces in the macrocosm. Each individual wasbelieved to be potentially capable of unlocking themystery of the pentagram within and releasing thehealing flow of divine love that was his birthright.With the eclipse of the Classical Age and theobscuration of the ancient Mysteries, the symbolicemphasis surrounding the pentagram shifted.

Increasingly, the archaic belief in its power to protectbegan to dominate and man was no longer seen asbeing in control of his own destiny. In this narrowingmental environment the Pythagorean pentagramfound its way as an apotropaic sign (one which couldturn away or contain evil spirits). From late antiquitythrough the Middle Ages and Renaissance into theeighteenth century it persisted. Goethe’s Faust drewa pentagram on the thresholds of his room in aneffort to protect himself from Mephistopheles, andcountless people whose lives might never haveinspired great literary portraits took precaution bypainting the symbol on thresholds and utensilscritical to their livelihood. Frightened by what theyperceived as external forces of evil expressed inmental and physical disease as well as collectivechaos, people strove to barricade themselvesthrough a reliance upon vicarious atonement andlower magical practices. These sometimes took theform of grey or black magic, and the medievalpentagram came to possess a questionablereputation, having been used to contain and transferevil as well as to repel it.

This twisted symbolic usage represents the lowestfall of the exercise of divine intelligence associatedwith the pentagram, and it is only through veiledmyths and legends that its spiritually occult meaningwas preserved. Thus, when Gawain sustained faithin the five wounds of Christ during his quest for theGrail, he was keeping faith with the god in man,

symbolized by the stigmata on the head and fourlimbs which formed a pentagram. Like the shield ofan unknown Attic warrior of the fifth century B.C., SirGawain’s shield is said to have borne a pentagramcalled “the endless knot”, which symbolized muchmore than the power to repel evil. It represented thefive “precious things” expressed in five ways throughhis wits, his fingers, his faith, his purity and virtue, aswell as the merging of heaven and earth. In theevolution of the Arthurian cycle, Gawain was the firstknight to bear such a shield. From him it passed inlegend to Parsifal, Lancelot and to Galahad, whofinally succeeded in discovering the Grail. But themyth paled in the glare of nineteenth centurymaterialism.

The old geometrical symbols were resurrected in acold utilitarian sense, consonant with the newscientific awareness of the world and man’sincreasing ability to manipulate the physical forcesoperating in it. The pentagram and pentagon wereseen as no more or no less interesting than anyother geometrical shape, even whilst the old notionthat it described a star continued to persist incommon lore. It is this diminished and confusedunderstanding of the symbol which prevails in itsmodern usage, although children who draw five-pointed stars across the celestial borders of theirearly artistic endeavours probably intuit more aboutthe symbol’s intrinsic meaning than do people whovigorously wave all the star-spangled flags of the

world.Pythagoras, seeing that there are five solid figures … said

that the Sphere of the Universe arose from thedodecahedron.

Aetius

For Pythagoras as well as for all Initiates of theGreater Mysteries, the cosmic progression from theOne to the many was seen in terms of a hierarchy ofSpirits. From the One Flame arose the Divine Fire ofDaiviprakriti expressed through Fohat as Fire andEther or the Atma-Buddhic prototype of theincarnating Monads. From this Duad come theTriads, the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic prototype, and theTetrad or essence of human consciousness in whichlies the germ that will fall into generation. Thenemanates the Fifth Group of Dhyanis connected withthe Dragon Makara, which is the Dragon of Wisdomor Manas, the Human Soul, mind and intelligence.This cosmic hierarchy ultimately expresses itself intwelve phases of manifestation. Brahman the First isfollowed by the AUM or Logos, the androgynousBrahm (Purusha), the Tetraktys represented by theFour Faces of Brahmā, the Five Dhyanis (Jivatma)linked with the five mystical vowels uttered byBrahmā, which became the Panchadasa and arefollowed by the Astral Light of the Virgin Mother.These are followed by the tattwas or subtle elements,thirty-six in number, and the universe in thought,which is the eighth level, involving the microcosmsubjectively perceived. Then emerge the nine

Prajapatis from whom proceeds the tenth, which isthe shape of the material universe in the mind of theDemiurgos - the Dodecahedron. After this come thefourteen lokas and the five elements, which simplygive dimension and substance to the structurealready manifest.

The Fifth Hierarchy is identified with the Dragon ofWisdom or Makara, whose name signifies five (ma)fingers (kara) or sides (karam), and which readilyexpresses itself as the five-limbed, five-principledsymbol of thinking, conscious man. The Makaramare said to be esoterically a hidden mystical class ofdevas whose name is an anagram for the Kumaras,the sons of Rudra-Shiva. It is significant that anothermeaning of kara, besides the five-fingered hand, isthe star-shaped figure connected with the scorpion-sting of Scorpio (Shiva). This Fifth Hierarchy ofDhyanis contains in itself the dual attributes of thespiritual and physical aspects of the universe(Mahat, the Universal Intelligence, and the dualnature of man). They are the Five Kumaras whogained exemption from passion and have the soul ofthe five elements in them, with water and Etherpredominating. Thus, their symbol is both fiery andaquatic, signifying the great sacrifice wherein theytake up an earthly abode for an entire Mahayuga,during which they exchange their impersonalindividualities for individual personalities.

These Five Dhyanis, containing the spiritual andphysical aspects of the universe, represent the two

poles or the number five doubled, which gives thesacred decad and the tenth sign of the zodiac orMakara. Encompassing the dual five, the pentad isthe symbol of marriage, dividing the ineffablenumber ten into two equal parts. This relates to thefact that five alone is the binary symbol of the twosexes separated, a subject whose profound mysteryis associated with the lighting up of Manas and themaking of man, the microcosmic pentagram. TheMakaram are called thasathisa or “faces of theuniverse”, which are bound by the pentagons of thedodecahedron. Before the zodiacal signs of Kanya(Virgo), Thula (Libra) and Vrischikam (Scorpio)were separated into three, Virgo and Scorpio werecombined into one eighth sign, Makara, which wasidentified with the eight-faced octahedron. Thisinvolved a doubling of the tetrad (Tetraktysreflected), describing the universe in thought orsubjectively perceived. With the emanation of theFifth Hierarchy, Virgo and Scorpio split and therewas a fall and separation of the sexes. Makara wasno longer eight-faced but ten, made up of two parts.It now represented both macrocosm and microcosmas external objects of perception. This is why it issaid that in Capricorn (Makara) the vehicle of thenew man will be built.

Makara-Ketu is Aja (the Unborn) and Atma-bhu(the Self-Existent). Aja is the First Logos, the desirethat “first arose in IT, which was the primal germ ofmind”, that which “connects entity with non-entity”, or

Manas with Atman. In the first stage Manas is withAtman. In the second stage Brahmā issues theMind-born Sons who, in the Fifth and NinthCreations, become the Kumaras. Thus, Manasdescends along a Ray emanated through Makaracosmically, and individually with each new birth, andit withdraws in like manner with physical dissolution.The Egyptians believed that Makara drew thequintessence from the life lived at the end of it, andPlatonists held that the souls of the dead ascendedinto heaven through the constellation Makara, whichthey called “the Gate of the Gods”. The Five Dhyanisare thus a door or a link connecting entity with non-entity, creating self-conscious man, whose dualnature is microcosmically echoed in the separationof the sexes on the physical plane, the latter beingthe delusive, externalized expression of what everyhuman being combines in his or her innerpentagrammatic nature wherein the true lover’s knotis to be generated.

The Triads become Pentagons on earth.

How did the androgynous triadic hierarchiesbecome the Five Dhyani Buddhas who are theJivatma in man? One might ask, how did ageometric solid made up of three-sided figuresbecome a solid made up of five-sided figures?Again, how did the icosahedron, which representsthe astral light (noumenal universe), become thedodecahedron, or the manifest physical universe? Ifwe examine models of the two forms, we may

observe that, in the process of conversion from thethree to the five, the vertices of the pentagons are tobe located in the centres of the triads, and the linesof the edges of pentagons cross the edges oftriangles so as to be always perpendicular. Anotherway of visualizing this is to “Describe a sphere aboutan icosahedron; let perpendiculars be drawn fromthe centre of the sphere on its faces and produced tomeet the surface of the sphere. Now, if the points ofintersection be joined, a dodecahedron is formedwithin the sphere.” If we examine a model of anicosahedron, we can discover that the five is alreadyinherent in its structure in the form of the pentagonscontaining five triangles, which are visible on anyside.

In this combination of triad and pentagon, theicosahedron represents microcosmically the HigherTriad of the Inner Man as well as the potential naturalman. If we count the triads, there are five above andfive below with ten in between. The triads in betweenface up and down, creating a tension of equalattraction and repulsion between the upper andlower pentagons. They form a buffer separating thehigher and lower potentials, which is a requisitecondition of the hidden astral universe. With thedodecahedron, the pentagons become the faces,the five made manifest, combining the Higher Triadwith prana and the linga sharira. It is through thismarriage that the rational man comes into being.The dodecahedron represents an expansion of the

pentagon in three-dimensional space, and in itsmultiple expression there is no “buffer” separatingthe upper and the lower. Instead, the whole is mademanifest in the pentad itself, which is a primarynumber divisible by unity only.

The pentagram is an element of the pentagon,joining each vertex to its opposite side. The ratio ofthe line between two neighbouring vertices of thepentagon and the longer line joining two of itsopposite vertices is equal to ∅ or the sacred GoldenRatio so valued by the Pythagoreans. Thisproportion is intimately associated with the regularpentagon and pentagram, so much so that theconstruction of the pentagon is based upon theGolden Section. Because of the connection betweenthe Golden or ∅ Series and homothetic growth, andbetween the Golden Section and the pentagon, it isnot surprising that there is a preponderance ofpentagonal symmetry in natural forms such asflowers, all fruit blossoms, leaves and starfish, aswell as in the proportions of the human body. Whilstnever appearing in the inorganic crystalline systems,pentagonal symmetry plays a predominant role in theshape of living organisms and in the patterns of theirgrowth. This is known as gnomonic growth, which ishomothetic growth by intussusception or imbibition(from inside outwards) as opposed to agglutination,which is simple addition from outside of identicalelements, as with minerals.

The symmetry involved in this wonderful process is

one of dynamic proportionality, not at all like thestatic concept of symmetry that developed inmedieval times, which was based on arithmetic. Thispristine sense of symmetry is closer to analogy or“the impression given by that which remains similarto itself in the diversity of evolution”. The principle ofanalogy is common to both art and science and hasto do with the permanent similarities. It is found atthe base of eurhythmy (of or in harmonic proportion)and modulation in the arts of space as well asmusical harmony. It also dominates literature, wheremetaphor is only a condensed and unexpectedanalogy. Such intuitive perception of similarity wasthe source of Shakespeare’s metaphors andLeonardo da Vinci’s insight into the laws of Nature,so beautifully expressed in his pentagrammaticdrawing of man within the cosmic circle.

Pentagonal symmetry cannot be (for purelyarithmetical reasons in angular distribution)associated with equal divisions of space orhomogeneous point-lattices, but fits in perfectly withthe seemingly asymmetrical pulsations of livinggrowth. This reminds one of the assertion made bysome scholars that the Pythagorean pentacle wasnot an equilateral, uniform figure and that it wasdrawn as a free-flowing figure whose bottom legswere of unequal length, as were the arms and head.It may be that these drawings were merelyimprecise, or they could have been meant to reflectthe flowing dialectic of imbibitional growths which

emanate from the ideal framework of the morenoumenal inner pentagram. From an archetypalperspective, however, the irregular pentagramrepresents the disproportion of mental perversity,which is bound to affect health adversely. Looking atthe larger picture, it may be assumed that theseeming asymmetry of gnomonic growth inparticular instances is balanced off in a greatersymmetry operating at the universal level. It is thisgreater balanced symmetry which the man of perfecthealth is capable of reflecting.

Man is his own star and the soul that canRender an honest and a perfect manCommands all light, all influence, all fate.Nothing to him falls early, or too late.Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

John Fletcher

The legend of Sir Gawain has been Christianized,but the original story involved the theme of magicianin combat with magician. The pentagram on hisshield was a key capable of releasing the highermagic through the five fingers of his mind and hand,capable of awakening him with a fiery Scorpio stingto a Shiva-like awareness of the task at hand. Justso must any man or woman make the journey to self-conscious godhood. In the preparation for the quest,an affirmation of identity must be declared, settingthe stage for combat and revealing itself in thepentagram on the shield. This affirmation, this strongact of will, is the greatest defence against the

indwelling adversary, and it must be held firmlyupright at all times. If the pentagram becomesinverted in one’s consciousness, it will draw all theforces of death and witchcraft associated with aperverse prolongation of the Fall. But if its “head” isalways held uppermost, one begins to realize inconsciousness one’s celestial prototype. Only as afive-pointed star can man become a living linkbetween the celestial and terrestrial, an antaskaranabridge capable of spanning the noumenal andphenomenal worlds. The up ward-pointing apex ofhis higher Manasic intellect becomes capable ofpenetrating the luminous vessel of Buddhi, and themystic marriage between the star and the crescentcan take place. In this way do pure knights andinitiates ascend to the threshold of Makara, the Gateof the Gods, the place of birth of the spiritualmicrocosm and death of the physical universe.

It is said that the mystery of the pentagram must bemastered before the hexagram can be understood.The quest for the full realization of one’s humanitynecessitates a courageous adherence to Truth, Loveand Beauty with such unswerving purity of mind andheart as to render one a true Brahmachari, anunsullied virginal reflector of the Dhyani-Kumaras.When the seeker has become a true Satyagrahi,overcoming any division between the higher andlower pentagrams, he will have merged in spiritualwedlock the progeny of the binary number five. WithHigher Manas fully activated, the marriage with

Buddhi can take place and the androgynous stateexemplified by the Great Initiates of the Sixth Roundbe approached. Thus may the human pentagrambecome circumscribed by a hexagram within acircle, and the Knight-Initiate joins the ranks of thosewho tirelessly serve in the Army of the Builders,whose compassionate design serves as a timelesspathway leading to the perfect symmetry of Truth. In the breast of Aditi I blaze;Invisible fire beating,Pulsating star unseen.I am the five sacred words of Brahm,The sparks of Shiva’s Seed.I am the virgin offspring of Truth,The promised Light of Mind.Seek ye the Dragon’s Gate,O thou of Lesser Face.Be thou a bridge onto the Greater Shore.

Hermes, March 1983

THE OWL There was an old owl liv’d in an oak,The more he heard, the less he spoke;The less he spoke, the more he heard,O, if men were all like that wise bird!

Punch, 1875

Still and solitary, the owl sits in the tree as thoughfrozen in time, a piece of corrugated bark mergedinto the dapples and designs of the forest. A silent-seeming foot falls softly on decaying leaves and,abruptly, great golden eyes dominate the scene,fixing the intruder with their piercing gaze. He istaken aback by their sudden appearance and madeuneasy by the fact that the enormous orbs seem topenetrate through him to his very soul. If he were anEgyptian who had wandered far from his Nile deltato Lebanon’s wooded hills, he would surely begripped with fear, thinking that the sombre birdbefore him was the Ba, or Third Soul, of adeceased, come up from the realm of the dead sun.If the intruder were a Mayan, a Zapotec or an Aztec,he would tremble with foreboding, believing that histime had come. But an ancient Minoan or a Greekwho came upon that spot would have looked up with

receptive eyes to behold a wise counsellor andprotector. For them the sight of an owl was a goodomen, which pointed the way through darkness tolight.

The darkness to be penetrated is, however,awesome, and many people have associated theapparently disconcerting habits of the owl with thedarkness of death and evil. Wherever Christianideas have come to dominate, there has been astrong emphasis on evil, whilst most other parts ofthe world continued to identify the owl with night andoften the personification of death. The link withdarkness readily overlaps into one with stillness andthe quietude closely associated with wisdom.Though Chaucer and Spenser wrote of the owl asthe prophet of “wo and myschance” and “death’sdreadful messengere”, and Shakespeare referred toowls as the “comrades of ghosts” and bringers of illomen, farmers were continually aware that the large-eyed avian destroyed rodents harmful to their crops,whilst hardly ever harming a valued animal. Owls arenot scavengers, nor do they specialize in feeding oncarrion, as do the great birds of prey so oftenassociated with death. Thus there is an ambivalenceand a mystery to the owl, who is symbolic both ofwisdom and of death, of all that which is associatedwith Light and also that which is connected withDarkness.

After Deukalion’s flood, Zeus commanded Athenato assist Prometheus in calling forth a new race.

Archaic Greek art forms illustrate how they fashionedthe new man out of the silt left by the flood waters.From the richest and purest essence culled out ofthe material of the old, a new human vesture wasprepared by the Hellenic deity most intimately linkedwith the lighting-up of the mind-principle in man andthe owl-goddess of wise counsel and fearlesscombat. Athena assisted in this birth with all thecreative potency at her command, whilst remainingchaste and aloof from the material itself, like herquietly withdrawn namesake perched high above theteeming forest bed. In his epic prose, Homercontinually refers to Athena as glaukopis, meaning“bright-eyed” or “owl-faced”, which is derived from

(glaukos, meaning “owl”). referring to theowl’s glaring eyes. The goddess soars in an all-seeing flight of poetry through Homer’s melodiouslines:

I begin to sing about Pallas Athena,Renowned goddess, with bright eyes, quickMind, and inflexible heart, chaste andMighty virgin, protectress of the city, Tritogeneia.Wise Zeus himself gave birth to her from hisHoly head and she was arrayedIn her armour of war, allGleaming in gold, and every oneOf the immortals was grippedWith awe as they watched

Zeus was counselled by Gaea and Uranus toswallow his wife Metis, as they feared that thechildren she was destined to bear would surpasshim in glory. First of these was to be the keen-eyed

maiden Athena, equal to her father in might andgood counsel. In springing from her father’sforehead, she emerged with a thunderous crymanifesting fully the masculinity of her mind, whileher virginity shone through the grace and grandeur ofher female form. Among her many by-names, Athenawas called Promachos, “she who fights in theforemost ranks”, and Alalcomenes, protectress “whorepulses the enemy”. In her peaceful guise she wasprotectress of industries, arts and all things basic tocivilization, and she was Pronoia, “the far-seeing”,wise counsellor of the assembly. Sexuallyunapproachable, she was Valkyrie-like in hersteadfast protection of heroes like Herakles,Perseus and Odysseus. The owl so closely identifiedwith her (often called Minerva’s owl after her Romancounterpart) is the nocturnal Athene noctua, whosebarred and speckled plumage can still be spottedalong the rocky bluffs and acropolis of ancient Greekcities. Commonly known as the “little owl” (glaux),members of this species were so plentiful in the cityof the goddess that any needless task came to bereferred to as “taking owls to Athens”. At theAcropolis in Athens, owls flew unmolested in andaround the Parthenon, the Erechtheum and thetemple of Athena Nike.

Though the forty-foot statue of the goddess in theParthenon depicted a powerful, helmeted maidenwith spear and shield, it was believed that Athenacould assume the form of her owl and did so at the

Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. In The Wasps,Aristophanes credited this owl with raising themorale of the Athenians:

With rage our lips we swallow’d; while the darts so thickdid fly,

They seem’d to form a coverlid between ourselves andsky.

But Pallas sent her night-bird; and as the owlet flewAcross the host, our armies hope and joyous omens drew.So by the help of Heaven, ere yet the day did close,We shouted word of victory, and routed all our foes.

The Athenians came to be identified so closely withthe owl that the Samians, during a temporary victoryover them, branded the foreheads of their Athenianprisoners with the figure of the large-eyed bird.Almost all Hellenic coins (except for the smallest)produced during Athenian supremacy between thePersian and Peloponnesian Wars had owls on them,often with the helmeted goddess on the obverseside. So auspicious was this symbol that to say“there goes an owl” was to acknowledge a success,a sentiment played upon adroitly by Agathocles,who, while attacking the Carthaginians, releasednumbers of birds to encourage the troops.

With Apollo, Athena acts to support heroes whotake up their fate actively, as in the case ofOdysseus or Orestes, where she sees to the latter’sacquittal, as dramatized by the great Initiate andplaywright, Aeschylus, in the Oresteia. By outwittingthe Furies and bringing Orestes before the court ofAereopagus (which she created) in Athens, the owl-

goddess silenced an older order of gods and thepractice of blood-feuding (“eye for an eye, tooth for atooth”), which was a residual aspect of an outdatedorder in a primitive society. The owl-goddess closesa chapter involving the unavenged death ofClytemnestra and introduces the qualities of reasonand choice into the concepts of morality and justicein a new order. This association underlies the linkthat symbolically relates the owl with the mind andwith wise and deliberate action. The idea of thelighting-up of the mind has often been symbolized bylightning, and in the owl this is particularly related tothe luminosity of its penetrating gaze. Europeans (inGermany until the nineteenth century) nailed deadowls to buildings, believing that their brilliant eyeswould sympathetically attract lightning and therebyspare the structure itself. Perhaps a more tellingrelationship was shown by the Chinese of the ShangDynasty, to whom the owl was a patron sage whomonitored the propitious time for making mirrors andswords. In attempting to think of an ideal symbol forwisdom, it is difficult to imagine anything better thanthese two reflective and incisive instruments.

The earliest symbolism attached to the owl ingeneral stresses the characteristic of sagacity. Itspiercing, highly focussed eyes, its ability to stayawake at night and its gift of seeing in the dark areall qualities meriting such an association. The ideaof the “wise old owl” has survived into our owncentury, where to be “owlish” is to be studious,

bookish and, maybe, intelligent. It is undoubtedlybecause of its presumed intelligence that the owlfigures so predominantly in the divination practicesof many cultures. It is not taken as coincidental thatthe bird should sit on a particular side of a tree, orhoot at a particular moment or fly alongside a ship ata certain angle. The coming and going of owls hasbeen widely linked with the beginnings and endingsof things, even, sometimes, of life itself. It matters notthat the owl behaves as befitting a bird of prey; tomany his contemplative stillness, his gravity of mienand precision of action far outweigh such mundaneaspects of his character.

In the ruins of an old castle a treasure-seeker observed anowl catch and devour a mouse: “Is that fitting for thephilosophical favourite of Minerva?” taunted the intruder.“Why not?” replied the owl; “because I am fond of quietmeditation, can I therefore live upon air? Though I am wellaware that mankind frequently condemn die learned to sucha diet.”

Fables: Aesop’s and Others The owl has been around for at least sixty million

years. It began to develop in the Tertiary Period,after the last of the great dinosaurs haddisappeared, when mammals had begun toproliferate along with their predators, including birdsof prey. The forerunners of the modern owl evolved inthe Miocene period (ten to twenty-five million yearsago) and eventually achieved such variations as theelf owl, which is sparrow-sized, and the very largeeagle owl of Eurasia, which grows to thirty-threeinches in length. A thirty-thousand-year-old

Aurignacian cave in France contains petroglyphs ofwhat are recognizably snowy owls that must havebeen the focus of magical and religious practices. Itwas only much later, with Aristotle and then Pliny theElder, that the owl was considered as a subject ofnatural history. In the eighteenth century Linnaeusplaced the owl in his Systema naturae,distinguishing thirty-one earless and nineteen earedowls, whilst modern ornithologists recognize onehundred and thirty-two species-types, which aredivided into two families within the orderStrigiformes. Adapting to so many habitats, it is nowonder that the owl is almost omnipresent in theworld. As one writer put it, the screech owl is found“screaming, snoring and hissing in almost everycountry of the world”. Even so, it is the owl’sremarkable prowess as a hunter and its stillnesswhich, more than any other characteristics, areresponsible for its widespread and enduring survival.Its wonderful stillness along with its camouflagedcolouration render it often invisible, and it is expert atthe art of decoy when it conies to protecting itsnestlings. It will even fly to the ground and utter a crysounding like an injured rabbit to throw a predator offthe path. A wise old bird indeed.

The owl possesses two extraordinarily developedsenses: those of vision and hearing. Its eyes are verylarge, far larger than what they appear to be on theoutside, where only the iris and the pupil show. Theyare tubular in shape rather than spherical, taking up

so much room in the skull that they sacrifice almostall mobility. Over the lens is a nictitating membrane(a third eyelid) especially developed to shield thehighly sensitive retina from excessive brightness.The owl sees better in semi-darkness than we cansee in daylight. An unusually large pupil dilates to letmore light enter the eye so that it sees at ahundredth of man’s need of light, thus making themaximum use of small amounts of light in naturaldarkness. Despite all claims to the contrary, the owlcan see very well in the daytime, having even then,like other birds, powers of vision far superior to ourown. As it wings slowly along a bluff or sits indignified surveillance of the land, the owl is far-sighted, and it relies on tactile feathers to guide itwhile subduing prey or feeding.

Looking at the structure of the eye itself, onenotices immediately that the cornea and the lens arevery large, allowing more light to enter the eye. Toaccommodate this, the lens is much rounder and canfocus light over the short distance to the retinawithout loss. The retina of the owl’s eye is coveredwith light-sensitive rod cells, the density of which ismany times greater than in the human eye, whilst thecolour-sensitive cones are not so abundant. Rodsare particularly adapted for nocturnal vision, which iswhy man, who has fewer rods that are placed onlyaround the periphery of the cones, tends to lookaskance (at an angle) at objects in poor light. Theowl can hunt with deadly accuracy, using its eyes in

any kind of natural darkness, but in a totally blacked-out environment it relies entirely on its power ofhearing. Experiments with barn owls placed in acompletely lightless room (where they are watchedwith infra-red equipment) show that the birds wouldunerringly pounce upon their prey the instant theslightest sound was made. Many owls rely uponsound more than sight in hunting and can pick up afrequency as high as 20,000 cycles per second, ascompared to 8,500, which is the highest audiblepitch for humans. It can truly be said that owls are notalone in having well developed auditory organs, butthey are unique among birds in the degree to whichtheir hearing has developed.

Owls have large ears, one tending to be larger thanthe other, so as to increase their binaural efficiencyin locating sources of sound. They are covered withflaps which are very mobile and can open and closeand change in shape at will so that the owl canconcentrate on sounds coming from any quarter. Theshape of the flaps affects the shape of the facialdisks, which open up when the owl is alerted. Thedisks themselves have an acoustical function ingathering and concentrating sound, much like theparabolic reflectors used by sound specialists. Littlewonder that the owl prefers to remain still and veryquiet. It is listening intently to a world of sound thatstretches far beyond anything that we humans canexperience on the physical plane. The owl is asuperb listener, and to aid him in his task he has

evolved wings covered and edged on the outermargins with velvet-soft, sound-deadening filaments.Air streaming over these does not produce audiblevibrations, and their broad shape permits the owl toglide soundlessly and leisurely, without stalling orabruptly altering its course. The experience ofseeing one of these great-eyed birds gliding inabsolute silence through the darkened air isawesome. If we bear in mind the occult loreconcerning the meaning of their appearance atcertain times and places, the arrival of a whiteSiberian owl in California can assume anunexpected significance. One such may haveappeared, though only a Sage could realize why andinterpret correctly the meaning of its remarkablemigration. Hovering along the roadside verge, theghostly form, moving in complete silence with itsenormous golden eyes intently focussed, wouldswerve and dip and disappear. In such a manner aremessages delivered between great Rishis,Bodhisattvas and Adepts who, like the owl, can seebeyond the curtain of what, to most men, seemsdarkness.

In his delightful tale “The Owl Who Was God”,James Thurber joined a long line of literary figureswho have falsely accused the owl of day-blindness.Perhaps Thurber can here be excused because ofhis humorous wit. Holding up two claws, a secretary-bird approaches an owl and asks him how many hesees, to which the owl replies, “Two!” Then the

secretary-bird asks for an expression meaning “thatis to say” or “namely”. The owl answers, “To wit!” Thesecretary-bird is impressed and asks why a lovercalls upon his love, and the owl cleverly answers, “Towoo!” News spreads of this great sage-like beingand all the birds of the forest claim that the owl isGod. They follow him everywhere in the daytime, andwhen he bumps into and stumbles over things, theydo too, until he leads them blindly onto a road wherethey all meet an untimely end. The moral of this storyis not difficult to draw, but its ready reception bygenerations of readers is largely due to a centuries-old defamation campaign launched against the owlby the Christian church. Whilst it is true that even inthe ancient Hindu Panchatantra there is reference tothe day-blindness of the owl, it is the Christiantradition that associated this idea with turning awayfrom the spiritual and embracing evil. In the words ofSamuel Coleridge:

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,Cries out, “Where is it?”

Church fathers likened the Jews, who rejectedChrist, to the light-shunning, evil owl, whose habitswere unclean but who sustained enormous conceit inits blindness. In fact, the theme of the conceited owlhas continually recurred throughout the developmentof what has been basically a non-intellectual

religious movement to the point of very nearlyeclipsing the bird’s earlier association with wisdom.This was paralleled with an intensification of itsidentification with witchcraft, heretical philosophiesand ghoulish entities who make their home in thedarkness of night. One is instantly reminded of all thestandard figures in a typical Halloween tableau.Ecclesiastical art throughout Europe depicted theowl in various negative aspects, including one whereit is held aloft by an ape riding a goat - all threehelpmates of the devil.

The association of the owl with the ape is notcompletely farfetched. They both are quite humanoidin their appearance. The owl, having eyes that areset in the front of its head (unlike other birds) andstanding so upright while resting, does indeed looklike a judge in robes. This is probably one of thereasons one is so startled to suddenly see an owlsilently standing, as it were, on the limb of a tall tree.Of course, this impression would quickly beshattered if it began to bob its head up and down inthe process of getting a good sighting with itsbinocular vision.

It would be even more disconcerting if the birdturned its head fully upside down in its efforts or kepta bead on one who circled it below by rotating itshead two hundred and seventy degrees withoutmoving its body at all. This striking ability is, nodoubt, partially responsible for the macabrecircumgyrating heads that have played such a

startling role in Christian demonism. It is a relief thatnot all succumbed to such fearful ecclesiasticalmelodrama. Some writers and poets succeeded inmaintaining a balanced and even benign attitudetowards the owl, delighting in its remarkable talentsand marking its dignified air. In Edward Lear’s jauntylines, Pussy says to the owl:

“You elegant fowl!How charmingly sweet you sing!O let us be married! too long we have tarried:But what shall we do for a ring?”They sailed away, for a year and a day,To the land where the Bong-tree grows,And there in the wood a Piggy-wig stoodWith a ring at the end of his nose.

The Owl and The Pussycat

The darkness, so deplored by some andassociated with evil by others, is applauded as thatwhich harbours true light by Sages. To put it inanother way, light on our plane is darkness in thehigher spheres. The Secret Doctrine reminds us thatthe “Body of Light” is the darkness of ignorance, butalso that of silence and secrecy. Of the Creationsmentioned in the Puranas, the first is that ofMahatattva, in which the primordial self-evolution ofthat which had to become Mahat, the Divine Mind orSpirit of the Universal Soul, takes place. Thiscreation witnesses the emanation of Light (Spirit) outof Absolute Uncreate “Darkness”, and it is followedby a secondary creation involving darkness, not tobe confused with Pre-Cosmic Darkness. Thissecondary creation belongs to the triple aspect of

secondary creation belongs to the triple aspect ofAhamkara (“I-Am-Ness”), that which first issues fromMahat. At this stage, the first shadowy outline ofselfhood unfolds, wherein the devas who are theoriginators of form will do their work. This isallegorized in the Vishnu Purana, where thecreations subsequent to the First are spoken of interms of the Bodies of Brahmā. Concentrating hismind (Brahmā”s) “onto itself and the quality ofdarkness (matter) pervading (his) assumed body”,he produced the Asuras from his thigh, “after whichabandoning this body it was transformed into Night”.Here, Asuras (demons) is derived directly from asu,referring to the Breath of God, and indicates severalclasses of beings, including those which have thepower to dispel ignorance, and Rakshasas, whoseconcern it is to preserve the silence and secrecy oftruth from profanation.

Thus, in the Creations, darkness follows light andall emanate from that Darkness which is the Ever-Concealed Deity. In the Book of Hermes, Pymanderappears to Hermes saying, “The Light is me, I amthe Nous, I am thy God, and I am far older than thehuman principle which escapes from the shadow(“Darkness” or the concealed Deity).” This Lightrefers to the Second Logos, which, whilst precedingthe Light of the human (Third) Logos, is itselfemanated from the Body of Night, into whoseessence the First Logoic ray has withdrawn. Thisarchetypal occult process does not take place insteps through time. In reality, “Darkness radiates

Light” continually, and those who have the ability totranscend the brain-mind, which is only able toperceive things in increments of contrast on thegross physical level, experience this regularly. TheDay and Night of Brahma are not merely successivecycles, but have to do with planes that coexist.Humans seem to move through them in time, but thattoo is mayavic because they are simultaneouslymanifested all along. Time and space, that whichseems to separate us in one state from another, is acomplete illusion. Man can assume the perspectiveof the Builder who rested in the darkness ofParanishpanna prior to beginning the work ofproducing “Form from No-Form”. Right now, not intime, man can be in that state where Non-Ego,Voidness and Darkness are the Three-in-One.

The lower mind of man, the darkness in which theowl is most active, is filled with bhuts and evilpossibilities. It is heavy and covers one like a leadencloak. The owl experiences this absence of physicallight in a very different way. We know that with itsextraordinary sight it can see well enough to hunt innatural darkness. It does so, in part, by focussingupon patterns of movement, which it anticipatesskillfully. More important, it relies strongly on itsremarkable sense of hearing with which it “sees”with precision what the enveloping night holds. In thismanner it is vibrantly in touch with an entireenvironment only very dimly sensed by humanbeings. The owl not only sees in the dark, but in the

daylight as well. It possesses twenty-four-hour visionthrough which it can participate equally in bothaspects of the universal cycle, which we easily seeas analogous to life and death as well as tomanvantaras and pralayas. The light and darknesson the other side of darkness in this way coexist forthe owl.

It is said that Athena originated in Lemuria at theclose of the Third Race. This would correspond withher task of assisting Prometheus to create a newrace, for it was during that time that thinking manemerged. Now, just as before that period there hadbeen cycles of development followed by obscuration,so also, after that period, the flood of darknesscovered all. Twice, long before the rise of the ThirdSub-Race (of the Fifth Race) in Greece, was theredarkness covering sunken continents andcivilizations dimly remembered. With the impetus ofthe Hellenic flowering, far-sighted Athena blossomedforth to stir up bright and penetrating beams ofconsciousness in human beings and teach them howto look beyond the darkened veil of appearances. Tothem the owl was the symbol of all that is capable ofseeing through duality to the core which transcendsit. To them the owl symbolized all that was wise. Butlater people, like the medieval Christians, scornedthe goddess and reviled her owl. For these, whathad been a joyful and protective omen became anemblem of evil and death. In the fluctuations of lightand dark, the rise and fall of civilizations, what was

life for one people at one time became death foranother. The occult truth that lies between theseapparent opposites is often glimpsed by one who,though vainly seeking it throughout life, discovers itonly as death comes. Out of darkness comes lightand it existed all the time.

Just as this may happen to an individual, so toowith nations.

As Hegel eloquently pointed out, at the collapse ofa great civilization, when all is lost, Minerva’s owl canappear and reveal the painful truth. He may come inthe form of a Sage who might have been overlookedby almost everyone when things were going well.Thus are old cycles brought to a close to bereplaced with the new. The Siberian owl carries itsmessage from an old and dying European culture tothe seedbed for the new civilization of the future. It is,in part, like a rich swan-song wafted across thedarkness separating two continents. There will bethose who hear the song and merely give poor andsuperficial imitations of it, but there will be some whosee to the heart of the melody and recognize itsoriginal spiritual genius. In order to do this, one must,like the owl, listen at the highest possible level ofone’s being. Only in darkness, when theappearances of the daylit world have been seen forthe illusion they are, can one listen well enough tobecome wise. The wonderfully large ears of aBuddha or a Gandhi belonged to beings who wereprofound listeners attuned to the universal sounds of

Akashic heights. To see what to do in their lives theyhad to perceive first the patterns in what is a blindingdarkness to others.

The owl has always been associated with death,but for two quite different reasons. To those who sawdarkness and death existing fully in light and life, theowl was a symbol of transcendence, whose hootingwas a constant reminder of the Oneness inherent induality. To those who feared darkness and death,the owl’s appearance could only strike panic in theirhearts. Ill prepared to learn the painful truth, theywould see the owl as evil, when in reality he is merely(like the Rakshasas) preserving the secrecy andsacredness of Truth from general profanation. Theancient Chinese were very intuitive when theyidentified the owl as a Sage who monitored thepropitious time for making mirrors and swords. Theowl’s nature perfectly reflects the means by which thehuman mind can become like a Truth reflectingmirror which, with the sword-like accuracy of thegreat bird’s brilliant gaze, can cut through the layersof endless contrasts to a realm of Absolute Light.

At twilight one glimpses this. This is the moment ofTruth. If one is still appearing as nothing in the eyesof others, camouflaged to blend in while listeningdeeply to the often poignant undercurrent of soundthat lies behind the cacophony and bright dazzle ofthe world, one may discover the thread that connectsone’s own incarnations and the incarnations ofbillions with the Logoic Light. One can soar like the

owl through darkness and light with equal ease,arriving at last, beyond all boreal forests and theacropoles as we know them, at the pristine origin ofLight and Life. His silent flight and piercing gazeScatter the rodents from the maze;And in devotion to that SageThey likewise in their minds did cageThe rodent-thoughts of worldly wage.Entering thus, in stillness held,They pierced the dark and Truth beheld.

Hermes, November 1983

THE DOG The unwearied watch their listening leaders keep,And crouching close repel invading sleep,So faithful dogs their charge maintain …They start, they gaze around, watch on every side,

and turn to every sound.Illiad, Homer

“Imagine, my little ones, the ancient Grandmother ofthe Earth. Since the beginning of time she has sat,huddled, on the rim of existence. Humming over andagain to herself the most pristine harmony, shetirelessly weaves the great basket called the world.Slowly by day the woven pattern emerges while herdog patiently waits. His eyes never cease to followher nimble hands, recording and remembering thepattern as it grows. Until she rests from her work atnightfall, he watches and waits and then begins tounravel every strand. The Old One sleeps and thedog unwinds the knotted strands of day. By morning,all has been undone and the patient weaver beginsagain. She never rises from her task to chase thedog away nor does she fail to feed him from herexhaustless store. Every day and night proceed likethose that went before: so it has always been; so itshall always be. We of the Shawnee Tribe have

never doubted this, and I have heard it said thatothers believe it too. Do not the Kato people say that‘when the First Mover was going around the worldcreating, he took his dog’?”

Satisfied that she had thoroughly made her point,the old storyteller tucked the children in, herself agrandmother finishing up the day. Behind closedeyes the children’s thoughts drifted along the rim ofthe world and explored the details of the tale theyhad heard. Had the ancient Grandmother existedbefore the dog? Did the dog exist before the world?Had there always been dogs waiting and watching?They wondered about these things and about theCreator, who took his dog with him when he createdthe world. The questions merged with dreams for thechildren, but asleep or awake, anyone might wonderif the dog may have been around forever. It seems toappear always, even in the oldest myths and inquaint scratches on the walls of caves. To theEgyptians and the Greeks the dog was esteemed asa companion of Hermes, who, as the goodshepherd, is both messenger and presiding deity ofthe mind and goes about accompanied by his faithfuldog, Sirius, the “all-seeing vigilance”. For manypeople of the world, the dog itself has been amessenger: between the gods and man andbetween life and death. Revered as a fire-bringerand solar herald, seen by many as the Hound ofHeaven, the dog inspires awe, whilst in its guise asharbinger of death it is dreaded and reviled.

Plutarch felt that the dog symbolized theconservative and watchful principle of life and, likePlato, characterized it as a philosopher. Thisperhaps suggests a witness who, like the ShawneeGrandmother’s dog, existed from the very beginningof things. Apuleius described the dog as “raising hisrough neck, his face alternately black and golden,denoting the messenger going hence and thencebetween the higher and infernal powers”. In theShawnee myth the dog is the unraveller, but here thestress is upon his role as a weaver, coming andgoing between worlds. As companion of the dead ontheir crossing to the nether region, the dog is indeedweaving its way in the role of a guide to those whodo not know the way. In Hindu myth Indra’s dog,Sarama, mothered the Sarameyas, the four-eyeddogs of Yama who run between this world and thenether region, summoning men and women to theother side. Many an Eastern ritual calls for theparticipation of a dog at the time of death. TheParsees traditionally introduced one to the deathbedand it accompanied the funeral procession. Thedeath of a woman in childbirth required two dogs inorder to accommodate two souls. In old Tibet sacreddogs were kept in the monasteries to devour theremains of the dead before the influence ofBuddhism encouraged the spread of cremation.

If the dog is a guide to the realm of the dead, it isalso a keeper of the boundary between the twoworlds. Like the great mastiff of Charon, it guards

the entrance way and none can pass without itsacquiescence. But on the field of battle the dogthrows himself into the fray. He is at oncemessenger, watcher, combatant and guard. Heweaves his way back and forth from the living to thedead or wounded if trained to do so, or he becomesa Hound of Hell fighting along with the boldestsoldier on the field. It is said that dogs larger thanwolves accompanied the Celts when they attackedDelphi in 273 B.C. Terrifying the Greeks, they raisedhavoc like Hecate’s own hounds of war, againstwhom regular soldiers had little effect. Often picturedwith war-gods and heroes, the dog has been placedin the role of a witness of death as well as its guide.A companion in life, it continues to be such in deathand so weaves the two together in a pattern ofperpetual coming and going, a continual design ofbirth, death and rebirth. For this reason the dog isalso associated with resurrection and fertility, leavingone to ponder whether Yudhishthira was notmotivated by something in addition to compassionwhen he insisted that his faithful dog accompany himto heaven.

As guide or witness or guardian, the dog seems toexemplify fidelity. Even as harbinger of war anddeath, it demonstrates a faithful execution of itsmaster’s desire. Its faithfulness includes and goesbeyond death, and so it is said to be a fidelitysurviving death, to be reborn again and again. It wasthis perception of the death-defying power of faith

that caused the Greeks to recognize in the dog thecompanion of healers like Aesclepius, whosetemples were frequented by canines of all sorts. Thesick who came to these places for cures believedthe dog to have a healing tongue. They thought that ifthe animals licked their wounds while they observedan “incubation” period (sleeping at the temple), or ifthe dogs appeared to them in dreams, a cure washeralded and would soon come into effect. Thus,through the transference of the power inherent in thefaithfulness of the dog, death was surmounted andlife recommenced. Such beliefs demonstrate on asimple thaumaturgic level a profound metaphysicalconception of faith and a deep insight into theessential inner qualities of familiar creatures.Northern Buddhists identify this virtue in the lion-dogguardian who is the defender of the Law. Watching,motionless and in complete obedience, theguardian-dog has subjugated all passions throughthe Law. No bright rag or tasty morsel can divert itsattention from the faithful performance of itsappointed task.

The diversity of dogs in the world bears witness tothe great antiquity of their domestication. Perhapsthis is why some people have assumed the animalhas been around forever, and it might as well beasserted that in the Beginning even God had one.The physical ancestor of the dog was also parent tothe bear and made its contribution to evolving formsforty million years ago. The line from which the

Canidae arose flowed through a Pliocene typeknown as Cynodictus, from which developedCynodesmus and Temnocyon. From these twoarchaic animals the Tomarctus and the wild huntingdogs of India and Africa respectively arose. TheTomarctus was a wolf-like ancestor of the genusCanis, which includes wolves, coyotes, foxes,dingoes, jackals and the modern dog (Canisfamiliaris). As to which of these was the directancestor of the modern dog there is much dispute.Some feel the dingo is the oldest and closest type,but many believe that the wolf is more directlyancestral, acknowledging that some dogs are muchmore wolf-like than others. In his interestingmeanderings on the subject of dogs, Konrad Lorenzargues that whilst some breeds are descended fromthe wolf (like samoyeds, huskies and chow chows),most are jackal-blooded, treating their masters asparents rather than pack leaders, as the wolf-blooded dogs do. But the disagreement flourisheswith claims variously supported among zoologists,including the interesting assertion that thedomesticated canine derives from the pariah-dog ofIndia and southwest Asia, whose present conditionexists in stark contrast to that of the pet and work-dogs of other parts of the world.

The word “dog” comes from the Old English docga,the etymological origin of which is unknown. Butcanis comes from the Greek kyon ( ), the nameHomer and others after him used to identify the Dog

Star, the brightest star in heaven. This brilliant orb isknown otherwise as Sirius ( ), “the Scorcher”,which some believe derives from the Sanskrit Surya,“the Shining One”. The naming of this star by theancients in what came to be known as theconstellation of Canis Major suggests a notion of thedog which is quite different from that delineated bybiological evolution. The word isetymologically related to , which means “toconceive”, pointing to the aspect of symbolismattached to the dog having to do with fertility andrebirth. In The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatskywrites that Sirius is the star of Mercury-Budha(Hermes), the greatest instructor of mankind beforeother Buddhas. She also quotes Isis as saying: “I amthe Queen of these regions … I was the first to revealto mortals the mysteries of wheat and corn. … I amshe who rises in the constellation of the dog.” Thisplaces the idea of fertility and rebirth on anarchetypal level wherein one might link the shiningface of Surya to its dissemination through theagency of Mercury-Budha, or the Dog Star.Translated into concrete expression, this creative,intelligent force is manifested on multitudinous levelsright down to the scorching heat associated with thehottest part of the summer, during the heliacal risingof Sirius. This finds an analogue in the bitch goinginto heat. It is the time when conception takes placeand restraints tend to melt away. The old Greeksexplained: “Our ancestors believed that when theDog Star is in conjunction with the sun, the sea boils,

wine ferments and dogs go mad.” These are the“dog days”, when the brain can cease to work as itdissolves into a oneness with Nature. One imagines“mad dogs and Englishmen” during the British Raj inIndia wandering about in the torpor of pre-monsoonheat, the latter obstinately attempting to maintain asense of control while everything about them wasfalling back into a primordial bake-oven of imminentre-creation.

The idea of “going to the dogs” reflects thenegative side of the abandonment of coolness andcontrol. It links up with the pervasive association ofthe scavenging, lurking and lolling about identifiedwith street dogs who soak up the sun and do noteven bother to retire to their own burrow for thepurpose of procreation. The Bible is replete withevidence of the low opinion in which the dog washeld by Jews and Christians. Muslims too believedthe animal unclean, and because of its public sexualdisplays it became the symbol of promiscuity, andadulterers and sodomites were called “dogs”. Evenin India the mark of the dog’s foot was often thesymbol of lasciviousness, and stories tell of thosewho were branded and forced to bear the mark soall could see. Such condemnation of dogs has beenaccompanied by the rise of the scavenging pariah-dog who ekes out its miserable life in many anancient city street. It announces, and doubtlesscontributes to, a debased condition which inverts thelofty proclamation of Isis and bears little

resemblance to the reverence felt for other mother-goddesses of old who were often depicted aswhelping bitches.

People’s feelings about dogs run the gamut ofthese extremes because the dog has been close toman for such a long time. It is impossible to considerthe condition of dogs, symbolically or physically,without acknowledging that they have beendramatically affected by man. When he despises orabuses or reveres them, it says more about thehuman condition than about that of the animal. AsProfessor Lorenz puts it: “There is no domesticatedanimal which has so radically altered its whole wayof living, indeed its whole sphere of interests, thathas become domestic in so true a sense as thedog.” Many thousands of years ago dogs probablyhad a loose connection with human groups, beingtolerated for their ability to warn and track game. Butthere is distinct evidence that for well over fortythousand years there has grown a profoundsymbiotic relationship between man and dog which,from the beginning, involved deep emotionalimpulses. The excavation of a Cro-Magnon burialrevealed the remains of a young girl with the headsof four dogs pointing outward and arranged abouther, and dog tooth pendants were widely worn fromAurignacian times. By Neolithic times the link wasfirmly cemented, and settled communities werebreeding dogs possessing specializedcharacteristics unique to that place and people.

Inbreeding within settlements favoured the hereditarytransmission of domestic characteristics and thedevelopment of distinctive breeds.

Some cultures protected their canine friend. Thereligious laws of the ancient Iranians decreed that apunishment of five hundred to a thousand stripeswith a scourge was to be meted out to the killer of adog, or fifty to two hundred for giving it bad food.Early English law, however, stated that “It is not fitthat a person should die for a dog”, causing them toconsider the crime of stealing one as less thanlarcenous (unlike the theft of a falcon, a horse or acow). Some breeds in the British Isles were bred tohunt, and others, responding to the desires of anoppressed peasantry, became expert poachers.Dogs like the lurcher could silently steal the king’sgame and, if ever caught, would even disclaimacquaintance with its master, whose very life was onthe line if charged. Many an illicit main dish has beenenjoyed by the owners of such cunning canines.Among nomadic people the dog has been keenlyvalued as a guard and hunter and was frequentlyhighly trained by its masters. Before the arrival of thehorse, Plains Indians used their dogs as beasts ofburden, yoking them to small travois packed withcamp goods which had to be transported each timethey moved. When not engaged in this work, theywatched the camp, guarded the night herds, warnedof enemy attack and oversaw the safety of children.The Eskimo peoples of Siberia and the New World

always counted their wealth in dogs and dependedupon them so completely that part of the education ofevery child involved a thorough understanding andmastery of the animal. Years of training producedhuskies capable of bucking any weather andfaithfully working for their master even for dayswithout adequate food. To kill such an animal was, tothe Eskimo, tantamount to the murder of a humanbeing - for did not dogs, like humans, have individualsouls?

Because of their closeness to man, dogs vary inability and appearance more than any other species.Selective breeding by humans, together with naturaladaptation to vastly different environments all overthe globe, have produced astonishingly differentbreeds: everything from the mouse-like Chihuahua tothe great British mastiffs exported by the Romansunder Caesar for use as fighters in the Coliseum.With the Imperial Pekingese, the Great Dane (whowas bred by Germans), the Afghan and Salukihounds, one has examples of very deliberately breddogs whose present form (at least in the case of thelatter two) can be traced back several thousandyears. Critics of modern breeding for show say that ithas involved an overestimation of beauty or style atthe expense of intelligence. Breeding to strictstandards of physical characteristics is incompatiblewith breeding for mental capabilities. In the whole ofbiological evolution on earth, one can see continualevidence that hyperspecialized forms are not

destined to be the vehicle for intelligence. When dogbreeds become “fashionable” in the eyes of men,they are in danger of becoming highlyoverspecialized and frozen in terms of developingtheir greatest canine potential. Just so does manideologically freeze and delimit the realization of hisown broader potential. Surely it is because of aseverely externalized and diminished evaluation ofhimself that man has dedicated so much time andenergy to the production of less intelligent, moreneurotic and often unhappy dogs for the sake ofperpetuating certain physical characteristics.

But if man has enormously affected the dog, so toothe dog has affected man. A recognition of thisprompted a Seneca chief to remark, “It is true thatwhenever a person loves a dog, he derives greatpower from it.” The “chemistry” between a dog andman can produce a remarkably high level of mutualfeeling, and when it is mismatched, the dog mayeven suffer a psychosomatic illness, as in somecases where seeing-eye dogs have been pairedwith masters with whom they could experience norapport. The fidelity of a faithful dog creates thebasis for a deep bond which imposes upon theobject of this faithfulness a profound responsibility. Inman there are levels of love experienced andexpressed, but only in rare cases does one find thedepth of pure, disinterested love shown by a dog forhis beloved master. When it is given, this love seeksno recompense but flows in a “dogged” faithfulness

towards even the least affectionate or worthy of men.Like the pure and universal love held as an ideal byDiotima in Plato’s Symposium, the dog’s love of hischosen master has the power to uplift both lover andbeloved and deeply move the hearts of other humanbeings. One may think back to the dog storiesborrowed from the local library when one was a childand recall the tear-stained pages that marked thespot where an act of canine love and nobility endedin the animal’s death. But people of all ages andtimes have felt that, somehow, in the dog’s noblefidelity and love, their own highest potential wasbeing echoed, and they have wondered and wept tosee its unsullied manifestation in a creature humblerthan themselves.

Alexander Pope must have deeply felt this when hewrote these poignant lines describing thehomecoming of Ulysses to Ithaca:

When wise Ulysses …Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,To ail his friends and even his Queen unknown;…The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew! …Him when he saw - he rose and crawled to meet,(Twas all he could) and fawned and licked his feet,Seized with dumb joy - then falling by his side,Owned his returning Lord, looked up, and died!

In his love of an animal a man increases hishumanity. If one studies deeply the history of thehuman race, one will come to the conclusion thatbecoming truly familiar with animal behaviourenables one to appreciate “the unique and exaltedposition held by man in the world of living creatures”.

There is an especially great value in attempting tounderstand the dog. Bearing so faithfully the menta!and physical impress of man, the dog reflects backto the sensitive observer a great deal about his owninner being as well as animal nature. At a morefundamental level, one can learn that, although dogsdo have distinct personalities, their dependence onand loyalty to a master originates in their tie to theirmother, which, in the domestic dog, is simplytransferred to the master. In wolf-blooded dogs thisjuvenile behaviour is replaced with an inherent loyaltyto the pack leader, which it also transfers to itsmaster. Thus the relationship between a man and hiswolf-blooded dog is based more upon a proud“man-toman” loyalty than upon the child-parentrelationship which persists between masters anddogs of other breeds. But both of these inherenttraits suggest the biological and instinctual roots forfaithfulness and love in a dog.

Some show that nice sagacity of smell,And read with such discernment in the portAnd figure of the man, his secret aimThat oft we owe our safety to a skillWe could not teach and must despair to learn.

William Cowper

The inherited characteristics of different breeds arewell known. Sheep dogs without sheep will shepherdchildren, terriers are aggressive, spaniels areretrievers on command, and hounds are self-hunters.All these are expected instinctual traits of the breed,but it is not instinct that prompts a dog to show its

feelings through subtle changes of facial expressionor lay its head on its master’s knee. These areactions more closely akin to human language than towhat wild animals “say” to each other throughmiming, A dog’s expression of feeling may bechannelled through a learned behaviour (like givingits paw), but the subtle aptness and timing of itsresponse suggests a capacity to read what lieswithin human feelings as well as understandinggestures and words or tone of voice. One championof the animal kingdom observed that “Man isendowed with reason, the infant with instinct; and theyoung animal shows more of both than the child.”With the awakening of the Manasic thinking principlewithin the growing child, human beings leave lessercreatures far behind. But both man and animals areendowed with a soul and intelligence. An extremelyintelligent animal like the dog thinks and seems toknow that it thinks “perhaps all the more keenlybecause it cannot speak”. The intelligence in a dogis the same in essence as that of man, if not equal indevelopment or in its level of awareness. Questionsconcerning intellect, intuition and individuality arise ina serious consideration of dogs. They have learnt tolive happily with men and to do useful things whichhave clearly caused them to feel that they belongwith people. They seem to know they are part ofhuman life and, as St. Paul movingly put it, they are“hoping for, and living in the expectation of the samedeliverance from the bonds of corruption” as man.

A blind individual who wishes to gain the freedomthat can be provided by a seeing-eye dog must havethe moral and physical courage to trust completelyhis dog’s independent judgement. Theseremarkable animals are carefully trained to adhereto all sorts of complex rules in order to usher theirmasters safely around crowded cities. There arevolumes of testimony confirming the intelligence anddependability of these dogs. In their training therecomes a point when they must be able to do morethan intelligently apply their instinctual powers oradherence to learned patterns. To become asuccessful guide-dog they must be able to takeresponsibility in an altered or suddenly dangeroussituation, even if this means breaking rules. InMontreal during a bank robbery, when the robberswere attempting to make a getaway, a blind manand his dog were crossing the street at thecrosswalk leading to the bank when shots rang out.The dog froze and, blocking her master’s path, tooka firm lead and jaywalked as fast as she couldthrough the cars to an opposite corner and into adoorway. At the spot where the dog had forced hermaster’s retreat, a policeman was shot and killedonly a moment after she broke a whole series ofrules in guiding her charge to safety. Theindependent judgement of such dogs is notpossessed by all trainees, and those who may excelin learning all the rules may fail in their ability to gobeyond them.

Slow and painstaking observation of generationsof carefully bred guide-dogs has revealed that thereare critical periods in a dog’s life when higheravenues of intelligence can begin to open up. Up tosix weeks of age a puppy needs caninesocialization. Its later ability to exercise independentjudgement is linked up closely with the next period inthe puppy’s life, where human contact plays anincreasingly dominant role. Individual attention duringthis time establishes the dog’s sense of being anindividual. It learns to be a co-worker with a humanbeing and takes on many elements of discriminationwhich exceed the abilities demonstrated in learningby associational memory related to the senses.

In The Secret Doctrine a reference to a work byHaeckel includes a description of a double drawingdepicting the six-week-old embryo of a human beingand of a dog. Except for a slight difference in thelarger head of the human embryo, the two areindistinguishable. Passing through the piscine,reptile and mammal phases of evolution, at aroundsix to eight weeks the human embryo most closelytakes on the canine form. They share in common fivefingers and toes that develop initially in the sameway. Their rudimentary links are the same. Even ateight weeks the human embryo with its tail andotherwise animal appearance looks like an embryodog. At this point of closest resemblance man anddog meet, only to separate with the further and morecomplex embryonic development of the human. Just

as this occurs prior to birth, so when the dog hasentered six weeks into life after birth, it isanalogously and peculiarly open to the influence ofman. If a strong and loving involvement takes placeat this time, the natural fidelity, courage andintelligence of the dog can take wings so that theanimal can begin to exercise judgement and exhibithigher powers of insight normally ascribed to humanbeings.

When this happens, the faith inherent within thedog’s nature becomes such an intelligent force thathumans fortunate enough to have a long-termrelationship with such an animal are steadilysuffused with a greater degree of this paramountvirtue themselves. The faith that is manifest in thedog is the same faith by which men can movemountains. Its power is limitless; only the objectsupon which it is fixed enforce any sort of limitation.William Q. Judge once advised a student ofTheosophy, “Formulate to yourself certain things tobe true that you feel to be true, and then increaseyour faith in them.” The exercise is calculated tobring into conscious focus that which always lieswithin, for the embodied soul is gifted with faith andeach man is of the same nature as that ideal onwhich his faith is fixed. Men are blinded to true faith(without an object) by the results of false faith, which,based on selfish ideals, provides the very limitationsone will have to deal with in lives to come. The dog’sfaith has as its object his master. He is driven to

heights of fidelity by pure and selfless love of thatuncrowned king in his life. Like the faithful hound ofUlysses, he lives to demonstrate that love and soseal his life with meaning before his death. For mantoo, “faith is a series of lessons in love” involving thecultivation of confidence in self, together with anunwavering love of one’s Master and trust in Karma.

Shall damned oblivion ever quench that flame?No! that viewless essence shall outlive the world,Immortal as the soul of man it served.

Alexander Pope

The faith that is cleansed of false hopes andobjects is the gateway to higher intuition. The instinctof a dog can be described as the “direct perceptionof what is right within its own realm”, whilst intuition isthe direct cognition of the truth in all things, thememory of the knowledge of one’s past existing inone’s real nature. The instinct of the dog is universalin Nature and endowed by the Spirit of Deity, adivine spark entering conscious development in thehigher animals. This can be guided by theintelligence within or by influences from without. Asthe dog’s instinct is modified by exposure to asensitive human being, the animal learns to relyincreasingly on the “intuitive prompting from within”,thus becoming a channel for pure reflected Buddhi. Itcannot be said that the dog possesses the faculty ofreason, nor does it recall its past lives, but throughthe inherent power of its uplifting nature it canbecome an acting template for its master’s own yet

to be consciously understood intuitions. A faithfuldog can know, long before the event, of dangerthreatening the object of his love. A human beingwho knows of this potential will adjust his approachto the dog so that love, justice, honour and truth willbe reflected through their daily relationship. Theseare qualities of the soul which can spring to lifethrough contact with the soul in man. As a perceptiveLt. Colonel in charge of British war-dogs during theFirst World War put it, “AH the dog knows about Godmust come to him through us.” One might add to thisthat man, not fully merged with the Master within, canlearn from the dog’s yearning love and faithfulassimilation of his own master’s qualities.

Faith, like the light of Sirius, flows through theworld. It exists in the flower, the monkey and thestone, but it is strongly exemplified in the nature ofthe dog. It is a fiery force which, when flauntedwithout discrimination or when wrongly focussed,can scorch or drive to madness. But nurtured in itsproper season and trained with loving care, it is thefertile key that gives birth to a higher level of insightinto the heart of things unseen by the personal man.The homing instinct, so wonderfully manifested in thedog and so much a part of his love and faith in hisMaster, becomes in man the guide through theintangible realms leading to his spiritual home. Notby sight or smell or hearing but by intense love for abeloved master, the dog is guided home. Man hascome on a very long journey, taking him a long way

from his spiritual abode. On the way he, like thegods, has been accompanied by the dog. It is fitting,nay poignantly just, that the dog should follow himand sometimes guide him on the long journey home.Weaving back and forth across the boundaries of lifeand death, guided by a faith that overcomes anyuncertainty between the two, the dog unravels thecomplexities of conditioned existence and pierces tothe deathless source of love. Hail Sirius, faithful hound of heaven,It is along thy blazing leash I would enterInto communion with the invisibleMaster I have sensed but never seen.O faithful watcher, Hermes’ own,You teach me how to see the strandOf light that courses through the darkAnd shows the way back home.

Hermes, December 1983

THE LABYRINTH

What is this mighty labyrinth - the earth,But a wild maze the moment of our birth?Still as we life pursue the maze extends,Nor find we where each winding purlieu ends;Crooked and vague each step of life we tread, –Unseen the danger, we escape the dread!But with delight we through the labyrinth range,Confused we turn, and view each artful change –Bewildered, through each wild meander bendOur wandering steps, anxious to gain the end;Unknown and intricate, we still pursueA certain path uncertain of the clue;Like hood-winked fools, perplex’d we grope our wayAnd during life’s short course we blindly stray.Puzzled in mazes and perplex’d with fears;Unknown alike both heaven and earth appears.Till at the last, to banish our surprise,Grim Death unbinds the napkin from our eyes,Then shall Gay’s truth and wisdom stand confest,And Death will show us Life was but a jest.

Reflection on Walking in the MazeHampton Court (c. 1747)

Having penetrated the cave whose small opening

was barely visible on the mountain’s innocent-looking flanks, he found himself in a deepeningcavern whose corridors disappeared into a furthermore interior gloom. Without thought he gravitatedtowards one on the right side and began to exploreits uneven trench extended in a hollowed curve awayfrom the entrance cavity. The walls grew dimmer buthe perceived that they had been marked and hewnwith a chisel from the living rock. A few faintpictograms momentarily obtruded themselves in thegloom, to be swallowed up. They nudged hisconsciousness as he moved along, drawn by anirrepressible sense of curiosity. He accepted theinevitability of his progression without thought or planand was barely aware of what he was doing until hecame to the first branching in the tunnel. Here hedevised a simple scheme, deciding to choose theright-hand corridor each time he came to a branch.This served him well until he began to be confrontedwith multiple branchings and the suspicion that somehe had pursued were loops that led back to junctionsfrom a different direction. It was not long before hewas lost.

The darkness was complete and corridor wallssuddenly gaped beneath his touch where branchesushered in their musty, echoing air. The horror of hisdilemma overcame the futility of effort and he gropedon in desperation, believing in his ultimate deliveryinto the entrance chamber and out of the cave. Butmuffled sounds troubled his ear and the inner sighing

of the mountain’s breath reminded him that thelabyrinthine tunnels must lead to a goal of some kind,a centre not easily found. Even in his despair hewondered what it might be and what might be in it. Adistant melancholic moan dampened the small sparkof his renewed curiosity and the prospect of a crueland unwitnessed death delivered by some terrifyingmonster flooded his brain and caused his body toconvulse in fear. Far cry was this from the mazegames he had played at fairs as a youth. The ironiccomparison briefly interrupted his terror and heremembered the sign that used to be posted at theentrances to the hastily constructed labyrinths. Hesaw the words very clearly:

Beware the dreadful minotaurThat dwells within the maze.The monster feasts on human goreAnd bones of those he slays.Then softly through the labyrinth creepAnd rouse him not to strife.Take one short peep, prepare to leapAnd run to save your life!

Like a children’s jingle, the lines recalled the horrorthat had been met, for at the end of the torturedcourse was placed a full-length mirror.Perspicacious though it had been, the joke mockedhim now and he was forced by the abyss of sheerterror that yawned before him to take stock, calmhimself and begin to think just what it was that he hadgotten himself into.

Suiting his dilemma, a classic definition of thelabyrinth asserts that it is the structure of a pattern so

complex that once inside it is difficult to escape. Itcan be a series of caverns, a complex building, adesign, a closed or open path, a dance, a game or awalk. It is often underground and shrouded indarkness, but the outside and the inside of thelabyrinth are sharply distinguished and it must fulfillcertain criteria to be worthy of the name. To beproperly called a labyrinth, such a patterned structuremust entail the work of artifice. Natural caverns maybe labyrinthine but a labyrinth is planned. There is apurposefulness of design involving a journey which isreally a puzzle, necessitating a certain degree ofcomplexity. The path in the labyrinth must becontinuous and there must be an entrancecommunicating the interior with the exterior.

Basically there are two types of labyrinths: theunicursal or non-puzzle pattern and the multicursal orpuzzle pattern. The unicursal type is used bymathematicians to describe a class of problemsdealing with the shortest route between two givenpoints involving a method of tracing a figure withoutcovering any part of it more or less than once. It is“once run” or a “single course”. Its single route leadsinto a centre and out again with no choice or puzzlearising. It takes one over the maximum ground,doubling back on itself continually but never crossingitself or branching. In a unicursal labyrinth one isclosest to the centre just after entering but then itveers away, and one is forced to journey afar througha tortuous pattern to get back to the centre. In fact,

the traveller may be very close to the centrerepeatedly but has no way of knowing it. It is alwaysa question of sticking it out to the end.

The multicursal labyrinth is designed with theintention of confusing and puzzling and it containsblind pathways. Its branches may be simple orsubdivided and they may or may not rejoin the mainpath. The goal may be situated at the final extensionof what seems to be the main path or it may belocated within such a branching loop. To tread thistype of labyrinth requires knowledge of a key to solvethe problem. Of the most famous labyrinths of theancient world, the one located at Lake Moeris inEgypt seemed to have combined elements of bothtypes. Herodotus visited it in the fifth century beforethe Christian era after Egypt had been divided intotwelve nomes, whose kings agreed to leave acombined labyrinthine memorial of themselves. “Ifound it”, Herodotus wrote, “greater than words couldtell, for, although the temple at Ephesus and that atSamos are celebrated works, yet all the works andbuildings of the Greeks put together would certainlybe inferior to this labyrinth.” He claimed that itsurpassed even the pyramids. “It has twelve coveredcourts, with opposite doors … all communicatingwith one another and with one wall surrounding themall. There are two sorts of rooms, one sort above, theother sort below ground, fifteen hundred of each sort,or three thousand in all.”

Herodotus was allowed to pass with a guide

through the upper rooms only, the lower being strictlyprohibited to visitors. Thought to have been built overfour thousand years ago, in the time of Herodotusthe stone roof and walls were yet beautifully carvedand the intricately bewildering pattern of rooms andcourts majestically adorned with elegant whitecolumns. Five hundred years later Pliny referred tothis same structural wonder as “the most stupendouswork on which mankind has expended his labours”.He dated its construction at thirty-six hundred yearsbefore his time and marvelled that the lapse ofcenturies had been unable to destroy it. He went onto describe the colossal statues of the gods thereinand the great halls reached by steep flights of ninetysteps. He stated that some of the enormous doorsopened with a terrifying sound “as of thunder” andthat most of the halls were shrouded in totaldarkness.

Beside the careful description of this architecturalwonder, the more famous labyrinth at Knossos inwhich the Minotaur is said to have dwelt appearsvery sketchy in its outlines. Tradition suggests that itwas built by Daedalus, the renowned and cleverartificer and engineer at the court of Minos, theMinoan king. It was designed so as to be impossibleto discover the exit once inside it, and at its centrewas housed the monstrous offspring of QueenPasiphae, to whom the youth of Attica weresupposed to have been regularly sacrificed. Withinthe framework of this ancient story the myth of

Theseus flourished, placing him, the son of theGreek king Aegeus, amongst the youths sent toCrete as sacrificial tribute. Many know the story ofAriadne giving him the sword and thread with whichhe slew the Minotaur and made his escape out of thelabyrinth. But no ones knows the shape of that mazeof corridors or where it is actually to be found. Therooms of the elegant palace of Minos at Knossoswere so numerous and labyrinthine in design thatsome came to believe the palace itself to have beenthe labyrinth. Others have contended that it is to befound in the convoluted passages within the side ofMount Ida at Gortyna.

There, in 1770, an intrepid French explorerdescribed how the dangerous part was near theentrance where, if a man stumbled upon the wrongpath, he would soon become so “bewildered amonga thousand twistings, twinings, sinuosities, crinkle-crankles and turn-again lanes, that he could scarceever get out again without the utmost danger ofbeing lost”.

As far back as Neolithic times, ground plans,pictographs and various emblematic renditions ofthe labyrinth appeared predominantly in Europe andAsia. It came to be a popular design on the coins ofmany Mediterranean people and even appeared asborder motifs around temples, houses and at theedges of garments. The famous Greek meanderpattern is very like the elements of the swastikalabyrinth pattern at Knossos. A rounded version of

this simple unicursal pattern becameconventionalized and was often portrayed on coinsbearing a portrait of the Minotaur. Earlier, Egyptianamulets sported labyrinthine designs with up to fivefalse turns in them, whilst some, like the Minoanswastika, contained a star or moon at their centre,which may have symbolized Paradise regained ordeath at the end of an illusory journey.

Great mystery and dread surround the centre.Death there may lead to immortal life, or it may bedelivered by the hands of the lurking murderer as inan ancient Chinese mystery novel, or by a mindlessfreak of Nature. The centre may be the springboardinto another world of enlightenment, and the pathleading to it may be likened to the world which iseasy to enter but very difficult to leave. The labyrinthis a knot to be untied rather than cut through, and it issurrounded by an aura of difficulty and danger which,nonetheless, lures as surely as life lures the soul intobirth and towards the unknown. One recalls themidnight passage of Damodar Mavalankar who,awakened by his Master, followed him unhesitatinglyalong a lengthy oceanside pathway which suddenlyturned into the sea. There, on a small island, atwisting path and thick bushes concealed theentrance to a hidden building which no one couldhave found unless the occupant wished it.Damodar’s description of the vaulted nature of hisinstructors and of the secrets imparted to him in thatlabyrinthine sanctuary offer inspiration to anyone who

ardently desires to solve the great puzzle of life, butno one can succeed in this until the power at thecentre of the puzzle permits it.

The confusion that one experiences in life’slabyrinth is much like that undergone in a mirrormaze, where hundreds of distorted reflectionscompound the difficulty of discovering thepassageway that may lead to the goal. Themaddening glitter of fragmented thoughts andendlessly changing glimpses of one’s own naturecoexist like a modern gloss painted over the “tragicgardens, with dark avenues of intertwisted ilexesimmeasurably old” that form the buried labyrinths ofour collective karma and our unconscious self. Thetangled web woven long ago runs like anunderground maze beneath the convolutedmovements of our busy lives. But if one understoodthe pattern of the pathway, perhaps one would thenpossess a key to understanding not only individual orcollective twists and turns but what the wholebroader pattern is about in the first place. Somehave thought that labyrinths were symbolic of thesun’s annual or sidereal course in the heavens. Thespring maze dances and sacrificial rites may wellhave originated with man’s effort to greet the sunback on its course to the centre of the sky. Or, as H.P. Blavatsky asserts, the progression of Races, sub-races, family-races and various sidereal and sub-sidereal cycles was recorded by the labyrinths,pyramids and zodiacs of old. Thus, the individual as

a microcosm treads the pathway of a labyrinth whichis both unique to his own perception and reflective ofa broad universal pattern to which all levels of lifeaddress themselves.

Plato used the term “labyrinth” to depict anelaborate argument, whereas Theocritus used it todesignate a fish trap. Lytton Strachey compoundedmeanings by once writing that the prince consort“attempted to thread his way through thecomplicated labyrinth of European diplomacy, andwas eventually lost in the maze”. “Maze”, a word ofScandinavian origin, simply means confusion,bewilderment or dreamy aimlessness and couldnever be given as a name to a gigantic amphibian ofthe Carboniferous age like the labyrinthodont, thoughone may concur that it was an apt term to use inconnection with the prince consort. “Labyrinth” is avery old term which takes its root, la, from a proto-Indo-European source meaning “stone” (as in ,lapis, , or labris). orlabyrinthos means “place of stone”. The term

; describes a stone axe and, married tointhos (a pre-Hellenic word for “place”), meansliterally “the place (or house) of the Stone (double)axe”, the emblem of Minoan culture.

The oldest labyrinths in the world are probablyhidden or forgotten, but pictograms of them amongstAmerican Indians as well as ancient stone andpebble constructions in Scandinavia or groundmazes built by the Zulu indicate that the idea is

extremely old and very widespread. A fascinatingdiffusion of ideas in the Old World resulted in thecommon use of the name Troy to describe earth orturf mazes and labyrinths. In Britain they were (are)called Troy Towns because of the difficulty to beovercome before reaching the centre. The Welshcalled them caerdroia (“the walls of Troy”), which isrelated to Caer y Troiau (“the City of Windings orTurnings”). Troy Towns were also known inScandinavia as “Giant’s Street”, “Troll’s Castle”, orthe “Ruins of Jerusalem”. In medieval Greece theywere often referred to as “Solomon’s Prison”, whichpreserves the central idea that runs through all ofthese examples, which is the puzzling barrier thatmust be followed until an entrance leading to thecentral interior can be found.

In medieval Europe, the labyrinth took on peculiarlyChristian meanings. It was sometimes seen asrepresenting the path of ignorance leading to thedevil (represented by the Minotaur) in the centre. Itsconvolutions became, thus, the entanglements of asinful life. Some church labyrinths, however, mayhave been designed as symbolic pilgrimages forthose who could not (or would not) go to Jerusalem.Most of these labyrinths were mosaic patternsworked into the forecourts of twelfth centurycathedrals and were often called chemin deJérusalem. Others were constructed earlier andsometimes included the motif of Theseus slaying theMinotaur at the centre. Not all were constructed on

the ground, and where people wished to avoid thearduous trip to Jerusalem or even the penitential actof walking along the mosaic pattern, they might turnto wall labyrinths wherein their symbolic pilgrimagecould be made less arduous still - being performedby the rapid tracing of the index finger. At thecathedral of Poitiers there is a wonderful tree-likelabyrinth wherein one exits by the same door oneentered and, while encountering no stops on the wayto the centre, one may have looped the loop manytimes before getting there. The intention behind thedesign is nowhere divulged, but it easily remindsone of the repeated incarnations that seem to berequired of the human soul before enlightenment canbe achieved.

As the intellectual dreariness of the Middle Ageswas replaced gradually by more refreshing andtolerant ideas, imaginative notions intimating theancient Mysteries resulted in the design ofremarkable labyrinthine gardens and hedge mazes.Those fashioned “after the ancient manner” were ofvery complex patterns planned to bewilder andconfuse. A fantastic labyrinth at the palace garden ofthe prince of Anhalt, Germany, allegorically typifiedthe course of human life. It was composed ofhedges, rocks, trees, streams, caverns and tortuousdeep-cut paths that were very dark and oftencovered over. At each turn the visitor was met bysome puzzling or terrifying allegory or inscription or,sometimes, by a beautiful statue or flowery dell.

Some constructions, like the marvellous Labyrinthsde Versailles erected for Louis XIV (destroyed in1775), exemplified grand flights into the realm ofengineering fantasy. There were in this garden thirty-nine groups of hydraulic statuary representingAesop’s fables, each speaking character in thegroups emitting a jet-stream of water. Others, likethat at Hampton Court, were genuine puzzles whichsome tried to thread with the help of a formula.These were often called “wildernesses” in which onecould manage to lose one’s way, a slip of thememory or imperfect transmission of the formularesulting in much confusion. One is reminded of thedelightful episodes depicted in “Three Men in aBoat”, where the over-confident Harris volunteered toconduct a party through the Hampton Court maze.“Well just go in here”, he said, “so that you can sayyou’ve been, but it’s very simple. It’s absurd to call ita maze. You keep on taking the first turn to the right.Well just walk around for ten minutes and then goand get some lunch.” Poor Harris!

In 1886 an elderly English gentleman recalled thelively pleasures sixty years earlier of running the turfmaze called Julian’s Bower, forty feet in diameter.He described how the villagers of Alkborough playedMay-eve games around it “under an indefinite ofsomething unseen and unknown cooperating withthem”. Some of the English Troy Towns are indeedassociated with ancient earth-works and scenes ofmagical lore. This, coupled with their similarity to the

mosaic pavement labyrinths of early Christendomand the patterns of the most ancient designs, lendsto the lowly turf maze the wonder of antiquity and ofhoary practices which, though occult in nature, havealways been known to humankind. Like the city ofTroy itself, they are shrouded in myth and mysterywhich is scarcely dispersed by an etymologicalinvestigation of the name. Many say that ‘Troy’comes from the Celtic tro, which means “to turn inrapid revolution” or to “dance through a maze”, butothers push it back further and claim it may comeultimately from the Sanskrit dru, meaning “to run”. Itis significant that the name was not used by theinhabitants of fabled Ilium itself but was popularamongst others in the Mediterranean world at thattime. In Northern Europe Troy Town was used overfive hundred years ago as a title for the Cretanlabyrinth, and much earlier the Etruscans andRomans made the same connection between Troy,Knossos and labyrinths or mazes of other sorts.

As when in lofty Crete (so fame reports)The labyrinth of old, in winding wallsA mazy way enclosed, a thousand pathsAmbiguous and perplexed, by which the stepsShould by error intricate, untrac’dBe still deluded.

Aeneid V

This description could equally suit the complicatedsteps of the dance celebrated by Ariadne andTheseus on the island of Delos, where they wentthrough the motions of threading the labyrinth. They

were also the motions of the ancient Roman funeralceremonies and of the myriad Troy Dances andGames that tradition preserved through thecenturies. There is much to ponder in Carl Jung’sobservation that many of his mental patients whowere not able to draw a maze were more than happyto dance one for him! An ancient tradition it must bewhich could well up like deeply etched memoriesfrom previous lives. The labyrinthine pattern is morethan just fascinating to people; it is familiar. We haveat some time been there before: in the springmeadow, the corridor of initiation and the fortifiedcity. The labyrinth permits and prohibits at the sametime, and it is a double action we know by heart. Wealso intuitively understand why the labyrinthinedesign on temples, houses and clothing borderscould keep out evil and permit entrance of that whichis in sympathy with the interior. Even the simplevillager of an older England or a more timeless Indiamakes tangle-thread chalk designs for suchapotropaic reasons, never knowing, perhaps, that heis doing what was done by ancient hierophants longago.

Just so was Troy surrounded by walls and blindsthrough which even the persistent Greeks couldscarcely penetrate. Tactical labyrinths havecomprised walls, moats, trenches, ramparts andblinds of all sorts since the earliest cities. The wallsof Jericho were not merely walls but part of a systemof blinds constructed to protect the sacred centre of

a labyrinthine city. Homer, in referring to Ilium,frequently mentioned the “sacred veil” of the city.Troy was called Troy by many because it waslabyrinthine, which is what ‘Ilium’ means as well. It iscertainly significant that in his siege upon the city,Achilles bore a shield on which Oceanus encircledthe “dancing floor of Ariadne”. It is also meaningful torecall that the walls of Troy were often referred to asCyclopean, which literally means “Ring Wall”. TheRing Wall pierced by the Greeks seems to havebeen echoed in the piercing of the Cyclop’s singleeye by Odysseus, thus inviting the intuitive to unravelthe occult symbolism veiled in these shifting legends.The Secret Doctrine suggests that the latter act waslinked with the loss of the sacred Third Eye, and withthe sack of Troy there was surely an analogous loss.For in the crumbled debris of Ilium’s walls lay all thatwas left of the tradition of Mystery Religions andpriestly Kings that marked an earlier Eastern era.

Thus was the chapter on a more antique raceclosed. A circling was made in the labyrinth markingcycles, and a movement towards the West waseffected which heralded a less spiritual yet morecerebral phase in human evolution. In the ancientstory, Aeneas, son of Ilium (Priam), left the ruinedcity of the Mysteries to seek a new polis of the gods.His adventures took him finally to the Land of Death(the West) and Rebirth called Cumae. In consideringthis journey one cannot but think of how themotherland of the East (India) has looked to the

West and experienced Death (loss of spirituality)before Rebirth in our own cycle. In the Aeneid thestory seems to be referring to a subcyclical reflectionof the events affecting a much earlier transition fromthe Third to the Atlantean Race - events which laiddown the pattern for many circlings to come in laterraces. At Cumae, Aeneas goes to the temple ofApollo (the Sun) on whose gate is depicted theemblem of the Cretan labyrinth and the Minotaur.There he is met by Diana (the Moon) and escortedwithin the temple labyrinth down into Tartarus, wherehe learns about the origin of men at their birth andwhither they go at death.

The travels of Aeneas to the “death” of the Westare almost identical with those of Gilgamesh andeven King Arthur’s journey to mythical Avalon. In fact,the plot has been told over and again in culturesaround the globe and clearly depicts the initiationthrough death of the mutable into the immortality ofspiritual enlightenment. The labyrinth often plays amajor role in these stories, for it provides anapprenticeship for the neophyte who must learn todistinguish the correct path. Such practices wereintimated by H. P. Blavatsky, who revealed in the lastcentury that “it is a fact, known to the InitiatedBrahmins of India and especially to Yogis, that thereis not a cave-temple in the country but has itssubterranean passages running in every direction,and that those underground caves and endlesscorridors have in their turn their caves and corridors”.

This was true also at Epidaurus, where labyrinthinewalls concentrically encircled the tholos temple ofAesclepius, and it was probably true at Eleusiswhere a “blind march” was preliminary to fullinitiation. Shakespeare shows the court party in TheTempest as coming through “forth-rights andmeanders”, and in the Gospels, Christ went throughtrials and temptations in the “wilderness” (maze)before fully taking on the mantle of enlightenment.

La means “stone” and the journey into the labyrinthis a descent into Mother Earth. A solar guide showsthe entrance place, but a lunar guide or sibyl leadsthe traveller into the labyrinth itself, just as Ariadneshowed Theseus the way. The labyrinth is presidedover by a goddess, governed by a god and walkedby a man. It is the god who is the Judge of the Dead,whilst the goddess provides the means of reachingjudgment. The thread-soul partakes of her verysubstance and must be followed by man to its solarsource. He makes a journey much like that depictedin the Egyptian Book of Gates, wherein the solarbarque penetrates the first gate in the underworld bymagic and so on to the eleventh gate, where thebarque is drawn “through the body of the Boat of theEarth”. Like Initiates of many other traditions,Aeneas descends into the earth in submission to thesun god (Apollo) and the moon goddess (Diana) inorder to realize a true marriage of heaven and earthwithin himself. Only then can he be fit to establish anew sacred city of the gods and of man. He must

fulfill this initiation in the West in order to establishtherein the ancient Mysteries of the labyrinth and setthe stage for a new mode of consciousness andcollective order.

Alone, huddled against the stone fastness of thetwisting corridors into which he had stumbled, thelost man sat thinking of all these things. He hadcalmed himself and taken stock of his situation aswell as he could. Thinking about the age-old puzzleof labyrinths and the sacred symbolism attached tothem had given him a much needed objectivity andconvinced him that nothing ever happened exceptunder karma, and it was therefore significant that hefound himself in this predicament. It began to dawnupon him that he had entered into the first stages ofinitiation and that it was up to him what he made of itand whether he would succeed in passing its trials atall. Having thus decided, he set about trying to thinkout an actual method of progress that might enablehim to locate the goal of this particular labyrinth aswell as retrace his steps back to its entrance. Herecalled the rather pedantic guidebook he had oncecasually read which advised visitors to hedge mazesthat they should rely upon marks made at nodes(where paths branch off at a juncture). On arrival at anode, the reader was told, “you should mark thatpath by which you just arrived with three marks. If yousee, by marks on other paths, that you have alreadybeen to that node, mark the arrival path with onemark only. If each path at this node is already

marked, you must retrace your steps. If, however,there are one or more unmarked paths leading fromthe node, select one of them and mark it with twomarks as you enter it. You can now make it a rulethat on arrival at a node, one should never take apath with three marks unless there are no pathsunmarked or with one mark only. When one enters aone-mark path, one adds the two marks alwaysmade on leaving a node - making it a three-markpath at that node.”

The details of this approach swam in his head for amoment until he realized that in the completedarkness surrounding him he would not be able tosee many marks at all. He thought of carving them sothat he might trace them with his fingertips butrealized that he could not be sure of markingentrances to new pathways correctly across a node.Stretching out in the darkness, he might put thewrong mark on the wrong entrance and confusehimself further if he looped around and approachedit coming from another direction. He realized thatthose who chiselled out these corridors long agomay well have had a formula outlining successions ofturns to the right and left, but it was not available tohim and he would have to rely upon something muchmore fundamental to find his way. Even in theextremity of his situation he was aware that thepossible methods that might enable him to threadthe labyrinth successfully were strikingly analogousto the mental process he was rapidly having to

adopt. In the end he decided that the only solidapproach would be the long and painstaking one. Hewould have to rely on endurance in traversing thelong course more than he could upon knowledge ofthe way. Thus he began inching his way, one handover the other, feeling every bump and scar in thewall as he went. There was no way he could knowwhether the overall pattern was a unicursal ormulticursal one, and so he could not really know if hispersistence would, in fact, take him on a singlecourse to the goal, or if he would endlessly doubleback through deadends and blinds. He realized therisk but simply decided that there was everything tolose and nothing to gain by not attempting thejourney, and he chose to place his faith on the routeitself.

It was very important to place his hands closelytogether, for sudden crannies provided goodlandmarks if needed, and it was hard to rely upontiny drafts to signal the nearness of a branch. Atcertain points the air made itself felt but it was notalways constant, and he came more and more to relyupon touch as the means by which to gain someknowledge of the terrain. He consoled himself,recalling that he had once been taught that ninetypercent of the thoughts and winds of emotion thatpass through us are irrelevant. They merely clutter upour minds and senses to the point where it is almostimpossible to become single-pointed enough to hitthe mark or find the goal. He resolved that, deprived

of sight and a formula providing a key, he wouldblock out all irrelevancies and focus all hisintelligence and Buddhic perception through hisfingertips. He would rely upon them to give himintimations of the broader plan. Through them thesense of equilibrium maintained in the labyrinths ofhis inner ears would be expanded, and he wouldbegin to feel the balance of the complex corridors inhis aura. As his sense of touch increased, he movedalong more rapidly, almost unconscious of fatigue.He did not know how long he had been moving nordid he contemplate how much further he would haveto go. Nor was there any way of knowing how manyof the possible corridors he had felt his way sopainstakingly along when he heard a hummingsound and became aware that he was approachingsome sort of powerful presence there within thebowels of the earth.

He knew he was approaching the central goal ofthe labyrinth, and it occurred to him that he mightindeed be approaching his death. Rapidly, likeshards of previous fears, pictures of the monster, thesinister murderer, the faceless devouring agent,rushed through his consciousness. But he had cometoo far, schooling his thoughts and nurturing a faithstronger than the chiselled stone around him. Thetortured fears were banished and he advancedtowards what now appeared to be a dim lightreflected off the tunnel wall. Whatever waited for him,even death itself, he would meet it squarely. For he

had given over his whole life to this sacred quest,focussing everything in him upon the threading of thelabyrinthine path until he had become it. Heaccepted it completely as himself and with it,whatever the goal had in store.

Slowly he rounded the corner from whence the lightemanated and beheld before him a thresholdleading through a doorway into a lighted chamber.He stepped forward blindly, unable at first to seeclearly in the new-found light and thus stumbledslightly over the threshold and into the room. There,before him with kaleidoscopic effect, a rapidsuccession of sounds and images accosted hissenses. Crashing towards him, a gigantic bull-headed man raised his terrible club, only to breakinto a million wrinkled fragments which fell limplyonto the floor. Immediately behind where he hadstood, a mirror reflected back the image of astartled-looking, freckled boy who was quicklywhisked aside by the hands of one whose physicalbeauty was surpassed only by the divine radiance ofpure spirituality that shone from his face. The manstared at him and then prostrated before hisradiance. He could not see, for his eyes wereswimming with tears. He could not tell how long heremained there, but he heard the deep melodiousvoice that swept over him and said: “I have waitedfor you a long time,” Back into the sanctuary

of thy fiery heart

I thread my way.

Hermes, March 1984

THE HEART

For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh onthe outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

I Samuel 16:7

Within the utter darkness of the womb the fertilizedegg divides. It divides again and yet again,becoming, in three days’ time, a dozen or so cellsgathered in a tiny ball. Soon an inequality in theirsize marks the beginning of differentiation, smallplanets destined to play their own specialized part inthe scheme of things. Within seven days theminuscule mass of multiplying cells has lodged itselfonto the wall of the uterus, wherein rapid changestransform its expanding shape to reveal the folds ofthe spinal cord and the nodal hood that will becomethe brain. The curving embryo seems to gather itselfaround the core of its being, which pulsates regularlyto a life rhythm which is already its very own. Withinthe third week of its development the foetuspossesses a heart which, by the twenty-seventh day,has four chambers, though it is much smaller thanthe proverbial eye of the needle through which thepure in heart may enter into heaven.

By the eighth week the heart is a tiny replica of thatof the adult. Its cells are replete with genetic datawhich rapidly cross, converge and weave a

seamless structure which takes shape long beforeany other major organ. By two months, coronarycirculation has begun and the now pea-sized organassumes its mantle of tireless sovereign anddistributor of the body’s vital river of blood, withoutwhich life would quickly cease. All depends upon thefaithful pumping of the heart and yet no one is able toidentify the precise point in foetal development whenit begins. The pulsation of the tiny organ isrecognizable at four weeks, but the cells clusteredtogether to form the nucleus of what would become afully shaped heart carry within them the seed of thatpulsation which, even in the earliest stages, is thebasis for a unique individual rhythm. Just asmysterious is the question of when the beating of theheart ceases. Disembodied hearts, even theseparated individual cells of the heart, can continueto beat. Certain separated heart cells commencebeating as they multiply in a nutritive liquid and beginto crowd upon one another. The beating cells imparttheir rhythm to the others until all the cells form asolid sheet of pulsating tissue. Why these certaincells first begin to beat remains a mystery to exotericscience, one which is basic to the question of whatmakes the heart beat at all.

From whence comes the first pulsation that ripplesunobserved through the growing heart? What is theancestry of that beat which heralds the beginning ofa throbbing, to be repeated in an adult more thanone hundred thousand times a day? Those who

disclaim all but empirical answers leave the questionopen and focus instead on the marvel that is theheart itself. They see it as a pump, a machine, awonderful muscular mass whose layers arecomposed of strands of individual cells which are thelabourers of the whole. Linked end to end and sideto side in an intricate network, their individual effortsmerge to create the vital contractions of what is thelargest involuntary muscle in the body. But they areinformed by the heart’s own electrical commands aswell as those of the autonomic nervous system. Inthis lies the uniqueness of the heart as a muscle andas a connector and sustainer of life.

Forty-five hundred years ago the medical wisdomof the Yellow Emperor was collected in a work calledthe Nei Ching, which taught that “the heart is the rootof life” and the pulse of a healthy heart “flows andconnects … like a string of red jade”. Connectingand sustaining life, the heart is necessarily at thecentre. If one judges from its encased position in theanatomical scheme of things, Nature does not seemto have intended that it be probed or even easilyseen. Unseen, it yet was always believed to be theseat of life and, indeed, the link between lives. Theancient Egyptians believed the heart of one life waslinked to that of the next. It was the only organ whichthe funerary specialists left in mummies or its owncanopic jar, the heart being consideredindispensable for immortality. Perhaps this wassensed by Cro-Magnon men twenty-five thousand

years ago when they painted outsized red ochrehearts in the centre of bison and mammoth figureson the walls of Iberian caves. They wished topossess the life-spirit of so great a beast. Theywished to assimilate its power and mystery, notmerely ingest its flesh.

From the Aztec sacrifice of the living human heartto the Hindu identification of its essential nature asthe Divine Centre, Brahmā, symbolized by the lotusflower emanating the whole of creation, the heartreigns as the indispensable connector to the eternaland the sustainer of the temporal. In its pulsation, inits steady, unfailing flux, it has been thought by manypeoples to be the seat of man’s immortal soul. Butsome, like the ancient Hindus, conceived of the heartas the sacred symbol of the One Central Living God.The Mayan tradition poetically speaks of such aDeity in the words of the Popul Vuh:

Alone was the Creator, the Maker, Tepeu, the Lord, andGucumatz, the Plumed Serpent, those who engender, thosewho give being, alone upon the waters like a growing light….They are enveloped in green and azure, whence the nameGucumatz, and their being is great wisdom. Lo, how the skyexisteth, how the Heart of the Sky existeth - for such is thename of God, as He doth name Himself!

The Quiche Mayan called the Heart of the SkyHurakan and believed that the lesser gods createdthe earth through him. Far off in the ancient Easttheurgists anticipated such inspired notions,referring to the parts of the heart as Brahmā‘s Halland Vishnu’s Chamber. They asserted that each

section corresponded to parts of the brain, whilst“the very atoms of the body (as a whole) are thethirty-three crores (in the Hindu pantheon) of gods”.The idea that man is a microcosm of the macrocosmlends special significance to the heart, for surely,some have reasoned, the universe itself must have aheart which throbs and gives it life. In this view, it ismost meaningful to identify that Great Heart with Godand to express the deepest reverence for it, as didthe pharaoh Ikhnaton in his Hymn to the Sun writtenin the fourteenth century before Christ.

Thou didst create the earth according to thyheart.

Plato spoke of the valve action of the heart andhow it was the fiery origin of human passions.Millennia later Matthew Arnold echoed this widelyaccepted idea, writing that man could not kindlewhen he would “the fire that in the heart resides”. Hepoetically suggested that the fire in the heart took itsflame from the spirit that comes and goes and that,somehow in this mystery, man’s soul abides.Aristotle, offering a somewhat more mechanicalexplanation, asserted that the soul’s vital spirit didindeed rest in the heart, contracting and expandingso as to “pull and thrust from one and the samecauses”. Most tribal peoples of the globe have alsobelieved that the heart is the seat of the soul andhave sometimes put this notion to work in alarmingways. Few engaged in massive human sacrificeslike those of the Aztecs, but many people have

practised acts of ritual cannibalism wherein the heartwas consumed as the organ-seat of the victim’simmortal soul or of their potency and courage. Tosuch an end has fallen many a brave warrior, whilstsome, like the thirteenth century Danish crusaderwhose heart was eaten by the Sakkala peasants ofFinland, simply blundered into the unexpected role ofsacrificial offering.

Throughout the ages hearts have been depicted as“broken”, “heavy”, “turned to stone”, “cold”, “warm”,“kind”, “bleeding”, “singing” and “true”. Many of theseepithets have to do with feelings or dispositions, buta “true heart” is something unchanging, suggestingthat Truth is present in an organ capable of reflectingit. The unswerving dependability of the heart is partlyresponsible for this association, but behind that reststhe notion of what lies at the very core of anindividual’s life, the Truth that explains itself. We tryto demonstrate our sincerity by “speaking from thebottom of the heart” and we hope that those whohear us will somehow glean from the tone of ourvoice and the light of our eyes that it is indeed fromthat hidden cave of Truth that our utterance springs.This ancient idea has ennobled the thought andspeech of many people, inspiring the Egyptians tosymbolize the judgement at death in terms ofweighing the individual’s heart against a feather tomeasure truth.

For Mercy has a human heart…

William Blake

Not in the busy mind but in the depth of one’s heartis sensed the Divine Presence at the centre of one’sbeing. Here, the Buddhists say, is to be found theessential nature of Buddha, which is a reservoir ofcompassionate wisdom. The purity andindestructibility of this fount gives rise to the term“Diamond Heart”, which flames forth in sevenstreams of sound and light. This heart truly sings -the music of the solar system singing in the cosmicstream. The breadth and depth of the Heart Doctrinespeaks to the uncluttered hearts of those who arecapable of being profoundly moved by itscompassionate message. Thus the Tibetans cameto accept Buddhism after the Doctrine of the Hearthad been introduced into earlier Buddhist teachingsto which they had been exposed. Howeverimperfectly, they intuitively sensed the completion ofa sacred design. They realized that only through thewisdom of the heart would the hidden Jewel in theLotus reveal itself, the Good Law becoming theHeart’s Seal on all that came to pass. Through theglimmerings of their hearts men and women maycatch glimpses of their connection with the vastitudeof the manifest universe.

The Taoists taught that a realized Sage has sevenorifices in his heart and they are all open. Such aheart is “the seat of Buddha”, wherein all past livesare remembered and where the seven streams flowabove the field of synchronized time and bear theessence of the compassionate nature that, through

infinite sacrifice and renunciation, ever convertsthem into manifest rivers of life. According to GuptaVidya, these are the reflections of the “seven Dhyani-Buddhic rays, which are mirrored by the secondaryhierarchies in the complex nervous system”. Thespiritual heart in man is the link between the heart ofthe cosmos and the beating physical organ withinthe breast. One must think and feel through the heartto understand the ideas of ancient Sages and theirdeep insight into human physiology.

The history of the empirical knowledge of the heartand its workings stretches far back and is strewnwith metaphysical concepts. Four thousand yearsago the Egyptians understood that the pulsemeasured the heart and used it to diagnoseillnesses, as did the Chinese even earlier. With theAristotelian emphasis on empirical observation,thought moved from the realm of analogy andcorrespondence to the concrete possibilities ofvivisection. In the second century, Galen, fromPergamon, served as physician to the gladiators forthe Romans, during which practice his curiosityabout the human body led him to dissect hundreds ofanimals. A skilled doctor, he was also a shrewdadvocate of his methods and became courtphysician to Marcus Aurelius and chief mentor tomedical investigators for several centuries. Hisinfluence was felt by such as Andreas Vesalius, who,in the sixteenth century, “determined to dissecteverything he could get his hands on” and whose De

humani corporis fabrica libri septem became thestandard reference on human physiology of his time.Even such genius as that possessed by Leonardoda Vinci was inflamed with similar curiosity, causinghim to overcome his “fear of living in the night hoursin the company of those corpses” (which he hadstolen) in his zeal to dissect them and study theirinnermost parts. He recognized that the heart was apump with four chambers and believed that theblood in it was warmed through the action ofchurning in order for the vivifying process to takeplace - an interesting mixture of alchemical andempirical reasoning.

There thy Observing Eye first found the ArtOf all the Wheels and Clock-work of the Heart:The mystick causes of its Dark Estate,What Pullies Close its Cells, and what Dilate,What secret Engines tune the Pulse, whose dinBy Chimes without, Strikes how things fare within.

William Harvey, whose seventeenth centurycolleagues were responsible for the little Rhyme ofAppreciation quoted above, was the first torecognize that the human organism contained a fairlyconstant supply of blood and that it circulatedthrough the whole body as a result of the “function ofthe heart which it carries out by virtue of its pulsation,and that in sum it constitutes the sole reason for thatheart’s pulsatile movement”. Thus, with a pragmaticstroke, the heart was categorized as a pump whichmoves more than two thousand gallons of bloodthrough the human body each day, which weighsabout eleven ounces and is about the size of a fist.

Lying beneath the breastbone like a hollow pear-shaped pouch, it is composed of two upper atria andtwo lower ventricles. The right atrium receives thedark carbon dioxide-laden blood and releases itthrough a valve into the right ventricle, from which ittravels to the lungs, where it is cleansed andoxygenated so that it takes on its familiar bright redcolouration. From the lungs it enters into the leftatrium, from which it flows through the mitral valveinto the left ventricle, where powerful contractionspush it out through a semilunar valve into the aorta,its first step in the long circuit through the bloodvessels of the body.

Even to one who merely observes it as a physicalphenomenon, the heart is “the very essence andpoetry of fantastic precision, perfected motion andendurance”. It is composed of muscle fibre whosecells have an abundance of mitochondria which actas power centres, converting food to energy.Electrical currents passing along from fibre to fibrewith ease enable the structural lattice-work ofseparate cells to function like a group that havemerged to act as a single cell. As with the separatedcells from the disembodied heart, certain cardiacmuscle cells of the living heart generate their ownelectrical current, commanding the rest of the heart’sfibres to contract. The valves of the heart open andclose with every heartbeat. They are one-way doorswhose perfect function is responsible for keeping theblood moving in a fast and endless stream. Their

dysfunction can permit a potentially lethal back-up ofblood in the veins and arteries. As each chamberfills and contracts, blood presses against theunderside of the valve cusps, closing them as part ofan endless rhythm of open and close that takesplace more than once a second. Their durability andsteady response is one of the great wonders of theheart.

Heart attack has probably struck fear into theminds of human beings for as long as a sedentaryway of life has tended to prevail. There is no traditionof death through heart disease among the huntersand gatherers of the world, though some are said tohave died of a “broken” heart, like Chief Joseph,who was forced to spend his last years as a captiveexile from his beloved Walla Walla home. TheChinese who were familiar with heart problemsbelieved that by putting bad ideas into practice,humans damaged their hearts (whereas wrongthoughts themselves were believed to cause lungtrouble). Owing to the suddenness of heart attack,people have often identified it with some sort oflightning-stroke retribution, but it is actually the resultof disease attacking the heart’s muscular essence.At least eighty percent of such attacks are caused bydiseased coronary arteries often identified asarteriosclerosis. The heart keeps five percent of theblood it pumps for nourishment. The coronaryarteries drain the vital fluid from pockets formed bythe cusps of the valves and carry it to all parts of the

heart. Small branches of these meet in complexjunctions where a blood clot or buildup of fat orcholesterol can cut off the flow to crucial areas of theorgan, bringing on heart muscle death.

A weakened heart can result in congestive heartfailure, where either or both of the ventricles fail toempty themselves fully during systole. Thus, cardiacoutput would decrease while pressure builds upsimultaneously in the atria and blood is forced backinto the lungs or veins. Besides the narrowing orblocking of the arteries supplying blood to the heart,certain other factors can contribute to its failure.Rheumatic fever affects the valves so that with eachheartbeat blood leaks backward and a short-circuiting of the heart’s electrical system canproduce cardiac arrhythmia. In this latter case theelectrical impulse is blocked or premature and isactually generated from a site other than thesinoatrial node, the heart’s pacemaker. Anotherelectrical circuit problem arises in the form of fluttersand fibrillations, sometimes called electrical frenzies.In its “circus movement” the heart’s electricalimpulses may, as it were, chase and catchthemselves. This produces a chain reaction involvingthe splitting of impulses, and their multiplication canspread out of control, often in the atria.

The human heart has hidden treasures,In secret kept, in silence sealed.

Charlotte Brontë

The systole and diastole of the heart are its

contraction and dilation, its great and constantpulsation. In the Greek, (systole) literallymeans “contraction” or “limitation”, whereas the verb

(diastello) means to “put asunder” or“tear open” and comes from the root ,meaning “to set in order”, “to dispatch” or “array”.With each rippling wave of contraction, the hearttwists a quarter turn and then relaxes. Thiswonderfully complex process is managed in finesplit-second rhythm through the electricity generatedby the heart’s natural pacemaker. Situated high onthe wall of the right atrium, this electrically self-exciting cluster of cells or sinoatrial node has aninherent rhythm of seventy beats per minute. Thebeat of the heart, along with all the body’s circadianrhythms (governing such things as temperaturefluctuation, blood sugar level, adrenal activity, RNAand DNA synthesis and cell division), is innate andpersistent. Before birth the human heart rate isconstant. This stability or lack of periodicity(relatively speaking) persists even after birth, and itis not until the sixth week after birth that the subtleeffects of night and day appear. A clearly definedrhythm takes over only in the latter part of the firstyear (a similar course being followed by the bodytemperature, etc.). With growth, the low point ofthese rhythms moves from the late night hours in theinfant to the early morning hours in the adult.

All organisms must adapt to a temporallyprogrammed world. They thus require an

endogenous master clock which anticipates externalshifts and adapts to them. This process ofsynchronization or entrainment is carried out by thepineal gland, which translates light into melanin, asubstance which has a biochemical impact on thewhole regulatory or autonomic nervous system. Itmaintains the body’s rhythms in phase with oneanother through the hypothalamus. If these rhythmsare not coupled to the external environment,dyphasis occurs, causing both biochemical andphysiological damage. Dance, music, the noisesand actions of machines - all are external rhythmsthat can become so strong as to “possess”individuals and actually affect the synchronization ofthe “internal clocks”. In more subtle ways the aura ofthe pineal gland vibrates with every sensationtranslated into conscious experience. Everyperception is registered there. Gupta Vidya teachesthat the septenary play of light in the aura of thepineal gland is reflected in the heart’s aura, whichvibrates and illumines the “seven brains” of the heart,known in the Buddhist tradition as the SaptaparnaCave of the Buddha.

The blood around men’s heart is their thinking.

Empedocles

With these influences from above and from below,the magic of the heart’s electrical system assertsitself always towards balance. Holding the heart in afinely poised state, the parasympathetic andsympathetic nerves cast “their electrochemical

spells”, slowing and quickening as they compete forthe “loyalty” of the heart. But they themselves aregoverned by rhythms monitored by the pineal glandand work in conjunction with the heart’s own impulse.The balance to which the heart addresses itself isnot merely coordinated with the external physicalworld nor based only upon the unique qualities of theinternal microcosmic world of the human body. Itresponds to the seven rays reflected in its aurawhich are themselves reflections of the “hebdomadalHeart of the cosmos and the secret, spiritual heart inman”. The light which is translated by the pinealgland and which, in its transformed state, has somuch to do with the rhythms of the physical humanmicrocosm is a shadow of the spiritual light thatemanates from the Heart of the cosmos. It is an echoof the Dhyani-Buddhic light that “plays” around thepineal gland and fills the cave of man’s secret heart.

The pulsation of the physical heart is an echo ofthat of the Central Spiritual Heart (Sun), and its rateof seventy beats per minute is a precise fractionalreflection of an overwhelmingly high rate of vibrationwhich is capable of insinuating its throbbing rhythminto every unseen and seen vessel of the entireuniverse. Thus planets, stars, species and races allhave their rate of pulse which is synchronized withthe vaster rhythmic pattern of manifestation. In oursolar system there is a regular circulation of vital fluidoriginating on an invisible plane but percolatingthrough the visible sun to affect the whole of physical

Nature. The sun contracts as rhythmically as thehuman heart, taking “the solar blood ten of its years,and a whole year to pass through its auricles andventricles before it washes the lungs and passesthence to the great veins and arteries of the system”.

The Heart of the Cosmos which is the CentralSpiritual Sun self-generates the vital electricity whichever issues forth the regenerating fluid and everreceives back as much as it gives out. During thesandhyas the Spiritual Sun emits creative light onlypassively. But during active periods of being “it givesrise to streams of ceaseless energy, whose vibratingcurrents acquire more activity and potency with everyrung of the hebdomadic ladder of Being theydescend”. The sacred electric source of life withinthe Spiritual Sun is triple and concealed, manifestingas Seven Fires (the Dhyani-Buddhic Rays) whichare responsible for the seven states ofconsciousness and the senses which are the causesof the phenomena from which the Self isemancipated. Within the Spiritual Sun lies the“reservoir within which divine radiance, alreadydifferentiated at the beginning of every creation, isfocussed”. In perfect mirroring of this the tinypulsating heart within the human foetus is the focalpoint of the descending human monad as it pulsatesforth out of the reservoir of its own ancestralpotentiality into the growing confines of an earthlyform. Just as the visible sun is only a window cut intothe real solar presence which reflects the work

within, so the physical heart reflects the work ofindividuated rays of the Dhyanis which continuallyrecharge the macrocosmic and microcosmicsystems, breaking down, refining material andwashing it clean in the “lungs” of Akashic Space.Weighing in the balance, cleansing and purifying:this is the work of the universal and human heart.

Thus the sun is a heart and the heart is a sun fromthe most ethereal level to the visible and physical.The Spiritual Sun is the father of the human soul andall divine faculties in man expand with the expansionof its light. Surya-Savitri, Creator and Increaser,“Thou art utterly expressed by the rays of the Sun.”This is true if one tunes the whole of one’s being tothe innermost promptings of the heart and enters fullyinto the vast pattern of purification which is the greatwork of all manifested life. The human body is keptalive through a circulatory process which evercleanses and revitalizes. It is precisely this whichhuman beings need to do in their interactions withone another in order to help unite the separatelypulsating cells into a continuous, synchronized wholecapable of establishing a harmonious rhythm inwhich love and truth can become the keynote. To dothis in whatever degree is to become attuned to thevibrating pulse of the Spiritual Heart of the universe.

The diseases of the heart are produced by fear,selfishness and the cruel acts of omission that drainthe world dry of love and leave human mindsparched in a desert of dying hopes and cynicism.

The fear which continually short-circuits the electricalflow within distorts one’s perspective on everythingand encourages the cringing forms of self-protectionand indulgence. Fear and such a cripplingabsorption with one’s own interests are the basis forheartless actions of appalling proportions affectingindividuals, groups and whole nations anddehumanizing all who are connected with them. Togo against the heart is to deny one’s humanity and todeny the One Heart of everything that lives. All thosewho are not utterly without soul know this andintuitively revere the Doctrine of the Heart, which isthe Path of the Open and Loving Heart. EnlightenedSages of every age are united consubstantially in theAkashic essence which flows through their heartsand informs their minds. Through compassion theyare united in One Truth and their hearts are the linksthat connect the members of this sacred Fraternityand which overflow as a purifying and vitalizing tonicfor humanity. Lesser men are bound together bylesser unities. Their hearts filled with pride, desire,exclusive loyalty and love, they set themselves offagainst others outside their circles. “The passingsneer, the epithet of revulsion, and their psychiccorrelations: these are failures of the heart torecognize its own.”

As we look “over the head” of the personality ofothers, into their heart, we can reverse this tendencyto draw only contracting circles. One becomesdeeply moved by what one sees in another’s heart,

for the entire history of the human race pulsatesthere in a unique and ever-poignant cadence. Thereality of one’s brotherhood with every other humanbeing thus becomes manifest. The open-heartedSage who does this is as a child among children, ascholar among the learned and a courageouswarrior among soldiers. He is at peace with allpersons and acts neither in terms of past and futurenor loves and aversions, but in terms of the eternaltruth which flows freely through his heart. O Great Antique HeartThat beats within the breast of man,Never diminished.Never failed.Never broken,Your Divinely Echoed Plan.

Hermes, May 1984

BLOOD Yea, specially that mortal man hath toiled for service of the gods,Who quickly hath brought near Mitra and Varuna to share his sacrificial gifts.Supreme in sovereign power, far-sighted, chiefs and kings, most swift to hear from far away.Both wondrously, set them in motion as with arms, in company with Surya’s beams.The rapid messenger who runs before you, Mitra-Varuna, with iron head, swift to the draught.The true red treasure they have sent, one only son born of the three.They, the immortal ones, never deceived, survey the families of mortal man.

Rig Veda, Hymn XC

In the hymns of the most ancient Vedas, Varuna ispraised as the most lofty sovereign of the ThreeWorlds. As he breathed, so breathed forth into beingthe universe. As he ordained, so the stars andplanets took their places in the firmament. It was hewho caused the solar orb to shine forth. He openedout the boundless pathways for its radiant fire just ashe hollowed out the channels on earth for the riversthat would flow by his command. It was said that no

creature in the universe could wink without him, andhis messengers beheld all worlds as they sped forthat his bidding. None other than Varuna instructed theSage Vasishtha in the mysteries, but his secretswere not to be revealed to the foolish, and only thosefamiliar with his realm could tap his hundredthousand remedies for evil and sin. For he wasextolled as a barrier against falsehood and as onewho seized transgressors with bonds and noosesand restored all who reached him to harmony andbalance.

In later times, Varuna’s position in the Hindupantheon of gods was reduced in importance, andhis cosmic sovereignty was largely usurped by godswhose names became the focal points of thereverential awe felt by the vast streams of peoplethat meandered and moulded the races of the Indiansubcontinent. But the clues of Varuna’s formergreatness can be found in his continuing associationwith water, for water is the designation of space and,on earth, of the electric flow of the blood of life. Thisis why the ancients could claim that “it takes earthand water to create a human soul” and that bloodwas connected with the initial generative power ofthe gods. Thus the gods Brahmā, Adam-Jehovahand Mars are the “red” gods who work for thepurpose of human procreation. In the Hindu tradition,Mars is Karthikeya, son of Shiva, who is “born of hissweat” (Shiva Gharmaja) and of the earth. He is thegod of bloodshed (war) only as a secondary idea

which flows out of a primary cause associated withthe “shedding of blood in conception for the firsttime”.

Spilt blood is the symbol of sacrifice, the mostprecious offering of all. Even in earthly battle orhuman conception there is an element of sacrificewhich echoes the greater act of the gods. Amonghuman beings the intuitive understanding of this truthhas often been inverted in rituals, wherein menattempt to appease or curry favour with the gods byoffering them the blood of living creatures, sacrificingupwards to encourage renewed sacrificedownwards in the form of rain, bountiful crops ormaterial gains. One can recognize in this apersistent attempt to manipulate the laws of Naturefor limited ends. Sacrifice by proxy is a grotesquelydiluted form of magic. Involuntary death in battle orparticipation in conception is scarcely capable ofmirroring the Divine Will operating through the fierylife-giving streams of the sun. The legendary RedKnight in the Arthurian tales provides a truerreflection of the idea, for his colour expresses thepassionate will of one who has mastered both steedand monster. But it is through Perceval that thecritical force of the heart comes to play a dominantpart in the knight’s quest. The very sword which hemust find and wield is lodged in a slab of red marbleafloat in the watery sea. He must grasp its powerfrom the heart in order to slay the monsters (within)that lie between him and the Grail used by Christ to

share with his Apostles his own blood. Faint buthaunting traces of the Red Knight can be found inThomas Hardy’s reddleman, who wanders andwatches and silently endures. From the labour of histrade he is red from head to foot and cast outsidethe circle of common human life. But his heart knowsthe truth that courses through others’ lives andcompassion is his guide in defining his part in therevelation of its complexities.

There is a language of the blood of which peoplespeak but it is also held that blood speaks for itself.In its continual coursing through every crook andcranny of the body, the blood contributes to andtakes from all parts of the whole. This, together withthe fact that men have long conceived of the bloodas bearing the essential impress of the conditions ofcountless ancestors, has caused many to believethat the blood was capable of revealing truth. Thus itwas thought that the wounds of a murdered manwould bleed afresh in the presence of the murderer.Sir Francis Bacon recorded that when King Richard(the Lion-Hearted) was made to stand before hisfather’s (Henry 11’s) corpse, the wounds bled andconfirmed the suspicion of many that patricide hadbeen committed. But a deeper and perhapsunconsciously held reason for the belief lies in theanalogy, perceived since the most ancient times,between the sun and its rays and the heart and bloodin living beings. The penetration into all parts of theliving whole is represented in the Rig Veda as

Varuna, and in man this is seen as that which willnever accept a partial view of things but continuallyseek the Truth in which all conditions andperspectives can be accommodated. The wise havetaught that “so long as man does not attain to thelargeness of Varuna’s truth, he is bound to the postsof the world sacrifice by the triple bonds of mind, lifeand body as a victim and is not free as a possessorand enjoyer”.

Partial and skewed views of “truth” cause one to be“hot” or “cold” blooded and to act in ways unworthy ofhuman beings. Productive of the “bad blood” whichoften arises between people, such views can resultin a kind of cardiac arrest on the mental plane or inpractices even as benighted as blood feuding ordrinking the blood of one’s fallen enemy. Behind themost abysmal acts of man’s inhumanity often lies asuperstitious awe of the power of blood. To drinkanother’s is to steal his or her life-essence. To kill amember of an enemy clan is to “get back the blood”and increase the power of one’s own family. Theterm “blood” is mentioned in the Bible more than fivehundred times, a testimony to the centrality of itsimportance to what was initially a tribal religion. It isoften spoken of as a covenant and in connection withatonement and sacrifice. In Christian as well as othercultures a sign of blood serves as a pact or seal, likethat made between American Indians who cut theirthumbs in order to release and mingle their bloodand become “blood brothers”. The example of the

pact between Dr. Faustus and Mephistopheles hasproved to be of enduring fascination to writers in theChristian world, where the use of blood in acts ofnecromancy has been as plentiful as in primitivecultures. The abhorrence and fear of menstrual bloodis also universal, causing many people to observeremarkable rituals of avoidance during periods whenit was necessary. Pliny referred to this cast-off bloodas “a fatal poison, corrupting and decomposing …depriving seeds of their fecundity, destroyinginsects, blasting garden flowers and grasses,causing fruits to fall from branches [and] dullingrazors”.

The passionate quality of the colour red pervadesthe symbolism of blood, and the vital character ofblood informs the significance of the colour red.Among most people of the earth red symbolizesblood and indicates health, courage, fertility, growthand life itself. Chromatically, the colour redrepresents the end of a series which begins withsunlight and the colour yellow. The intermediatestage is expressed in the green colour so dominantin vegetable life, and with the movement from yellowan increase of iron marks the progressiveinvolvement of light and electricity in matter. Theadvent of the colour red, then, symbolicallyrepresents the furthest extent of sacrifice from theethereal to the material realm, and blood itselfbecomes a pulsating reminder of that profoundlyarchetypal process. More than one hundred

thousand times a day, the human heart (pumpingmore than two thousand gallons or tens of millions ofgallons in a lifetime) reminds us of this. The bloodrushes out of the heart, travelling about one footevery second, following the same laws that apply toground water flowing through the layers of the earthor electricity flowing from the sun through thevastitudes of space. Just as doubling the pressuredoubles the flow and doubling the resistance halvesthe flow of water, so too these factors modify the flowof electricity and blood.

From its entrance into the right ventricle from theveins to its exit from the left ventricle into the arteries,the passage of blood requires two-and-a-halfseconds when the body is at rest, and one second orso when it is being exercised. The heart’s beatingdrives it into the narrowest capillaries, forcing theexchange of oxygen for the dead weight of carbondioxide seventy times a minute. Its passage is swiftand powerful despite the fact that only a little morethan half of its constitution is liquid. Many of its moresolid substances float in a rich sea of hormones,vitamins, enzymes and proteins that are found in theplasma which, composed largely of water, is theblood’s solvent. Plasma contains compoundsuncannily like those of the ancient Cambrian seasthat covered most of the globe over five hundredmillion years ago. It was from these seas that lifeforms first emerged. The first single-celled residentshad circulatory systems as vast as the ocean itself.

Oxygen diffused effortlessly into the cells, and, justas easily, the seas absorbed the wastes. Theevolution of forms from more ethereal types involveda collective participation in breath and circulation.The higher sparks of conscious intelligence waitedin abeyance while this vast process of generalizedphysical exchange took place. The forms wouldevolve for millennia, becoming increasingly complexand inwardly oriented while they waited for a vesturecapable of reflecting the individuating mind.

When the correct form evolved, it possessed anindividual circulatory system similar to that of otheranimals, but one whose rhythm and pattern ofmovement, relative to its centre, reflected a cosmicdesign. As this microcosmic form evolved, the bloodthat gave it life developed various specializedfactors associated with race and long chains ofcausation hidden in the forgotten complexities ofman’s past. Human blood groups with their variousfactors bear a simple one-to-one correspondencewith the genes that are transmitted each generation.These are constant within individuals and notinfluenced by environment or diet or any otherexternal factor. Two parents both carrying the Mfactor will unavoidably produce a child having the Mfactor, whilst one type A blood parent together withanother type B blood parent may produce a type Aor B or AB child. But there are over sixty differentfactors and four major blood types known in theworld, and the chance of two people being identical

in regard to all of them is astronomically improbable.There are what have been called human “bloodprints”, which are as unique as fingerprints andcharacterize an aspect of a particular individual, aparticular karma which speaks, as the blood canspeak, of the history and condition of the indwellingsoul whose body it sustains.

Great movements of human beings, unknown tohistory, can be charted by the geographical increaseand decrease of blood factors. The fact that bloodtype A is frequently found in western Japan(opposite Korea) and diminishes as one movestowards Hokkaido corresponds with a movement ofmainland people onto an archipelago oncecompletely populated by another and much olderrace of people. Some races possess blood factorswhich others do not possess at all, and someinstances of their occurrence seem to be part of acrazy-quilt design that does not readily fit in withbroader patterns of migration. Much mysterycontinues to surround the study of man’s physicalancestry and the complexities of all the meanderingsand matings that have produced the billions ofbodies of the dead and the living. An old Englishproverb has it that “all blood is alike ancient” andthere is much truth in this saying. The blood of ourforgotten ancestors is as vast as time extendedback along the ages to the shores of the primordialCambrian seas. The hot and cold blood, the badblood, the blood of sacrifice, that of the heart’s

wisdom and that of life’s passions flows down alongthose infinitely tangled courses of animal and humanhistory to circulate in myriad combinations throughthe bodies of the living. But it is the humanancestors, forgotten and remembered, who haveimpressed it greatly with the stamp of their lives, forthe blood of animals is little marked by hopes orperversions. Man can affect the quality of blood andits circulation through thought and cause it to run asa pure river of sacrifice or as a stream clogged withimpurities. Oddly, it is in man’s treatment of animalsthat he has often muddied his nature most foully. Thisis particularly true in regard to vivisection and bloodsports. Oscar Wilde once referred to the institution offox hunting as “the unspeakable in full pursuit of theuneatable”, a witticism which points to the cruelty aswell as the absurdity of such a practice. The hostilityand fear towards humans that pervade the animalkingdom is a sad result of the actions of humanancestors who lived millennia ago as well as onlyyesterday. As folk belief would have it, “the blooditself never forgets where it has been”.

The primary function of human blood is to supplyoxygen daily to the sixty trillion cells in the body.Besides this it transports food, wastes and hormonalmessengers. It cools when there is overheating ofthe system and warms when it is cold, and itdestroys alien invaders while at the same timemending and repairing its own vessels. Bloodmaintains the balance of Nature and homeostasis in

man. It is the medium through which the continual re-establishment of this balance takes place and it thusbinds the internal nature harmoniously to the worldoutside. The pressure of the systemic circulation isoriginated by the heart as the blood is pumped intothe large arteries. From there it courses to smallerarteries and arterioles which control the flow to thetissue. From the arterioles it passes through themetarterioles to the sphincter valves, and thence intothe capillaries, which radiate out in minutelydistinguished dendritic fans resembling great coralfans along some exotic submarine reef. The oxygenand food brought to the capillaries pass through theirwalls and enter the interstitial fluid that surrounds allof the body’s cells and then into the cells themselves.As this occurs, the carbon dioxide and other wastematerial in the cells leave and cross over into theblood in the capillaries in an exchange which causesthe blood, which then makes its return journeythrough the venules and veins to the heart, to take ona dark purple colouration.

The blood, passing through the heart, then entersinto the pulmonary phase of its circulation. It is“breathless” as it comes along the right and leftpulmonary arteries leading to the lungs. There itcourses along arteries that divide into smaller andsmaller vessels, threading for hundreds of milesaround and about the millions of tiny air sacs calledalveoli which form the respiratory membranes of thelungs. Molecules of oxygen diffuse through the tiny

membranes of the alveoli into the blood in ahomeostatic response resulting in the equalization ofpressure. At any one time the three ounces of bloodin the lungs are distributed throughout this networkso thinly and evenly that the oxygen/carbon dioxideexchange can take place in a quarter of a second.Air is drawn into the lungs in concert with the bloodrising from the heart, and they meet in perfect timingat the tiny membrane stations where diffusion takesplace.

Excessive carbon dioxide in the blood causes thebreathing and heartbeat to quicken in order to flush itout. Another regulating factor is dictated by the needof tissues and the subsequent signals carried in theblood which cause the arteries and veins of varioussizes to contract or dilate. The passageways containnerves connected to the vaso-motor centre in thebrain, which then signals the nerve fibres to secretea vaso-constrictor or dilating agent. Like the systoleand diastole of the heart, the quickness of thebreath, the pressure of the blood as it flows and therate of the exchanges during the phases ofcirculation, so too, the vessels through which theblood passes reflect a universal centrifugal andcentripetal rhythm to which all forms of life, likerevolving wheels within wheels, continually adjustthemselves.

The Sun is the heart of the Solar World (System) and itsbrain is hidden behind the (visible) Sun. From thence,sensation is radiated into every nerve-centre of the greatbody …

The Secret Doctrine, i 541

If the plasma in blood is its solvent, the red bloodcells endow it with its “functional essence”, carrying,as they do, ninety-nine percent of the oxygendistributed throughout the body. Constituting onlyforty-five percent of the blood, the red blood cellsare, nonetheless, the most abundant cells in thebody. They are sturdy and highly flexible sacs thatcan squeeze through the narrowest passageswithout rupturing. Like plasma, they are partlycomposed of water, but their characteristicconstituent (which gives blood its crimson colour) ishaemoglobin, which they possess in so highlyconcentrated a form that it is almost crystallized. Inaddition to the transport of oxygen, blood has thepower to heal. Unlike any other fabric, it can seal renttissue, magically making its own thread to weave thetorn parts together again. The fibrous threads literally“weave themselves into being” at the site of an injury.Tiny platelets rush to a cut or rupture and swell intosticky, irregular shapes to create plugs as backup,and if their abilities to seal the wound areinadequate, they signal for the clotting process tobegin. So dependable is the blood’s complexelectrochemical potential that the signals arecontinually and faithfully transmitted, releasing theexact chemicals capable of adjusting and mendingcountless times within a human life. It is only in rarecircumstances that the system fails to respond, themost publicized of these being the effects caused by

the condition known as haemophilia, which term, in asort of cruel irony, means “love of blood”. One ofQueen Victoria’s everlasting claims to fame lies inthe fact that she transmitted this disease to a goodmany of the crowned heads of Europe and Russia.

Another important element in blood is composed ofa small but active army of white blood cells(leucocytes), whose job it is to engulf, swallow,“explode”, break down, digest and neutralize anyparasites or viruses that invade the system. Theirproduction in the bone marrow and lymph glandsimmediately increases upon such an intrusion, and adevouring horde is released to engage “the enemy”.They pull themselves along the capillary walls likefoot-soldiers, their tiny pseudopods stretching outwith each step as they advance along and throughthe tissue. Billions may perish in an all out battle but,with the assistance of the antibodies which destroyparticular antigens they have latched onto, they areusually victorious. But the “army” of leucocytes mustalways serve the greater function of the blood. If,abnormally swollen with power, they multiply andaccumulate unnaturally, they can clog the body’sarteries and prevent the bone marrow fromproducing vital red blood cells. Such an army out ofcontrol can result in tragic diseases such asleukaemia or lupus.

They were going to look at war, the redanimal - war, the blood-swollen god.

The Red Badge of CourageStephen Crane

The god of war reigns in the Iron Age. Forgotten ishis primary role associated with ideational sacrifice.His distorted and crippled image is red with lust forconquest and yet can preside over a disease thatstrips the body of its life-bearing crimson cells. Thecauses and result of an age whose hallmarks aregreed and selfishness are often deceptive in theiroutward appearances. Iron lies at the very “heart” ofthe blood’s functional essence. It is the “soul” or“jewel” that rests in the centre of haemoglobinmolecules responsible for the continual oxidation ofthe body’s cells. As always, the body shows its“wisdom” by producing this vital substance in theprotected surrounds of bone marrow (largely that ofthe skull, ribs and spine). When tissue in the bodyruns short of oxygen, a messenger hormone callederythropoietin (“one who makes blood”) travels to themarrow, where it signals a “primitive” cell to comeout of its dormancy and to begin to grow andproduce red blood cells. Haemoglobin moleculesmultiply within them until a saturation point isreached and the nucleus of the cells is released inan act of self-sterilization demonstrative of theblood’s sacrificial character. Looking like a pincheddisc, the red blood cell will live one hundred andtwenty days and then die, forming part of the wasteto be transported out of the body. Like the biblicalcreation of the world, the time required for theproduction of the cells is six days, but with no rest onthe seventh!

Once produced, each red blood cell contains twohundred and seventy million haemoglobin molecules,each of which loads oxygen at the surface of thelungs and unloads it precisely when and whereneeded. The molecules are made up of four chainsof amino acids which form little tangled wheelscircling single atoms of iron at their centres.Sheltered in the rings of the chains (made up ofhydrogen, nitrogen and carbon), the iron is heavilyinvolved in interacting with them (especially thenitrogen). This dissipates its attraction for theindividual oxygen molecules which will attachthemselves to the iron, so that the binding is only atemporary one and the oxygen is easily released atits destination.

And if our blood aloneWill melt this iron earth,Take it. It is well spentEasing a saviour’s birth.

Cecil Day Lewis

The iron binds only temporarily but it must have thepower to do so. The earth may be a magnet, dark asiron, which we must melt away to let the spirit shineforth, but have not those who daily greet the suncalled it Great Magnet? Just as the spectrum,passing from yellow through green to red,corresponds with an increase of iron, so too doesthe sun, passing from its hidden spiritual essence tothe manifest orb in our solar system. Therefore, iron,in its physical form, owes its power to magnetizeboth matter and mind to an essential spiritual

magnetism which (along with Fohatic electricity) liesat the heart of the substratum of being. It is a centralactor in the centripetal and centrifugal pulsation thattakes place in the spiritual, astral and physicalrealms. This is why the god Varuna, who set inmotion Surya’s beams and gave the “true redtreasure”, is called “Iron-Headed” and identified withHephaestus of the iron forge.

Like little suns in the centres of wheels of planets,the four iron atoms preside over the world of the redblood cell. The elements they work with are the fourfundamental building blocks of all manifest life:hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. In occultterms, these provide the basis for the Tetrad, whichcombines within itself all the materials from whichcosmos is produced. From the magnetic point in thecentre of the boundless Circle, to the Duad and theTriad, the One is ultimately involved in the Tetrad,whose symbol is the fourth or visible sun as well asthe four tiny iron atoms in the haemoglobin molecule.In the macrocosmic process the astral realm liesbetween the noumenal Tetraktys and thephenomenal Tetrad. At this level it is Akashic, whilstin its lower expression it corresponds with the lingasharira of the phenomenal world and its chemicalanalogue, nitrogen. One perceives the significanceof the iron atom’s involvement with nitrogen, whichacts to dissipate the binding of oxygen to it. For onthe gross material level oxygen represents pranaand must be free to fly out from the little sun and

carry out its vital role in the sacrifice of life.Someone once asked H. P. Blavatsky if prana was

produced by the lives of the human body. Sheresponded that the opposite was true, that pranawas the parent of the lives. She asked the enquirerto imagine the body as a sponge submerged inwater. The water inside the sponge would be prana,whilst that all around it would be Jiva. When thesponge is removed from the water, it dries up (dies)and loses prana. She went on to explain that everyprinciple is a differentiation of Jiva, but the lifemotion in each is prana, without which there wouldbe no kama. Prana wakes the kamic germs to life; itmakes all desires vital and living. Thus the GreatBreath which breathes out the universes exudes thevi ta l Jivas which course through the electricalchannels of ethereal space and ultimately bring lifeto the very air we take into our lungs.

The vessels within the human organism arechannels for prana as it continually informs the body.Jiva becomes prana when a child is born and firstbegins to breathe, enabling the divine life-spark tobecome an individual spiritual presence. Enteringthe blood as oxygen, it causes it to become brightred, thus bringing the solar spark to its ultimateexpression on the spectrum. A delightful myth in thePuranas explains how this came about through theSage Vasishtha, who requested the sun to come toSatya Loka. Surya said that if he left his place, thewhole world would be destroyed. So the Rishi

offered to put his red cloth in the place of the sun’sdisc, and it is this that we now see in the sky. Soalso, the golden streams of Fohatic electricity whichinform ethereal space become red within the body ofliving creatures. The vast ocean of Jiva finds ananalogue in the plasma of the blood, which bears inits currents the ghostly remnants of dead cells muchlike the bhuts that float in the astral realm. Like theancient Cambrian seas, it is an archaic matrix inwhich the individuating solar design graduallyincarnated.

Man is the pivot where the Great Breath whichbreathes out is breathed in. The little suns of ironthen magnetize it before “breathing it out”, so tospeak, into the microcosm of the body. At this point,the Red God Karthikeya reigns, for his is thekingdom of the manifest world. Worshipped asMurugan, Subramania or Mars, he is the hope ofthose who court fertility and the champion of those inwhom rajas predominates. But he is born of the“sweat” of his father, Shiva, who, beyond the limits ofform, precipitated out watery globules (worlds) muchin the fashion that the “primitive” cell within themarrow would come to be activated to produce redblood cells in man. It is these globules which are therealm of the “red sun”, the red son and offspring ofthe Highest Spiritual Will.

In this way, the “interior work” of the Spiritual Sunmanifests forth. The “sweat” of Shiva, transmitted byhis fleet-footed son, becomes the vital fluid that

circulates through our solar system. Every year theblood of the visible sun passes through its auriclesand ventricles before washing the lungs and passinginto the arteries and veins of the system to completean eleven-year cycle. This is a reflection in a verylimited time of much vaster cycles pertaining to thethird and second and most Spiritual Sun. In man thecycle requires a tiny fraction of solar time but it is, inessence, the same cycle of circulation,demonstrating more powerfully than any otherphysiological pattern man’s position as microcosmof the macrocosm. On earth the solar cave of theheart, in which the Buddha of sacrifice resides, liesin the mountain peaks. It is from these heights thatthe sacrificial streams of blood (water) course forthto bring life to the waiting world. They stream alongendless canals and cross over interstitial seas to bereturned to the lungs of the atmosphere andrecleansed. But it is the heart centres in the worldwhich keep the waters flowing. If it were not for theirconscious participation in the whole sacrifice of life,there would not be adequate canals to carry its fruits,and they would sink in the chaos of the great seaslong before reaching other shores where the needywait and hope.

Without the conscious participation of those whomake of their existence a heart centre, the “cells” ofthe world could not be adequately nourished and theglobal body would begin to dry up like the dyingsponge when it is denied its life-giving environment.

Living in the world, we are not submerged in thewaters of Jiva, and we are dependent upon theextension and maintenance of channels capable ofspreading the spiritual currents with which man’simmortal soul is enlivened and encouraged toincarnate. These rivers of Truth are brought to us bythose who act as extensions of the Rays whichstream forth as the Jivas emanated by their LogoicSolar Source. The Great Lord Shiva is all theseJivas combined, and those who attempt to diffusetheir spiritual sparks in the world are followers of hisexample. They sacrifice through their “sweat” thatwhich they have garnered through the innermostpenetration of the heart and brain. Those who followthese Rays will eventually move towards theirheavenly prototype until they are drawn into thehighest Ray of the Sun.

Varuna guides them because he is the Ether ofDivine Truth that leads from the fiery Son to theInvisible Father beyond. He strikes down evil anddelivers from illusion, like a vast sea in which all isultimately purified or thrown up. Much like theleucocytes which engulf and destroy invaders into aharmoniously operating system, Varuna ensnaresand demolishes the “Sons of Darkness [who] serveself-will and ignorance”. But those who seek afterTruth through sacrifice are delivered from bondageto sin, like a calf released from the rope or a victimset free from the slaying-post. From within theirhighest spiritual centres (shielded by the skull, the

ribs and the spine), such seekers tune their mostsensitive receptors to catch the signal of theerythropoietin, the call of humanity’s spiritual needs.They watch and listen and willingly give forth theliving blood of Truth on whose vast sea they have settheir course. Do not pass that long sought cupAway from my parched lips.Too great the pain that filled it up,Too sweet its ruby sips.

Hermes, June 1984

THE SPIRAL There is a thing confusedly formed.Born before heaven and earth.Silent and void.It stands alone and does not change.Goes round and does not weary.It is capable of being the mother of the world.I know not its nameSo I style it “the way”.I give it the makeshift name of “the great”.Being great, it is further described as receding,Receding, it is described as far away.Being far away, it is described as turning back.

Tao Te Ching

Sometimes in Nature we stand before a spirallingforce which catches us, absorbs us and winds usback beyond the remembrance of beginning to thegreat yawning vortex of the unknown. The whirlingpattern in the heart of a sunflower may carry one’smind along a spiralled curve that spins into the futurethrough the aperture of the past, causing sequentialconsciousness to dissolve and leaving the force ofmotion as the sole reality. Few there are who haveever experienced something like this bodily andlived to tell the tale. In the clutches of a sweeping

prairie “twister” or the ferocious suction of awhirlpool, the spiralling energy of Nature is toooverpowering to permit a mystical journey of themind while still encased in its earthly form. Charybdisdid not, after all, spare the sailors who steered withinher whirling clutches. It was with terror that theirminds were benumbed as they were swallowed upwithin her greedy throat. Few there are who havelived to tell of such a mighty power engulfing themand yet sparing them. Edgar Allan Poe’s descriptionof the perilous adventure of a Norwegian mariner isa vivid account of one such rare event, but few thereare who have ever endorsed its veracity.

The tale was told by the mariner as an old man,who looked back upon the terrifying saga of hisyouth, still marvelling at his survival and at what hehad learnt while caught in the terrible whirlpool calledthe Maelstrom. Long ago he and his elder brotherhad been fishing from their smack off the island ofMoskoe in the depths of the Maelstrom channel. Itwas their habit to cross this channel only in fineweather and only at the turn of the ebb and flood.When the flood was full and aggravated by a storm, itwas dangerous to be anywhere near the place.Boats, yachts and ships had been sucked into itsterrible whirl by sailing too close, and the occasionalblowing and bellowing of whales bore testimony toits inexorable power to drag down to its depthsanything that ventured into the vicinity. Splinteredlogs from trees and fragments of torn boats were

regularly thrown up by the vortex, strongly indicatingthat its bottom consisted of jagged rocks upon whichthey had smashed and been whirled to and fro.

On the day of the terrible event, the brothers,starting back during the calm, were surprised by anunprecedented cross breeze which made itimpossible to achieve any headway. As they driftedin the eddies, a storm gathered to break upon themin its full fury, covering the boat with its hurricaneforce. The mariner grasped the ring-bolt at the foot ofthe foremast while his elder brother held on to anempty water cask lashed at the stern. “No one”, herecalled, “will ever know what my feelings were atthat moment. I shook from head to foot as if I hadhad the most violent fit of ague. … With the wind thatnow drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of thestorm and nothing could save us.” The boat reacheda great swirl of foam and shot off in a new directionlike a bolt, and the roaring noise of the waterchanged to a terrible shriek. Here, strangely, in thevery jaws of the gulf, the sailor felt more calm. Heeven began to speculate upon the magnificence ofsuch a death in the throes, as it were, of such awondrous manifestation of divine power. They flewaround this belt of the whirlpool for an hour or so,moving ever nearer to its horrible inner edge. Asthey approached its brink, the elder brother, in theagony of his terror, let go the cask and wrested thering hold away from the younger, who groped asternto the other’s former position just before the boat

was swept headlong into the abyss.Thinking they were done for, the young mariner

closed his eyes, only to open them and find that theirboat was hanging about midway down on the ebonywalls of a vast funnel which spun them round withoverwhelming velocity. Too confused by thisbreathtaking situation, it was several momentsbefore he noticed that they were not the only objectswhirling about the fury. Fragments of other vessels,masts, furniture and masses of building timberfloated in their company. He watched these infascination, noting that various fragments weredescending downwards at different velocities andthat while one object would suddenly plunge towardsthe crashing foam below, others seemed to remainalmost at the same level. He recalled that, whilstmost of the debris thrown up on the shore by thewhirlpool had been splintered and battered toshreds, some objects were thrown up untouched byany violence. It occurred to him that these fewarticles had never been completely absorbed to thebottom of the whirlpool before the turn of the floodhad come and they had been thrust up to thesurface. Observing the vortex thus carefully andconsidering this remembered intelligence, the youngsailor ascertained that the larger objects weredescending faster and that smaller cylindricalobjects were absorbed much more slowly. He sawthat the boat had descended some distance belowsuch objects and tried to alert his brother with

desperate gestures and signs but to no avail. It wasimpossible to communicate with the terror-strickenman, and the young sailor sadly abandoned him tohis fate, fastened himself to the cask and dove with itaway from the boat and into the whirling wall of thefunnel.

Within an hour or so the boat descended far belowthe mariner and his barrel. It made three or four wildgyrations and, bearing his doomed elder brother,plunged headlong into the chaos below. The barrelhad descended little further than half the distance,when a great change took place in the character ofthe whirlpool. Its sloping sides broadened bydegrees and its gyrations grew gradually lessviolent. The bottom of the gulf seemed to rise upslowly and the winds settled down as the sailor foundhimself on the surface of the ocean in full view of landand above the spot where the grinding depths of theMaelstrom had been. He had survived the terribleordeal. By calm observation of the vortex into whichhe had sunk, he had come to understand somethingabout it and to be carried up by the same spiral thathad sucked him down. Whether he understood allthere is to know of such a phenomenon is not known,for there are many questions left unanswered, manymysteries yet unexplored.

Mathematicians could describe the spiralling forceof the whirlpool to the satisfaction of some, but whatabout the fact that it is a logarithmic spiral whoseradius lengthens at the rate of seven percent per turn

of thirty-six degrees, or one-tenth of a full circle?Does the ratio of seven to ten have anysignificance? What is the relationship between sucha spiral and the two sets of similar spirals found inthe sunflower? What is man’s relationship to such aspiral? Is it death-dealing or life-giving? What is thesignificance of the cylindrical form which remainedrelatively buoyant in the Maelstrom, and what was itin the younger sailor that gave him the wits tounderstand this? The vivid description of hisawesome ordeal suggests many such questions toone who ever looks for a deeper meaning in allthings.

The spiral as a symbol is both ancient anduniversal. Perhaps the ancients understood some ofthe mysteries associated with whirlpools orsunflowers and tornadoes. Perhaps they hadanswers to some of their questions about them andperceived a correspondence between spirals inNature and in man himself. This would seem likely,for in prehistoric art “no ornamental motif seems tohave been more attractive than the spiral”. The mostcommon idea associated with the spiral is that itrepresents a schematic image of the evolvinguniverse. It is a symbol for creation and growth orprogressive development, an attribute of powerfound on the sceptre of the Egyptian pharoah andthe crown of the god Thoth, as well as on the lituus ofRoman augurs. The spiral has always beenexpressed in art and Nature in three main forms:

expanding as in the spiral nebula, contracting as inthe whirlpool, and ossified as in the mollusk’s shell.Since Paleolithic times it has been portrayed asexpanding and contracting, waxing or waning like themoon. The creative aspect of the expanding spiral,which is solar, moves clockwise and was identifiedby the ancient Greeks with Pallas Athene. Thedestructive aspect of the spiral can be associatedwith contraction which, moving counter-clockwise,has been considered an attribute of Poseidon andthe moon.

Helical forms in Nature have always accompaniedhuman evolution. In the mollusk, the growing fern’scurl, the coiled snake, the human ear, the bull’s hornsand the rolled-up form of a sleeping animal,prehistoric and historic cultures have identified andcelebrated the spiral. Some, like that of the NewZealand Maori, tattooed their faces and bodies withspiralling designs of magical power. Others builttemples and even cities in its image. The greatminaret of the mosque of Samarra in Iraq is amarvellous spiralling tower reaching towardsheaven, and the town of Auroville in South Indiaradiates out in a plan resembling a spiral nebula.The Ionic columns of classical Greece and Romewere capped with double spiral scrolls, and thelintels and thresholds of much older sacredsanctuaries were carved in similar fashion in manyparts of the world. The vortical Navajo sandpaintings, the Hopi pottery designs, the Aztecan

carved gods covered with spirals, the spiral tattooson the abdomen of tribal women in Africa, the spiraldances of people around the world - all bear witnessto the pervasive human awareness of the vitalimportance of this form of movement. For ages manhas been aware that the solar systems, suns andplanets are created in a spiralling movement, theinward spiralling of interstellar gas resulting in entiregalaxies. There has been a continuing awareness ofan omnipresent vortical law which operatesthroughout the cosmos and can be seen in water asit reveals in its vortical flow the matrix from whichforms take their being. It has been said that from theinvolution of the unformed waters the egg of theworld was crystallized “by the turning in on itself ofenergy, of matter, or of consciousness”.

The appearance and disappearance of the Universe arepictured as an outbreathing and inbreathing of “the GreatBreath,” which is eternal, and which, being Motion, is one ofthe three aspects of the Absolute — Abstract Space andDuration being the other two. When the “Great Breath” isprojected, it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded asthe breathing of the Unknowable Deity — the One Existence— which breathes out a thought, as it were, which becomesthe Kosmos.

The Secret Doctrine, i 43

Breathing out, the Great Breath gyrated forth andthe Voice in the whirlwind was made manifest.Spiralling forth, the Sacred Word enacted creation.With each outward breath the Divine Principleuncoils, serpent-like, from the bindhu, the seed-pointof the cosmos, and order is thus wrought out of

chaos. With each inward breath it withdraws into itsEssence, and Darkness lies upon the unfathomableDeep. Contemplating this never-ending rhythm ofexpansion and contraction, one seeks for clues thatreveal its identification with the spiral. Is it likeAriadne’s thread carried round and round into andout of the labyrinth? Is it the labyrinth of the worlditself? Is it the gyrating force of Fohat, tying knots orpoints upon a descending spiral of being? Will thesebe untied in the unwinding of that spiral? Does thespiral unwind? Where does it go? Clues lie in thewords used to describe the spiral. The term “volute”(from the Latin voluta, meaning “rolled up”) is used inspeaking of Ionic or Corinthian columns orgastropods with volutoid shells. But it is also the rootof “convolution” (“roll up together”) and “revolution”,which suggests a wealth of ideas related to castingoff allegiance and a great reversal of conditions, aswell as the simple process of motion in an orbit.

Whilst these two terms are suggestive of thecentrifugal and centripetal nature of the GreatBreath, two other terms even more closely pin-pointits spiral nature. The word “spiral” comes from theLatin spira, which derives from the Greek term

, meaning anything wound or coiled ortwisted, like a snake. Some scholars have noticedthat the idea in ancient cultures which associated thespiral with breath and spirit is borne out in theetymological similarity between spira and spiro inLatin and and in the Greek. While

spiro (“breath”) and spiritus (“breath of life”) can beclearly related to “spirit”, the Greek means“to sow”, “to scatter like a seed”, “to disperse and toengender”. Its infinitive use ( ) simply means“to circulate”, revealing a close link in Hellenicthought between the expansion of that which giveslife and circular motion. The continual breathing outand breathing in can be illustrated in terms ofspherical circulation, wherein an unending spiral in aring joins itself by spiralling through its own centre.Such a spherical vortex demonstrates Nature’sperpetual motion, which is ceaselessly expandingand contracting.

One can see these two forces merged in thesigmoid line of the yin and yang symbol and theswastika, which are volutoid in Nature. This sort ofdouble spiral reveals the intercommunicationbetween the principles and can represent two halvesof the world egg, the solar and lunar energies coiledwithin an androgynous whole. But perhaps an evenmore fundamental attribute of the spiral lies in itsdemonstration of the relationship between unity andmultiplicity. Like the cosmos itself, we begin life at apoint and expand out in differentiation, only tocontract inward, once again, to the point. Thus ourcyclic path ends at the seed-point that contains thepotential of the whole. But the point to which we (orthe sun or the earth) return is never the same. Onecould imagine a moving point, circulating in a spiralaround a hidden central point, and consider the

nature of that moving point. Is it the spark of the Onein ceaseless motion through time and space? Whatis the point of its beginning and ending? Is that amayavic reflection of a universal seed whichexpresses itself in the world as necessarily circularmotion operating on two, three and four dimensions?

Thus everything is centre, every centre refers to thecircumference, and vice versa. All creatures do not exist onlyin themselves, in their centre, but in the double undulatorymovement by which they receive everything and transmitthemselves everywhere.

Georges Poulet

The greater spiral of existence conies from andreturns to its Source. It demonstrates cycles ofchange within its continuum and the alternation ofpoles with each cycle. It embodies expansion andcontraction made manifest through changes invelocity and the potential for simultaneous movementin either direction towards its extremities. Thuscentre and periphery on the spherical vortex flow intoeach other. The One which is omnipresent can befound in the concentrated point in motion. Spheres,belts or layers through which man has to pass in hisevolution are really spirals accommodating thedimensions of time and space in manifestedexistence. The point in motion, so to speak, is acentre in its own right, a centre whose orbit is clearlytied to an invisible noumenal point. The relativebeginnings and endings on the spiral course aremayavic increments marked by a consciousnesswhich is enthralled in matter. God is both immanent

and transcendent. The movement through the three-dimensional spiral goes towards the Divine withoutand within. The outward-seeming journey of Percevalor Perseus is the same journey depicted by Dante’sinward spiralling mountain or the yogin’s meditationupon the seed-point of vision that rests between hiseyes.

The journey is that of the immortal soul and itbegins, relative to one incarnation, with thedownward serpentine spiralling on the tree of life, theinvolution of spirit into matter. In this sense, manbecomes the spiral. The spiral can be said to becomprised of man’s awareness. For just as mancannot walk upon the Path until he has become thatPath itself, so too he must grow wise in hisunderstanding of the vortical laws in order to moveinwardly and outwardly along the spiral. In a sense,the earth itself demonstrates this double motion, forit too illustrates the deepest involution of spirit intomatter in the lowest trenches that carve the oceanbasins. In almost exact balance to these are thegreat Himalayan peaks rising up as high as they aredeep. The double triangle suggested by this globalbalance can be translated three-dimensionally intothe circular motion of what initially would seem to bea double spiral but which is more accuratelyillustrated by the form of a spherical vortex.

The journey of the soul involves it initially insuccessive windings as the individual egoicconsciousness crystallizes. The continuum of the

spiral becomes objectified with tiny spiralsbranching off like coiled twigs. In the return to theawareness of the continuum itself, subject and objectonce more become one and the extremities of theindividuating process atrophy or blend back intototality. In attempting to assist this progress, the soullearns from the ubiquitous presence of spiral motionin the world. As a scholar, it may learn of the spiral ofArchimedes, wherein the point recedes uniformlyfrom its origin, or of hyperbolic spirals, wherein theradius vector varies inversely to angulardisplacement. But it is more likely to be arrested bythe equiangular spiral revealed in so many growthsand shapes in Nature. The equiangular orlogarithmic spiral illustrates the principle of growthenabling an increase of size accompanied by anunaltered shape. In this dynamic process eachincrement of length is balanced by a proportionalincrease of radius. Observing the glorious sunflower,the soul comes to realize the inner significance ofthis through noticing the two sets of superimposedequiangular spirals etched out by the pattern of theflower’s seeds. One describes a right-handedmovement, the other a left. The awakening soul maythus perceive the nature of its own journey andmarvel at its echo in physical form. The numbers ofspirals represent adjacent Fibonacci numbers:twenty-one clockwise and thirty-four anti-clockwise,demonstrating the arcane Golden Ratio of 1:1.618,which repeats itself in patterns of growth throughoutthe whole of Nature.

The individual whose ears hear with the sharpenedfaculty of the awakening soul may discernincrements in sound reflective of the expanding andcontracting logarithmic spiral. The rate of change ofwavelength for each note on a descending musicalscale of twelve semitones is 1.618 times the semi-tone above it. Plotted as a smooth curve on a polargraph in which the radii, separated by fifteendegrees, are proportional to the wavelengths, oneobtains an equiangular spiral. Observing suchremarkable demonstrations, one may truly assertthat beauty in mathematics is not built upon anartificial basis, but grounded in the beauty of thenatural world. For the law of biological growth - ofplant or animal or of any part of such - is anexponential law, a vortical law to be understood asanalogous to the soul’s pilgrimage in and out of theworld.

The soul’s involvement in matter is marked by theemanation of Shakti from the seed-bindhu (Shiva) ina spiralling downward into the body where thecreative energy becomes latent. With the unfoldmentof the soul, the Shakti-power rises and awakens thechakras so that they readily transmit her energy intoprogressively finer vibrations. This is what theBuddhists refer to as “untying the knots in inverseorder”. The spiralled single horn of the unicorn, whichappears in so many cultures, represents the samenotion of a penetrating spiritual force (connectedwith the bindhu-point of the Third Eye) which is

capable of being subdued and directed only by thepower of a pure, virginal nature. The journey back tothe One point is made possible by the awakening ofthat pure Buddhic nature which sees thecorrespondences between the sunflower pattern, thegrowth of the human body, the whirling forces of lunarand solar consciousness within the mind and themacrocosmic spiral which unifies all these. Only withpure Buddhic perception can the seeming oppositesbe transcended and analogous points along thespiral provide one with recollections of patternsalready mastered in the past. One can then begin toacquire conscious understanding of the vortical lawsgoverning spiritual evolution.

The whirling dervish begins his dance with armsfolded over his breast. Moving his right foot out, hebegins to turn like a planet on his own axis, his armsgradually expanding outward as he gathers speed.Faster and faster he spins, bringing the spiritualdown to the earth while his own spirit soars upthrough the still centre within him. He becomes thespherical vortex in which the forces of expansion andcontraction are translated into a perpetual continuumbetween unity and multiplicity. Without spinning thuswith the outward physical body, the serious disciplemust pass through analogous stages in hismeditative efforts to align and merge himself with thebindhu-seed of spiritual awareness. As heapproaches a point within him where the vortex ofawakening potential power begins to exert its pull,

he may well experience a great gyration similar tothat undergone by the mariner, who shook soviolently when he perceived the Maelstrom beforehim. The higher mind must take care to preservecalm at this point and rely upon the knowledge it hasaccumulated through many windings of its spiralledincarnations. Informed by the immortal soul, it canrecognize the Path it has followed to reach the samepoint on another winding and master the forces inthe light of things learnt in a former life. The more thisis done, the steeper the gradient that measures itsgrowth. Such points of awareness provide glimpsesof the deeper recurring pattern. They can serve askeynotes of initiation whereby the decisions madecritically affect the subsequent cycling.

From narrow, obscure knowledge the mind passesto larger understanding. It gropes and fumbles aboutand suddenly, at the passing of a certain point, itsees. Poe conveyed this as the replacement of thehorror of ignorance by an even greater horror ofknowing. The mind now knows. It is stripped ofnagging doubts and vain hopes and clearlyperceives the cycles of inexorable causes andeffects that encircle it. Whirling dizzily in the vortex ofthese, without a ghost of a chance of escaping theirterrible and most logical concatenation, the soul aspilgrim and mariner faints and the mind is plunged inblackest despair. But if a point of awareness isgrasped firmly, even in the wildest gyrations whereone feels utterly overwhelmed by forces swirling

within and about him, the saving memory of theimmortal soul can operate. The point in line withpoints on another winding reveals the presence ofthe past in the present and the immediacy of both inwhat we call the future. True memory bringsforeknowledge, the foreknowledge of the becalmedsailor who, while spinning down within the funnel ofthe Maelstrom, remembered that some objectsescaped the vortex unscathed, whereas others weresmashed to pulp. Even in the jaws of that terribleoblivion he calmly remembered and observed. Hisdesire to understand and his awareness of theultimately divine nature of all power in the cosmosoutstripped his fears and the maniacal desire forphysical survival exemplified in the action of his elderbrother, who blindly wrested the iron ring from hisgrasp. Becalmed by remembered wisdom, he sawwhat it was that he had to do.

Alcemon, pupil of Pythagoras, thought that men diedbecause they could not join their beginning to their end.

William Butler Yeats

The pilgrim and mariner and hero - all must find theway to travel back along the same spiral thatinvolved them in the first place. He who would knowthe origin of things must also understand theirdissolution. The wild chaotic spirals of the snakes onMedusa’s head must become the ordered spirals ofthe Buddha’s curls if one is to understand and avoidthe deadly extremes of the whirlpool of self. Thegreat spiral force of the outbreathed world cannot be

avoided or negated. One is in the whirling stream ofits all-informing energy as surely as one is in a bodilyvesture. To go backward against this is to goagainst the order of things. One must learn, instead,to trust the vortical forces and lighten one’s load inorder to move wisely with them. Letting go of theextremities of individuation is like the mariner lettinggo of the ring instead of grappling with his brother forit. Letting go of identification with name and form islike letting go of the doomed ship and trusting to theknowledge that has arisen from within. The cylinder-shaped barrel to which the surviving mariner lashedhimself is symbolic of the zero to which one canreduce the angularities of the persona. By mirroringthe greater circle of vortical power itself, one canavoid being sucked down into the destructive depthsof egotistic identity where, hugging and clutchingone’s little boat of self, one is smashed life after fear-ridden life.

Going on means going far,Going far means returning.

Tao Te Ching

Like the dervish, spinning faster and faster, onecan move with assured fleetness through themaelstrom of life. Expanding outwardly the cleansingaura of spiralling spiritual energy, the mindcontracted in calm meditation upon the seed of spiritcan merge with the soul and soar up in consciousunderstanding to its divine origin. Life involves themany spiral windings made by oneself as one

plodded along. Going on does mean going far, butnot in the same circle over and over again. Throughcompulsive desire and careless wonder one fallsalong the windings of one’s involving spiral. But bymarking the recurring points, by remembering andtrusting one’s Buddhic awareness of the connectionsbetween these points, one may return.

Going far requires great courage and calm, and hewho hugs the shore may perish yet out of fear of thejourney. Far out there on the great deep lies thetesting of our fears. Opening up its terrible jaws assome unexpected wind rushes onward, the whirlpoolof personal destruction threatens to obliterate thevery purpose of the journey undertaken. Going so far,the pilgrim who would return to the other shoreknows that its ferocity can be endured andconquered, that with the calmly spiralling wisdomwithin him he can rise up through the still centre ofthe vortex to the Divine Source of his own Beginning. For this is the Path we have followed before,The spiralling trail which borders the chasm;That leads aloft past the dragon’s lair,And returns us whole to the other shore.

Hermes, September 1984

THE SHIP

There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hastmade to play therein.

Psalms 104:26

White arching wings rose slowly over the curvingedge of the world. With majesty they rose, billowingupon tall masts, driven by easterly winds fresh out ofan endless sea. Those whose eyes watched from anundiscovered land trembled and believed that thegods approached. Closer they came, bearing downupon them from greater and greater height, splittingthe waves and bristling with airy power. At the timeof his voyage to the New World, ChristopherColumbus attempted to describe the wonder thatseized the Caribbean natives with the arrival of hisfleet. He wrote that “they know neither sect noridolatry, with the exception that all believe that thesource of all power and goodness is in the sky, andthey believe very firmly that I, with these ships andpeople, came from the sky, and in this belief theyeverywhere received me, after they had overcometheir fear”.

The gods of many an ancient religion werebelieved to sail the skies in heavenly ships. Inspiredby this almost universally shared notion, the Indiansimagined the Spanish ships to be portable shrines in

which the immortal ones navigated the celestialseas. Had Columbus’s men shown equal recourseto sacred themes, they might well have recalled thebiblical passage which speaks of the Lord as one“who layeth the beams of his chambers in thewaters”.

Even as they made anchor and lowered their sailsin the island bay, a few may have recalled near-forgotten childhood stories of the Egyptian Barque ofa Million Years, in which the sun-god Ra traversedthe heavens, or the tale of ivy-crowned Dionysusreclining in his dolphin ship with its Tree of Life mast.A few may have remembered such things whenconfronted with the expressions of awe andreverence in the faces of their island hosts.

There is an old saying, whose origin nobodyknows, which states that “the three most beautifulthings in the world are a full-rigged ship, a womanwith child and a full moon”. Surely the windblownsails of a graceful ship seem to expand withgenerational promise. Her hull is like a shelteringwomb carrying seed across the vaster womb ofchaos to a promised land. The Egyptians envisionedthe ship of the sun making its voyage through dailyadventures with various adversaries. But sailing thesubterranean abyss of the ocean at night, its perilsincreased. They believed there were two ships tocomplete the journey: Me’enzet by day andSemektet by night, when the spirits of the dead wereawakened by the solar light and arose to draw the

barque on its course. Thus, the full cycle of thejourney involved two aspects of the solar barque.The daytime voyage was self-propelled, but thesubterranean voyage entered the lunar realm ofmortality, where it had to be helped on by the soulsof men. Centuries later the Vikings would build shipsthat had an uncanny resemblance to the solarbarque of Ra, but they did not always sail with thepromise of a woman with child or the full moon. Theythemselves were not fearful of death, and their blacksails bore for them only a sense of daring as theyhunkered on board beneath them. But many astranger stood on the shore and dreaded theircoming. For them it was no solar light that nearedbut the perils of the long, dark night.

Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!For you will need it.For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

D. H. Lawrence

Ships carry the seed of promise but they also bearthe dead across the unknown waters to the worldbeyond. They leave far behind the known and theordinary. They go beyond all recognized landmarksin an uncharted course and thus become a powerfulsymbol of transcendence. They are like the raft inBuddhist teachings which enables the disciple tocross the ocean of experience to the shores ofenlightenment. Many of the prow-shaped curves ontemples and houses in various parts of the worldartistically assert this longing for transcendence,whilst some more primitive people simply place

small ships in their entirety atop their roofs. The oldidea of the ship of fools inverts the symbolism bysuggesting sailing as an end in itself instead of thenotion of sailing in order to transcend.

Our life is closed - our life begins,The long, long anchorage we leave,The ship is clear at last - she leaps!She swiftly courses from the shore,Joy! shipmate - joy.

Walt Whitman

Sailing off across the flood, what is the ship thattravels on when ordinary life is done? Is it the barquethat bears the seed of life’s next play upon theboards? Is it Aguirre’s ship of death toppingAmazonian trees, or the ark that Ravan saw in hishaunting ancient dream? As the demon kingwatched from lofty Lankan towers, he discerned anobject looming through the darkness. He felt at firstrelief to see what appeared to be a barque comingtowards him, but there was “somethingsupernatural… in this dim phantasmal ship. Itsoutline is nowhere sharp and firm, but wavy andragged, like a swaying cloud; it has neither helm norsails, and appears to move and to stop at will. Thereare human figures on board; but they appearshadowy, and almost transparent; they neither speaknor move, but seem wrapped in Samadhi.” Pulled byMatsya’s strength, this was the ark in which the germof Nature floats upon pralaya’s abyss. It was theargha, the crescent-shaped moon of Diana, whosewake is the umbilicus connecting the old with the

embryos of the new race. It was the vessel of rebirth,the sarcophagus afloat in the king’s chamber, fromwhich the novice rises up initiated into the arcanemysteries. And those who ride in it, in shadowytransparency, are the Rishis who never sleep.

On the distant horizon, on a lowering day, Vikingships may also have seemed outlined in clouds. Butno phantom would they be, nor would those robustadventurers have been wrapped in meditativesilence. Theirs were the “longships”, whose prowsrose to a high spiral, ending in a serpent’s head. Thetop of their stern-post was their tail, the whole shiplooking like a fabulous monster breasting the waves,its head and tail glistening, its body filled with men.The biggest vessels of Knut the Great were nearlytwo hundred feet long, and so fearsome was theirmien that in A.D. 930 Ulfljots laws decreed thatsailors must not approach land with the figureheadson their ships. It was ordered that they be taken offso that the land-vaettir would not be frightened bytheir yawning jaws and grimly gaping heads.

Such ships were the Vikings’ supremeachievement, the pinnacle of their culturalexpression, their delight and most treasuredpossession. The unearthing of the Gokstad shiprevealed a vessel with a mast forty feet high, whichwas rigged with a square sail in its day. Its stern andstern-posts being composed of a single piece oftimber, it possessed a true keel and its rows ofplanking overlapped each other in a clinker-built

design. When built, its strakes were caulked withtarred rope and lashed to the ribs by withes passingthrough cleats cut from the strakes. Sixteen pairs ofnineteen-foot oars were used to propel this ship, andan eleven-foot-long rudder fastened to the starboardquarter by stout riveted cleats was used to steer it.This was done by means of a thick rope that ranthrough the ship’s side, the cleat and the rudderitself. When Captain Magnus Andersen sailed afacsimile of the Gokstad ship to America in 1893, heclaimed that the rudder was a work of genius andthat a man could steer with such a tiller in all kinds ofweather without the least discomfort.

What the temple was to the Greeks the ship was tothe Vikings, and at places like Gokstad, Tune orOseberg great mounds concealed the nauticaltombs of chiefs and kings. Ship burials followed theexample set by the myth of Haider’s funeral, in whichit was said the god’s corpse was brought to the seaand placed on a pyre in Hringhorni, the greatest of allships. The boat was thrust upon the water by thegiantess Hyrrokin and the pyre was kindled as itfloated out. Nanna, his wife who had died of grief,was placed beside him in the blaze, a Nordicversion of suttee oft repeated by the Vikings. Ofthose ships that burnt while floating out to sea, thereremains no trace. Only from evidence found in thoseburied on land and from the remarkable descriptionof a tenth century Arab scholar who witnessed aship’s burial do we learn about the practice and

come to realize more deeply how central a part theship played in the life and death of these barbarouspeople.

When the Vikings spread south, they came asseamen so deeply inbred with the spirit of their shipsthat they seemed a new kind of people. Theirs werecertainly not the first vessels to open up new worldsof trade or conquest, but never before had oceancraft embodied the very essence of a culture. Theancients of the Mediterranean tended to feel only aguarded enthusiasm for ships which were treadmillsfor oarsmen and torture chambers for passengers.By contrast, the Vikings took to their ships for thegay pursuit of perilous conquest and rolled down thewater in vessels sporting glorious carvings andheroic lines expressive of their loftiest aspirationsand deepest feelings. They entered a world whereinthe splendid barques of gods and pharaohs hadlong retreated into the mists along with the earliestRed Sea trading ships and galleys rigged for war.The development of the great Phoenician art ofseamanship had already taken place more than twothousand years before, when, led by a “canny,unimperial intent upon profit”, they had constructedsuperior cargo carriers in which they sailed the EastAfrican coast.

The earliest vessels were fashioned of hollowedtrees and paddled along rivers and the edges oflakes. They were followed by the skin boats (thecoracles) of the Stone Age Norsemen, who fished

twenty or thirty miles offshore to ninety fathoms.Rudderless and paddled on the rough andunpredictable seas, they scurried over the hills andvalleys of Atlantic-born rollers from the northwestcoast of Norway to the outer Skerries. Severalthousand years later, in calmer seas, the Egyptianswere carrying three-ton cargoes in thirty-five-footpapyrus reed boats. They paddled and steered withan oar in the relative calm of the Mediterranean andeventually developed acacia-planked vessels in thesame shape. Trading with India, East Africa andPersia, they evolved true oars that proved efficientenough to inspire the notion that superimposed rowsof oarsmen could double and triple the ship’s power.Thus were born the multibanked galleys, the biremesand triremes of the Levant and the Greek isles.Those were the days when the fortunes of galleyslaves depended desperately on the fleetness oftheir ship and chances of war. The ram on suchwarships was their chief weapon, and slim indeedwere the chances of men chained to their oars in thebottom tiers if the side of the vessel was breached.A typical Greek trireme ran a narrow length of onehundred and thirty feet and carried one hundred andseventy oarsmen, working oars of three differentlengths on three levels. Slim and flexible, they cutthrough the bright sea with their crowded, disciplinedoars, simultaneously lifting and dipping in time to themetronomic notes of a flute. They could achieve upto eight knots in speed and must have provided anawesome study in motion.

During the reign of King Sahure (2480 B.C.), thepassage up the Syrian coast, into the eye of thenortherly wind, required much rowing. But on the wayback the masts were hauled up, and with square sailset they ran before the Westerlies. Such palm ormatted-leaf sails had been around for centuries, andtheir invention set the stage for the essential story ofships and seamanship, having at its heart thestruggle with the wind as a major mode ofpropulsion. The Mediterranean galley was highlyspecialized and confined to coasts, owing to its sizeand the provisional needs of the many men aboard.Such a vessel could never have won the freedom ofthe oceans available only to a craft that could movequickly enough and carry enough stores to survive along absence from land. But with sails the need forsteering arose, rudimentarily accomplished bysweeping oars towards or away from the ship’ssides. From this, side rudders evolved,necessitating the team-work of helmsmen controlledby a master, who guided them as though conductingan orchestra through the waters. The Roman cornships, one hundred and eighty feet long, possessedtwin quarter rudders, which evolved into the larger,deeper rudders in the classical Mediterranean formof one per quarter. To hold against the wind andocean currents, anchors of stone or of bags ofshingle with a trip-line were developed, and mastsboth collapsible and stationary were raised to fiftyfeet or more.

Believed to act as a magical axis between heavenand the sea, masts were identified with the Tree ofLife and often given special treatment at the time oftheir construction. Even in later medieval timesGerman shipbuilders held that Klabautermann (thehelpful spirit of the ship) dwelt in the mast made froma tree which, as a sapling, was split in order to passa sickly child through and then joined together again.If the child died, they believed its soul passed intothe growing tree, which then took on a peculiar formand was eventually cut for a mast. When the mastwas fully rigged, they referred to its beauty as a livingspirit, which was raised in spring and lowered inwinter in the stormy northern seas.

Sailing ships sail with the wind and the tide. Thewind commands. It gives the power and creates thelimit, but men have learnt that, within the parametersof obedience they can win a subtle victory. Like astudy in the operation of the free within theframework of the cosmic will, the sailing shipcourses the ocean span. Of all creations made tomove man where he will, they are the most noble andbravely poised on the fine line which separates thedivine from human design. Driving ocean-goingships along this line, the square rig was well adaptedto gather the great steady belts known as the tradewinds. Square riggers, as they came to be called inthe fifteenth century, sported from two to four mastsand six basic sails: the mainsail, main topsail,foresail, fore topsail, a lateen on the mizzen-mast

and a small sail under the bowsprit. Various modesof rigging came to be identified with vessels rangingfrom ships proper to barques, brigs, schooners,ketches, cutters and yawls. They could be used ondifferent hulls for varying purposes and sometimesmade a significant difference in speed ormaneuverability. This was often lacking in earlysquare riggers whose fo’c’sle (forecastle) andaft’c’sle (aftcastle) were very high and cumbersomeaffairs, built as floating fortresses for the cannon’sadvantage in warfare. Such vessels had lost theelegance of the Viking ship’s sleek lines or thegracefulness of early Greek galleys. They sportedfigures of impressive monsters or angels on theirbows but often resembled heavily bustled ladieslumbering over the swells.

The image of a beautiful woman is the proper ending to asailing ship’s bow…. A windship should have an amazon ora valkyrie.

Bow ornaments were very important to sailors ascharms and as that to which they entrusted theirlives. They thought the figure, like the ship’s name,conveyed the life of the vessel, its uniqueindividuality. Joseph Conrad once described agathering of tall ships at a South China Sea quay. “Itwas”, he wrote, “a noble gathering of the fairest andthe swiftest, each bearing at the bow the carvedemblem of her name as in a gallery of plaster casts;figures of women with mural crowns, women withflowing robes, with gold fillets on their hair or bluescarves round their waists, stretching out rounded

scarves round their waists, stretching out roundedarms as if to point the way; heads of men helmetedor bare; full lengths of warriors, of kings, ofstatesmen, of lords and princesses, all white fromtop to toe; with here and there a dusky turbanedfigure, bedizened in many colours of some EasternSultan or hero.” Whatever gender the ornament,sailors everywhere address a ship as beingfeminine and would agree with a famous navigatorwho once said that ships were all a “wayward she”and needed handling accordingly. Certainly, asailing ship is an exceedingly complex, sensitive andcapricious creation, borne up by an equallyunpredictable mother sea. Her close associationwith the wind gives her a masculine aspect, but herhull and rigging are constantly giving and swellingand creaking and displaying all the changeabilityand moods of the moon and of all that is feminine.But does she carry a solar cargo? Will she bringonto that foreign shore all the promise that herwinged sails and bow ornament suggest?

Without the sail real ships would not have been evolved;without real ships the continents and their people wouldhave remained separate entities.

Elis Karlsson

The people of the New World, and later of thePacific, must have thought the European ships thatrose over the horizon before them were like envoysof the solar deity they all worshipped. Like thenatives that greeted Columbus, they welcomed thewhite-winged vessels to their shores and believed

that a divine wind had wafted them hence. Painfulthough the fruits of these encounters would prove tobe, they were the first lines cast out upon the deepthat would eventually knit together races that hadlived in largely separate worlds. The wind, Pravaha(the mystical force that gives the impulse to andregulates the course of stars and planets) hadguided ships through the ocean, like tiny islandsbrought into contact with spheres revolving in thewaters of space. The business of connecting theseven seas and the seven continents and races hadbegun. Like spiders blown by the wind from one treeto another, the ships connected the subtle magneticwebs which had been traced ages prior by theinstrument of karma.

O keep us from the Sailing GodsThat they bring not death and disease among us.

Old Samoan Prayer

By the end of the sixteenth century English andDutch ships were in a position to challenge thePortuguese domination of the Far East. The RedDragon Fleet of the East India Company had setabout the business of war and trade, and the Dutch,in spite of having no trees in their homeland, hadrounded the Cape of Good Hope in their lightly builtEast Indiamen in large numbers. By 1610 there weresixteen thousand Dutch ships trading wherever therewere ports. To navigate they used rutters, cross-staffs, and compasses eventually fixed with anadjustable double card so that the needle could be

turned at will to offset variation. From the Cape theyoften passed inside Madagascar, before sailingeast with the monsoon, along the Maldines andfinally up to Goa. The British came from east andwest, rounding Africa or braving the murderous one-hundred-and-twenty-foot waves that rolledunchecked below Cape Horn. They plied their trade,fought their competitors and divided the spoils wonfrom the treasures that flanked the Celebes, the Suluand the South China Seas. Along Sumatra’s jungledcliffs they sailed the Strait of Malacca to KualaLumpur and Singapore and Sarawak’s riveredshores. Their ornamented prows rounded each isleof the Philippines and penetrated the harbours ofChina and Japan. The connecting lines were thusdrawn down the winds, and the booty of the East, inrolling storm-chased holds, was shifted, sail by sail,to the opposite side of the globe.

Home is the sailor, home from the sea;His far-borne canvas furled.The ship pours shining on the quayThe plunder of the world.

The names of captains are remembered along withtheir ships. Who does not link the fame of Drake withthe Golden Hind, Bligh with the Bounty, Anson withthe Centurion, Cook with the Endeavour orColumbus with the Santa Maria? Amongst thesailing men of clipper ship days the reputations ofcaptains and ships likewise conveyed a quality offortune both good and evil. To such men the name ofa vessel conveyed its aura. It defined, somehow, the

nature of its mana, its elemental force, which thenbecame augmented by years of marine talk, gossipand tales amongst those who gave the better part oftheir lives to the sea. Conrad once said that “all thattalk makes up her name”, which could never quite bedivorced from that of her commander. The MarcoPolo, a very famous Canadian-built ship, lost herreputation for speed after a change of captains, andit was said of the English captain de Cloux that “if hehad had the sluggard Mozart, he still would have wonthe grain race” (from Australia to England). Suchcaptains had a reputation for recklessness, andothers more authoritarian were sometimes calledbrutal. The beautifully built Bluenoses andDowneasters from Nova Scotia and the northeasternstates were notoriously captained by “drivers” whomaintained discipline with “belaying pins, knuckle-dusters and six-shooters”. Typically, Americanmerchant captains enforced their authority by sheerpower of character and will against overwhelmingodds of brute force and often among cutthroats anddesperadoes. Strong-armed tactics sometimesbred calamitous results, and it was wisely said thatcaptains who could maintain morale without themwere more important than sound rigging or sturdymasts.

Lucky and unlucky captains and ships tended to belike self-fulfilling prophecies. Firmly associated withConrad was the lucky clipper Torrens, whoseoutstandingly successful passages featured even

such flukes as finding a barrel of lamp oil afloat atsea when her own supply was running low. Incontrast to this, Commander Byron of Dolphin famenever shook the sobriquet of “Foulweather Jack”,and seamen firmly believed that, on whatever ship,his presence ensured gales, and it did! Still, quiteaside from these more subtle examples ofsuperstitious anticipation, clipper captains like“Bully” Forbes plowed the seas, making up to twenty-one knots. On masts one hundred and sixty-five feettall they kept their sails unfurled even in the worstgales, resulting in record clips of ninety-two daysfrom New York to San Francisco around the Horn.But neither superstition nor danger nor bully captainskept the seamen from shipping out again. They hadbeen seduced by the endlessly receding horizoncurving over a plunging bow, the wind moaning in themainmasts and the promise of paradise that layahead. They were bitten with sea fever and many, ifthey could, would have echoed Melville when heprayed, “Forbid it, sea gods! intercede for me withNeptune, O sweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod mayfall on my coffin! Be mine the tomb that swallowed upPharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down with Drakewhere he sleeps in the sea.” I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the

sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white

sail’s shaking, And the gray mist on the sea’s face and a gray dawn

breaking.

John Masefield

The haunting beauty and majesty of the great Chinatea clippers racing under the British flag wasmatched by names like Black Prince, Ariel, Yang-tze, Thermopylae, Sir Lancelot and Cutty Sark.American clippers sported names of equal power,such as the famous Witch of the Wave, Romance ofthe Seas, Neptune’s Car, Phantom, Alert and FlyingCloud. The clippers and the windjammers were the“tall ships” bearing as many as twenty-nine sails andcaptains who had a reputation for keeping them on.During a Cape Horn passage one observerrecorded with awe this sight: “Bearing down on us,with the wind on her quarter, was a huge square-sailed vessel bearing full topsails and, like a gestureof defiance, above them a close-reefed topgallant onthe main. … By her snowry white cloths and herglistening black hull – for she lifted with the speed ofan express - we knew her an American.”

The American clippers were built of soft wood.They were fast, light and of short life, which, it hasbeen said, is true of all that is beautiful. Becausethey leaked, they tended to become waterlogged,and much longer hours were required at their pumpsthan in the oak and teak ships of the English. Aclipper like the two-hundred-and-twelve-foot CuttySark was called a “wet” ship, having a “long snakyhull”, over which the water would sweep from end toend in a high wind and sea. Her handsomely raked

masts carried a “skysail”, and at her prow sailed abeautiful witch, with her long hair and cutty sark(short chemise) flowing in the wind. She was aBritish “composite” type built of wooden planks overan iron frame, with copper sheathing on her bottomto discourage ship worms and reduce friction withthe water. Like her sister Thermopylae, she wasbeautiful and swift, representing a rare flowering ofshipbuilding as an art. The windjammers thatfollowed were less elegant, deriving their speed fromlength and strength rather than shape. They receivedtheir name from the fact that they habitually sailedwith their yards jammed into the wind. Built of steelwith light, strong steel masts and rigging, they werein their element in a powerful gale. Carrying sailswhen lesser ships had long furled theirs, vessels likethe Herzogin Cecilie, with her fifty-nine thousandsquare feet of sail and eighteen and three-quartersmiles of running rigging, set records of twenty-threeknots and more.

With the sailing ship the primordial power of thewind and sea exhilarated and inspired sailors toaccomplish feats perhaps impossible under ordinaryconditions. Those who struggled together in a stormfelt the fury of the gods in their faces and shared witheach other the life-or-death trials of the long voyagehome. Ships tossed and floating on the ocean’sswell are communities isolated from the world.Melville spoke of a whaling ship as his Yale Collegeand Harvard. But it is more than that. For the

gathered crew that mans the rigging is faced with theinescapable immediacy of working mightily with oneanother in the face of overwhelming forces fromwhich none of them can walk away. Surrounded byendless-seeming sea, a strange spell descendsupon ship-goers. A sense of reason and proportionfamiliar on land is lost, and is replaced with anurgency and reckless potential well suited to meetsome of the exigencies of a stormy passage butoften absurdly played out in modern steamshipantics. Ordinary life, with its endless capacity fordodging issues and avoiding the unpleasant ordifficult, is left behind, and all one’s stark hopes andfears and foibles surface and pour out inunforeseeable mixtures with those of the others onboard.

The ships of old, crossing and connecting thecontinents and races of men, were each embarkedupon a voyage mirroring that of the ark whoseshrouded shape approached Ravan’s isle. Theyreflected the passage of stars and planets movingas little worlds across the uncharted depths ofspace. They carried seeds blown by the Breath ofLife across the astral thresholds of becoming. Fewperhaps of the rough sailors among the Vikings orthe “Cape Homers” would have been conscious ofsuch a mission. Their idea of treasure was usuallyboth tangible and capable of worldly conversion. Butdreamers sailed among them and some of theworld’s most haunting and beautiful imagery has

come from the experience of men who toiled uponthe sea. Men of nondescript backgrounds, withunformulated hopes, have been thrown together on aship, where they saw and heard, as though with ashared soul, the mysteries revealed on a long oceanvoyage. Conrad described the wonder shared by thewhole crew of the Marco Polo in 1861 when theirship passed a floating iceberg in which lay, as ifasleep, a fully clothed man. Unable to reach him andcertain that he was dead, they left him to ride theberg mysteriously until he and it became part of thesea. A hush enveloped the ship and all felt as onewith this silent passenger. They too voyaged as in adream, facing dangers as a matter of course, sailingto a safe harbour but never fully arriving home. Theywere aware, each in his own unspoken way, that theywere closer to truth on the voyage and that their realhome would always lie beyond the world’s busyquays.

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep …

James Elroy Flecker

Phantom ships carry dead men’s dreams. Theysail the astral oceans of our consciousness and wequake with foreboding as they loom over the edge ofour minds. Ghostly barques, filled with the dregs ofhuman passions and fears silently looming, areblown by evil winds. Even painted up and jauntilyrigged, such ships bring corrupting fancies anddread disease. These are the fallen sisters of theark, wombs that have gathered the astral flotsam that

drifts upon the sea. Theirs is not the godly cargodescendant from the sky, nor is their mast the Treeof Life borne out in sacrifice upon the waters of theworld. Among all the ships that have sailed the seas,they have carried over to other minds and otherlands the failure of mankind to grasp the essentialmeaning of its voyage in the world. They have drawnout the lines of karma into an ever-entangling web ofcauses and effects and collected around them thegreat night that imperils the solar barque as itdescends into the worldly subterranean sea.

But there have been gallant ships whose majesticbeauty was matched by courageous sailors whopooled their energies time and time again in anenterprise far greater than they consciouslyunderstood. Skipping down the waves like thecrescent moon on Shiva’s flowing locks, the purearching lines of such noble ships have lit up andawakened men’s spirits even as they inspired thedeepest poetry within their souls. Windjammers,rising over the tide with the speed of an express, stirup dreams of transcendent voyages in men whohave never even watched them. The soul is arousedand rises buoyantly with their sails, sight unseen. Welong for the voyage and we revere the pure-craftedvessel that can make it. Afloat on the greater cosmicsea, such a blessed vessel knows the perils of thedeep yet sails above them, skimming the swells andtacking round the rocks and floating bergs. She isnot stilled in the doldrums nor sluggish in the

seaways, but has the strength and resilience to carryher canvas even in the heaviest storms. Only afearless sailor can sail this ship, for she is built tocross the uncharted deep and she carries only thedistilled cargo of the soul. She is a pure womb thattransports the seed beyond the horizon of death andon to an unknown shore. Those who man her do soin humility even as she bears them faithfully on thelong voyage home. Pinnacled masts that pierce the sky.Sails leaping in the wind.We take the sea upon our faces,Our anchor we rescind.Tossed and merging with the starsOn the track of gods we sail.Our ship a gallant clipper,Our life a seaman’s tale.

Hermes, January 1985

THE WIND O the Wind’s chariot, O its power and glory! Crashing it

goes and hath a voice of thunder. It makes the regions red and touches heaven, and as it

moves the dust of the earth is scattered. Along the traces of the wind they hurry, they come to him as

dames to an assembly. Borne on his car with these for his attendants, the God

speeds forth, the Universe’s Monarch. Travelling on the path of air’s mid-region, no single day

doth he take rest or slumber. Holy and earliest-born. Friend of the waters, where did he

spring and from what region came he? Germ of the world, the Deity’s vital spirit, this God moves

ever as his will inclines him. His voice is heard, his shape is ever viewless. Let us adore

this Wind with our oblations.

Rig Veda CLXVIII, Hymn to Vayu

From what lung, out of what bellows, comes thiswind? Where lies that aperture in the heavens thatblasts its current into our universe? What god’s lipspurse its stream? One may as well ask where is thesource of motion, where the source of breath? And ifit is breathed out, must it first be breathed in? Intowhat? Into that which is perfectly still? Into motionitself, which knows itself not? Standing upon the cliffsat the end of land, at the edge of the known world,one receives the wind full upon one’s soul and

quivers with the awareness of communion with all ithas touched. Its wildness invades and obliterates thedefence of the small self standing there. It battersand whips and cleanses. It overwhelms and yetawakens the heart to a forgotten promise eddyingthrough endless corridors of space. Dreams ofchildhoods lived long ago and of mythic flight tovision’s lofty peaks momentarily appear. Written onthe wind, the vision swirls and is blasted across theuniverse, carried away and yet never erased.

Some have called the wind the primary element byvirtue of its connection with the creative breath in itsexhalation. Others have claimed it is merely air in itsactive and violent aspect. But the languages ofpeople spread widely through the world indicate apersistent connection between wind and breath andspirit. Often ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’ share the sameidentifying terms, as with the Arabic ruh and theGreek (pneuma), or the will of God isidentified with the voice of a howling gale orwhirlwind. To many the wind has seemed to be thespiritual and vital breath of the universe. Its power tosustain life and hold it together has caused it to beassociated with cords, threads and ropes. “The ropeof the wind” and “the thread (which) is the same asthe wind” are spoken of in the Upanishads. It links alltogether as the invisible chain and bears within itstwists and coils the intangible, transient-seeming,insubstantial and elusive presence of Deity. On thecliffs, the presence storms and makes sails of the

senses, which are filled to bursting with its power.Standing there, the body clings like a feeble root tothe rock of earth and the soul leaps up to fly in thesoaring stream.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Destroyer or preserver? Is the wind possessed ofevil powers as the ancient Egyptians thought? Is itthe might of a horrible Pazuzu, the raging andwrathful Semitic “Lord of wind-demons” called “theDestroyer of the beautiful hills” and believed tospread fever and disease even while commandingthe four directional regions? Even the Greeks, whopossessed a more subtly shaded view of naturalforces, believed there was evil in the winds, until thefleet of Xerxes was destroyed by a tempest as hesought to attack their coast. Perhaps itsunpredictability, its suddenness and lack ofdiscrimination make the wind seem so blindlydevastating. At times its relentlessness wears downthe mind just as it erodes the beautiful hills. WilliamButler Yeats wrote of “the levelling wind”, and onepictures such erosion through days and years andcenturies, displacing, devouring and spewing away.But it is equally true that the wind separates thewheat from the chaff and carries the rain cloud overthe parched earth. In the words of Thomas Tusser,

Except wind stands as never it stood,It is an ill wind turns none to good.

To the ancient Hindus the winds were the FourMaharajas, the Regents of the Four Cardinal Points.Like others of the classical world, they associatedthem with corresponding signs of the zodiac andnotions of qualities to be assigned to the variousdirections. The Vedic god of wind, Vayu, played acentral role in the magnificent conception ofcosmogenesis outlined in the profoundly suggestivehymns of the Rig Veda. The Greeks also recognizeda powerful god of wind, who controlled all winds fromall directions. Hesiod wrote that they were all thesons of Typhoeus (derived from ), keptchained or unchained to the rocks at the will ofAeolus. He was their master and the lord of allmusical instruments, producing sound by his power.By his leave, Boreas (the cold and stormy northwind) wrecked the four hundred ships of the Persianfleet, and Zephyrus breathed the mild westernbreeze that refreshed the sun-drenched land ofHellas. The name Aeolus (from ) revealsmuch about the nature of this god, suggesting quickmovement, nimbleness and a rapid shifting of wilesand forms, the attributes proper to some sort ofDemiurge. If one traces the etymological roots of theterm “wind”, one finds that one is led to the vindr ofthe Old Norse, the ventus of the Latin, and vatas ofthe Sanskrit, whose root, va, lies in the name Vayuand means “to blow”.

The Egyptian word bai, found in the names of allthe four winds, was the term used by them to

describe both “soul” and “breath”. One can trace asimilar connection between the Latin animare(quicken), anima (air, breath, life, soul), animus(spirit), the Greek (anemos or wind) and theSanskrit aviti (breathe). More specialized nameslike Boreas ( or devouring) indicate thenature and effects of a particular wind or a type suchas “tornado”, which derives from the Spanish tornar(turn), or “storm”, which can be traced to the oldGermanic sturm, meaning “to stir”. The Greek

(tuphein) describes a smoking up caused bya terrific wind and suggests a remarkable link withthe Chinese tai fung – “typhoon”, from tai (big), fung(wind). The notion that spirit has no form, no tangiblepermanence, is suggested by “smoke” in variouscultures. Perhaps this is because it takes on someof the substance and coloration of the earth while yetremaining ethereal. A big wind stirring up the dustand the loose ends of the world seems to exhibit asimilar power while carrying them aloft and grindingthem into an ever smaller common denominator.

If we may trust to language, it was the movement of the airthat provided the image of spirituality, since the spiritborrows its name from the breath of wind.

Sigmund Freud

Plato taught that the Four Elements were that“which composes and decomposes the compoundbodies”. What we see are only their visible garbs,the “symbols of the informing invisible Souls orSpirits”. These phenomenal expressions of

noumenal Elements are then informed byelementals, or the nature-spirits of the lower planesof manifest existence, through which the shamanattempts to control the wind or rain. Ancient manexperienced a close communion with thesepotencies and recognized in them a hierarchy ofexpression. The Greek word for the elements (

) points to rows of potencies, ranked oneabove the other in causation, from gods to physicalexpressions of force. In the Hebrew tradition the firstSephiroth wrapped himself in the garment ofElements which was the world to be. “He maketh thewind His messengers, flaming Fire His servants.”Theosophically, the wind as messenger is equatedwith ether and described as the agent oftransmission by which the solar and lunar influencesare carried down and diffused on earth. As such, it isa “nurse” acting to quicken and nurture newgenerations of life. In the hurricane is found thesynthesis and conjunction of all the Four Elements.The wind, at the height of its activity, is credited withthe power of fecundation and regeneration. Somedim awareness of this might lie behind the folksayings found among Mediterranean peasants whocredit the formidable Boreas with the manyconceptions accomplished during its shivering blast.At Ithaca there is a cave whose northern gate isguarded by Boreas, and it is said that through thisgate souls are ushered into mortal life.

The Gnostics, like the ancient Pythagoreans and

students of Plato before them, recognized ahierarchy of Beings or Elements. They spoke of theAeons, who created the world and were, in theirvarious branches and levels, the Tree of Life. Withthe Creative Fire of the manifest Logos at theirsummit, the first six Aeons answered to what isdescribed as the Seven Winds or Priests of theAnugita. They are the Dhyan Chohans through whomDivine Ideation passes into action. As indicated bySimon Magus, they perform this lofty function in pairsor syzygies: the occult expression of the solar Fathermanifesting as Spirit, voice and reason, and theactive expression of the lunar Mother as thought,name and reflection. From their union, the secondgeneration of Aeons is brought forth to expressDivine Ideation on a slightly grosser plane (theastral). Thence, their progeny in turn will usher inmore and more diversified and concretized worlds ofbeing. They are the offspring of the Priests, theWinds, who take on an increasingly material garband who sometimes manifest in a whirlwind ofcommunication, spanning the generations from ahigher realm. Thus we have the example of Godadmonishing poor Job through the voices of thewhirlwind to gird up his loins and act like a man.

There appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, andparted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwindinto heaven.

2 Kings 2:11

In the arcane treasure-house of the Puranas the

Pravaha wind is described as the mystic andconcealed Force that gives impulse to and regulatesthe course of the stars and planets. Its septenarynature is discussed in the Kurma and LingaPuranas in terms of seven principal winds, which arethe basis of cosmic space and connected withDhruva (the Pole Star), which, in turn, is connectedwith the production of phenomena through cosmicforces. Similarly, the Orphic hymns sing of Eros-Phanes evolving from the spiritual egg impregnatedby the Aethereal winds. This idea corresponds to thedescription of the “Spirit of God moving in Ether”(brooding over the waters) as well as the electrifyingnature of His coiling movement. The Kabalisticcosmogony places the wind in an equally loftyposition, indicating how the Divine Substance emitsthe manifest Spirit, the Fiery Word, from whose triplenature emanate Air or Wind (the Father or CreativeElement), followed by Water (the Mother), whichproceeds from Air. The primary importance of windin cosmogenesis is further underlined by the fact thatin the first Mandala of the Rig Veda, of the first twohymns (ascribed to Rishi MadhucchandusVishvamitra), the first is to Agni and the second toVayu, who is asked to come to the ritual where somahas been prepared for him.

In vivid prose, the Puranas describe how watersflood the globe and the world becomes enveloped indarkness during a solar pralaya. When the watersreach the realm of the Seven Rishis, the breath of

Vishnu becomes a strong wind which blows until theclouds are dispersed and reabsorbed, leaving Harito sleep upon the Oceans of Space. At the time ofthe greater elemental pralaya the waters againswallow the earth but are, in turn, swallowed by fire,until the whole of space is one flame. Then the windseizes upon the rudimentary property of fire (which isthe cause of light) and extinguishes it. Air,accompanied by Sound, is then extendedeverywhere, until Ether seizes upon its cohesion,which is its rudimentary property (experienced byman through the sense of touch) and brings about itsdestruction. Now Akasha pervades the whole ofSpace, having only the rudiments of Sound (theWord), which is finally devoured by the Origin of theElements, causing the Host of Dhyan Chohans andConsciousness itself to be absorbed into Mahat,whose characteristic property is Buddhi. Beyondthis threshold of reabsorption, Prakriti is pervadedby and merged with Purusha. As such, it seizesupon Mahat, which disappears, leaving both to beresolved back into the Supreme Oneness ofMahapralaya. This breathtaking metaphysic,perhaps more than any other description, suggeststhe qualities one might attribute to wind, from itsmost mundane to its most abstract level of being.

With further consideration of this process, severalquestions arise concerning cosmological order. TheDivine Spirit is universally symbolized by the sun orfire, and yet the description of Mahapralaya

suggests that it is extinguished by the wind. TheSecret Doctrine speaks of Spirit as the sun or fire,the Divine Soul as the moon or water, and claimsthat symbolically, both are parents of the human soulor mind (pneuma), represented by the wind orbreath. This accords with many ancient systems ofthought. But H. P. Blavatsky warns against confusingthe “Breath of Life” with the immortal Spirit. She saysthat they are as distinct from one another as pranaand jiva are from Atman. Similarly, spirit and soulare not to be confused, for the latter emerges out ofthe substance-aspect of the former, as does“Breath” itself, which awakens and informs the soul.Here ‘Breath’ is certainly the dynamic energy calledprana. In the Vedas, Vayu is called the Master ofLife and Inspirer of Breath (prana), represented inman by the vital and nervous energies that supportthe mental energies governed by Indra. In attemptingto clarify the cosmological order, one may readilyassume that the fire extinguished by the wind duringthe elemental pralaya is on a lower hierarchical levelthan the Divine Spirit. Less evident are the subtlerelationships between Agni (the solar), Soma (thelunar), Vayu (whose active nature seems to suggestaspects of Fohat) and Indra (who is symbolicallyexpressive of Mahat, brought down into the worldthrough kama).

The Father of THAT ONE ONLY THING is the Sun; itsMother the Moon; the Wind carries it in his bosom, and itsnurse is the Spirituous Earth.

The Secret Doctrine, ii 109

According to the wisdom of the Vedas, the chiefgods (Agni, Vayu and Surya) are three occultdegrees of fire. Invisible Fire manifests through themost ethereal substance by way of the cohesivelinking power supplied by the fluidic fire of Vayu (air).The liquid fire of chaos (water), when permeated bythe Father’s fire, is the soma of which Vayu is invitedto partake. In this Vayu is both the bearer andimbiber of the electrical spark of life. He is thedisinterested force that blows and brings togetherand mixes, gradually separating the aspects ofmanifest life. Unlike Fohat, Vayu brings thingstogether but does not give his name to the knots offormation that provide the basis for life on its manylevels. Rather, he moves and eddies and circles. Hebrings endless shifts, recombinations and changes.He is like a blind force of adjustment, a steadybreeze of karma flowing and howling around theworld. He is often associated with Indra, thesupporter of Mahatic energies in the world. Therelationship is very close, and in some places theprinciple of Manas in man is actually related to thewind. But whereas Indra’s career is powerfully linkedwith the Fall of Spirit into matter involving man,Vayu’s character remains unscathed by thesacrificial results that plague Indra. As the wind, hemay worry and torture, but he himself is not worriedor tortured. He disseminates the seeds ofintelligence in the world and blows away the uselesschaff, but he does not tarry, even in the ghosts of

their forms.Hither and thither spinsThe windborne, mirroring soul;A thousand glimpses wins,And never sees the whole.

Matthew Arnold

Ever on the move, the wind carries upon itselfdoctrines and doubt, frolic and fear. Within theangles of its curved passage the world appears ateach point differently, but the curve itself soondisappears and no point along its course will ever bethe same. As this is so in the macrocosm, so it iswithin man. At every level of his being the motion ofthe wind acts together with the other elements inwhat were known in ancient and medieval times asthe humours. Even in contemporary times Tibetanmedicine recognizes that the humours (or winds) inthe body must function in harmonious mix with eachother. On the physical level wind (as a humour)predominates in the pelvic area and is said to movethrough the skeleton. In youth the elements of bileand phlegm reign supreme, but with old age the windprevails and eventually overwhelms the organism.The Buddhist Tantras teach that there are as manyas eighty-four thousand recognized diseases thatcan occur from imbalances in the humours. Many ofthem result from the superseding of the light, oily andhot characteristics of the bile and the sticky, cool,heavy and gentle characteristics of phlegm, by therough, hard, cold, subtle and motile nature of thewind. To the Elizabethans, tempering one’s

temperament had to do with bringing the humoursinto harmony by controlling or moderating one ofthem. Thus, the wind in man ultimately dissolves lifeand impels the soul to a higher state. When properlyunderstood, one can work with this process, let go ofideas and passing forms when a change is needed,and realize that in the world there are no eternallysafe havens, no permanent solutions.

Who fails to comprehend the enormous, two-fold power ofFortune for weal or woe? When we enjoy her favouringbreeze, we are wafted over to the wished for haven; whenshe blows against us we are dashed to destruction.

De Officiis, Cicero

In the Old Testament, there is frequent mention ofthe wind in connection with the idea of karma. “Theyhave sown the wind, and they shall reap thewhirlwind”, says the book of Hosea. “The ungodly…are like the chaff which the wind driveth away”, saythe Psalms. Scripture and literature are replete withmetaphors concerning breezes, gales, storms andwinds of every sort. In Shakespeare, adversity isoften associated with tempests and happiness withcalm seas and the “gentle breath of loving winds”.Ariel’s music allays the fury and passion of the windwith its “sweet air”, and Gonzalo speaks of the “foulweather in us all”. In his Metamorphosis, Ovidillustrates the common tendency to refer to the windwhen speaking of situations possibly affecting one’sfortune. He muses: “I should first have found out hisfeelings, by talking to him in a way that committed

me to nothing: I should have tested the wind, withclose-reefed sail, in case it should proveunfavourable, and then have voyaged safely over thesea, instead of allowing winds still untried to fill mycanvas, as I have done now, with the result that I ambeing carried onto the rocks.” Such sayings as“spitting against the wind” and going “into the teethof the wind” have to do with standing up to adverseopinion or circumstances, whilst “getting wind ofsomething”, finding out “what’s in the wind” or“casting prudence to the wind” suggest the elementof chance and one’s willingness to take advantageof it (hoping for a “windfall”) or to trust its outcome.This trust may be nothing more than the passiveacceptance of results following imprudent action, orit may spring from a transcendent burst ofwillingness to accept all that may come in order tobe carried aloft on the wind-borne wing of Spirit.Shelley’s exuberant “Ode to the West Wind”celebrates this divine carelessness with the plea

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

To control the wind is an art which few possess.Fewer still can control the fortunes of their lives. Butthere have always persisted stories about thespecial power certain Brahmins have had over thewind, and to this day Hindu priests perform rituals tobring on the monsoons with their blessings of rain.Jesus was said to have rebuked the wind and theraging water and to have made them calm. Emperor

Constantine sentenced the philosopher Sopatrus todeath for unchaining the winds and thus preventinggrain ships from arriving in time to end a famine. InHomer’s epic, Odysseus was given a bag of wind byAeolus to speed him on his way home. Hiscompanions, suspecting treasure, opened the bagand released it while he was asleep under sail. Thus,they were beaten back by adverse breezes to thewind god’s isle, only to learn that Aeolus would notfavour them a second time but merely send themruefully on their way. As a result of this missedchance, many years would pass before Odysseuscould see the shores of Ithaca. From very ancienttimes the Greeks believed the wind could becontrolled by playing a wind instrument. The god Panmarshalled and dispersed at will such greatelemental hosts as to cause panic andpandemonium among observers, conditions whichthus bore the label of his name.

Over the centuries man has learnt to harness thewind with ship sails and windmills of many differentsorts. Wind power has driven myriad machines thatpump, grind, drain and sail. The more primitive, liket he aeromilos in southern Greece, were simplecircular stone towers with apertures to catch the windso that it would cycle around inside the structure withsuch speed as to lift the grain off the floor and whip itround the rough walls. The more complex bore sailswhose rotating motion ran the gears within thatpumped the water or ground the grain. At sea, when

ships sported sails, the rule was that when the windarrived, it was time to embark. Sir Francis Drake, inhis direct Elizabethan English, expressed itsuccinctly to his queen: “The wind commands meaway.” To a square-rigged ship, usable windsmattered far more than mere distance. The longestway around often proved to be the shortest wayhome, for speed usually depended on scuddingbefore these winds rather than moving in a directroute. With such winds the world’s greatest traderoutes were opened up and the continents weregradually knitted together. But winds like these havealso changed the course of history, as in the case ofthe Persian fleet or when Kublai Khan’s ships wereswamped in A.D. 1281.

The relationship between superiors and inferiors is likethat between the wind and the grass. The grass must bendwhen the wind blows across it.

Confucian Analects

What the wind does not blow away, it steadilyerodes. Pitted ruins and statues in the desert, bereftof recognizable shape, stand mute and humbledbefore its blast. Great crescent dunes inch their wayalong the wasteland: sand in flux, eddying andflowing like a living thing. Where the grass can grow,it wisely bends before the wind and clings to theshifting earth. In the heavens, wind currents flowunimpeded by such lowly things. Around the globe,jet streams course five to eleven miles up at as muchas two hundred miles per hour. Carrying heat and

energy, they drastically affect the weather andclimate of the world and are a major influence uponatmospheric circulation. Curving in bands sixty mileswide, they do not start at any specific place, but areendless rivers of air, meandering, accelerating andslowing as they flow along in the upper troposphereor stratosphere. Around and beneath them, generalwinds stretch thousands of miles and follow semi-permanent directional patterns largely determined bythe unequal heating of the atmosphere at differentlatitudes and altitudes and by the earth’s rotation.Their distribution is closely related to atmosphericpressure.

In the Northern Hemisphere during summer theland is warmer (low pressure) than the sea (high-pressure cyclonic). In winter this is reversed, causinganti-cyclonic circulation over land masses, with lowpressure predominating over the oceans. Generally,winds tend to blow parallel to “contour lines”,clockwise around “mountains” of high pressure andcounter-clockwise around “valleys” of low pressure.In the Southern Hemisphere this entire patternoccurs in reverse, the Coriolis effect working in theopposite direction to that which it takes in the North.In both hemispheres where the contour lines areclose together, a steep “slope” from high to lowpressure is indicated. It is there that the winds arestronger. In the middle latitudes, where the two greatcontour patterns approach one another along the lowpressure belt of the doldrums, the pressure gradient

is at its steepest. But here the Coriolis force deflectsthe wind vector from the gradient vector so that itdoes not merely fall with the pressure gradient butsurges forward in the great jet streams that rusharound the globe.

All of the earth’s energy and heat comes from thefire of Surya, our sun. Warmed and enlivened by it,the earth gives off heat in convective bubbles whichrise into the lower pressure aloft. As the pressure ofthe rising air decreases, the air cools with expansionand, if moisture is present, produces cloudsreaching up to the troposphere. Thus, convectivecurrents from the earth continually affect thefluctuating pressure and temperature of the air closeto the earth, tempering and moulding the contourpatterns of the winds. But in the stratosphere thetemperature is not much affected by convection. It iscontrolled mainly by radiation, which fills thestratosphere with short-wave components of thesolar energy that drives its gigantic circulationsystem. Stratospheric winds obey patterns of greatmystery when viewed from the perspective of theearth. Layers of west winds are sandwichedbetween east winds flowing faster than the earth’srotation at the equator. To further deepen the puzzle,it has been discovered that the layers of equatorialstratosphere which show east winds one yearexperience west winds the following year. Thisstrange cycle repeats itself over a period of twenty-six months. Further observation has shown that the

easterly or westerly layers appear first at a very greatheight. Gradually, as the cycle continues, they workthemselves downward, finally losing themselves nearthe tropical tropopause. Though the mystery of thispattern remains, one wonders whether the twenty-six-month cycle is linked with the activity of greatsidereal winds, whose patterns shift in decimal unitsinstead of divisions of twelve.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind …

Ernest Dowson

With winds so lofty, howling unheard in greaterspace and endlessly shifting around the earth, afragment blown is indeed lost. In that sense, we livein a wind-swept world where the air fills us and blowsthrough our minds continuously. New thoughts come,snippets from cast-off thoughts, and they fly away,unloosed from their pathetic moorings byforgetfulness. We loll in the phlegmatic breezes ofthe doldrums, only to be swept up in a local Boreas,a minor mistral, or to be spun off into the cyclonictumult of a westerly blast.

Hither and thither spinsThe windborne, mirroring soul.

How poignantly true are Matthew Arnold’s lines forthe majority of mankind. One can see that the bodilywinds (humours) are mere reflections of greatercurrents affecting the mind and heart. Taking theanalogy further, the types of global winds provideinteresting contrasts. The trade winds are steady in

direction and speed, whilst the migrating cyclones ofwinter Westerlies cause an unsteadiness in winds,further affected by the interruption of land masses.When the wind direction alters seasonally as muchas one hundred and eighty degrees, monsoon (fromthe Arabic word for “season”) cycles prevail likethose affecting the east coast of Asia and India tothe Arabian Sea. In the summer, air flows fromsouthwest subtropical high-pressure areas towardsthe low-pressure zone over Asia, bringing the tradewinds with them and the prayed-for rain. From theequatorial belt towards the two poles there arebands of easterly trades, bordered to the north andsouth by westerly winds. Around the poles easterliesprevail, complicated at the North Pole by the fact thatthe largest glaciated land mass on earth is notcentered by the pole.

The promontory of the Himalayas and the Tibetanplateau acts as a great thermal, a dynamic pivotaffecting the entire monsoon pattern of the NorthernHemisphere throughout the year. The Tibetanplateau is almost snow-free in autumn, winter andspring, and so acts as a high-level radiational heatsource. Pressure surfaces are raised there,diminishing the north-south temperature gradientand the strength of the subtropical jet stream to thesouth, all of which dramatically affect the weatherover China, central Asia and the Middle East, whileacting as a constant buffer to the Indian subcontinentbelow. If one imagines oneself as the earthly globe,

surely the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau wouldbe the place of one’s heart. Storing the heat of divinesolar Fire, the heart pours forth warming, ever risingair, which modifies the distributions of vital winds inlands all round it. The steepest gradient lies in themiddle latitudes, where the opposing Coriolis forcesof the Northern and Southern Hemispheresapproach one another. This provides a dramaticanalogue to the often turbulent relationship betweenthe immortal man and his earthly vesture. Tradewinds streaming along smoothly in one hemispheremay cross over this “equator” and head off in exactlythe opposite direction. The steep gradient itselfencourages powerful winds, even jet streams, whichmay be impossible to beat against and may carryone down a fierce tunnel of varying passions. Inthese areas the “head” gets embroiled in theconcerns of the animal nature and the body obtrudesitself upon the thoughts and feelings, making onevulnerable to these cyclonic and often unpredictablecurrents. But like a good pilot, the wise man orwoman can learn where the jet streams are. Keepingtheir ultimate destination firmly in mind, they can takeadvantage of the great speed of the jet streams. InKali Yuga turbulence rules the world, but one canuse that quickened movement to one’s benefit andextend the breadth of awareness to incorporategreater and more inclusive patterns within one’smoral and mental framework.

One could imagine moral, mental and emotional

counterparts to every alteration of atmosphericpressure, every updraft and “contour” fall of wind.Seasonal shifts and variations caused by land andsea provide rich analogies to the fluctuatingconditions experienced by the human soul in a body.But the real secret, the vital lesson to be learnt, isconcealed in the wind itself. If one wishes tounderstand the wind, one should listen to it and try topick up the message it carries. The old idea that“something is in the wind” is based upon a deepertruth, for its breeze comes from a distance faroutstripping the petty gossip and cares of the world.One feels the wind and senses a greatercommunion. One soars with its voice and glimpsesthe world astride its wing. One begins to feel thepulse, intuit the Breath of Brahma coursing in itsnumberless fluctuations. Its sighing voice speaks ofother worlds, lifting the mind to new and aeratingcurrents of thought. Though it choke the lower manwith the dust of tribulation, the Inner Man rises with itssong and flows out to embrace space. Along “therope of the wind” he experiences the disinterestedpower of karma and, looking down towards theearth, feels compassion for those who twist andstrive in its eddies and whirls. To soar like this, totouch the feet of the Aeons and glide to the verythreshold of pralaya, is to fulfil the raison d’être of thehuman odyssey on earth. The key to its mystery in allits myriad conditions is indeed written in the wind.

Hearken to its voice,Its compelling melody.Are you merely a leafTo be tossed and blown?Listen to the SighBorne upon its breath,The whispered wordFrom Brahma blown.

Hermes, April 1985

THE VOYAGE

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business ingreat waters; these see the works of the Lord, and hiswonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth thestormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mountup to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: theirsoul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, andstagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Thenthey cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth themout of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so thatthe waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because theybe quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Psalms 107: 23-30

So you want to take to the sea, lad, ship out beforethe mast?” The old salt’s gaze curved out over theyouth’s bowed head to the swells gently rocking thevessels in the bay, “It isn’t an easy task, you know. Itisn’t something you do out of curiosity or justbecause you’re at loose ends.” He noticed thetenacious bob of the boy’s head and continued, “It’sdangerous out there and very heavy work and youmight not find what you’re looking for.” The silence ofthe lad conveyed his determination louder thanwords, and the old man, sensing it, shifted his tackand demanded: “Before you make up your mind, Iwant you to look deeply into my eyes and tell mewhat you see there.” The young man gazed at theold, seeing the weathered face that had enduredmany a gale and the furrowed patterns of lines that

etched out a life hard lived on the sea. He looked atthe tangled brows curving over hooded eyes whichshone from his aged map like lights reflected from afar-off shore. The boy looked deeply into them andknew that they were gazing through him, beyond him,to things he could not see and maybe never would.He shivered, for he recognized in the gaze ameditation on the unknown - a native inclination toleave behind all that was familiar and predictable.He saw in the old man’s eyes the passion of a questunfulfilled and the long years of plumbing thehorizon’s void. “Would you do business in greatwaters, lad? Does not what you see cause youpause?” But the boy’s eyes had seen the sketch ofan uncharted shore and he shipped out on the Argothat very night.

Thus did Jason ages ago sail in search of theGolden Fleece. From Iolchos in Thessaly he sailedto find the remains of the sacred ram given byHermes to the mother of Helle and Phrixus. He didthis in order to obtain his rightful kingdom from theusurper Pelias, a theme that is echoed in the sagasof Odysseus and later Aeneas. “The wondered Argowhich … first through the Euxine Seas bore all theflower of Greece” takes its name from the crescent-shaped argha, area or “ark” that bears the sacredgerm over the abyss to a new world. The voyage ofthe Argo witnessed a successful garnering of theGolden Fleece and return to Iolchos, but it did notresult in Jason regaining his rightful crown. The fact

that the boat was built with Athene’s help and thebow contained a piece of oak from the oracle ofZeus at Dadona contributed to its safe return. But thedire magical powers of Medea which had enabledJason to capture the Golden Fleece became, in theend, his curse, robbing him of all he held dear anddooming him to die alone and in anguish. It was saidthat he met his end while resting under the Argo as itlay propped up on dry land. In a twist of irony, he wasstruck on the head and killed by a piece of timberthat fell from its stern.

With a taut sail she forged ahead all day, till the sun wentdown and left her to pick her way through the darkness.

Thus she brought us to the deep-flowing River of Oceanand the frontiers of the world, where the fog-boundCimmerians live in the City of Perpetual Mist.

Odyssey

Pompey the Great once said that “living is notnecessary, but navigation is”. This would mark thedistinction between living for oneself and living inorder to transcend. In terms of this notion oftranscendence, the Odyssey is an archetypalnavigation myth. It is a triumph over the perils of theunconscious, as represented by the ocean, and overregression and stagnation. One can trace in it theinvolution of the soul into matter and its evolutionback to its spiritual home. One can also see in it theage-old story of the masculine mind, the child ofSpirit, striving to win its way back to its Buddhichome. From Ilium, Odysseus and his fleet sailed tothe Thracian city of Ismarus, sacking it and sparing

only the priest of Apollo, who, in return for his life,solicited for them the help of that god. But storms offCape Taenaron blew them back to Cythera and theland of the Lotus-Eaters, wherein anything eateninduced forgetfulness. From thence they came to theisland of the Cyclopes and the adventure which wasto bring the wrath of Poseidon upon them. After this,even with the gift of winds given them by Aeolus, theyfailed to make a clear sail, for the men fell asleepand let the winds escape willy-nilly. Thus, once againalmost in sight of their goal, they were swept back tothe land of the Laestrygonian cannibals, who atemany of the men and sank most of their ships. Fromthere the survivors reached the isle of Aeaea, whereCirce turned several of them into the pitiable state ofswine with human minds, and Odysseus was told hemust go to the land of the Cimmerians at the fog-bound western limit of the world. There, in thatsunless place at the entrance to Hades, he wasinstructed to call up the spirits of the dead and learnfrom Tiresias the way to complete his voyage home.

Fulfilling the nekuia rite at that shadowy place,Odysseus found himself surrounded with the souls ofthe dead. His mother, partaking of the sacrifice, saidto him: “My son, how have you descended, while stillalive, to this gloomy realm which is difficult for theliving to behold? Great rivers and terrible waters liebetween; first Oceanus which, if one does not have asturdy ship, he cannot in any way cross on foot.”Indeed, it was only Circe’s instructions that had

enabled them to find it, just as the propheticwarnings of Tiresias would guide them in their furthertravels. Nonetheless, despite the wise counsel whichgot them safely past the dangers of the Sirens and ofScylla and Charybdis, some of the men could notresist killing one or two of the sacred cattle of Helioswhen they landed on the isle of Thrinacie. As aresult, a storm sank the ships and all but Odysseuswere drowned. Clutching the mast and part of thekeel, he floated, eventually arriving at the islandhome of Calypso, in whose fragrant bower heremained entangled for seven long years. Only theorder of Zeus, brought by Hermes, finally forced theenamoured daughter of Atlas to help Odysseus builda raft and send him on his way. But even thenPoseidon did not relent and, as the raft neared theisland of the Phaeacians, he sent a storm thatdestroyed it and left the struggling voyager adrift inthe water for two days and nights. On the third day hewas washed ashore and found by the nobleNausicaa, who took him to the palace of her parents,Alcinous and Arete, who ruled a nation ofmagnificently skilled seamen. It was in their goodcare that, sunk in a deep sleep, Odysseus was finallyable to return at last to the shores of his Ithacanhome. O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt,and if thou wilt, thou mayest destroy me; butwhether or no, I will steer my rudder true.

Michel De Montaigne

Nausicaa bears a name of central importance tothe theme of the voyage. Stemming from the Greekroot , (ship), it is linked with (nauta orsailor) and, ultimately, with the Latin naves and suchderivatives as “nave” (of the church), “navel”, “naval”,“navy” and “navigation”. There is a wealth of Greekterms evolved from this root and reflective of apeople much involved with the sea. This includesnow obscure terms such as and ,which define Egyptian measurements and suggestthat the Greeks derived much of their basis formeasuring from their marine experiences. Thetrackless character of the ocean would seem to defymeasurement. One can readily grasp how its depthsmight have been plumbed, but how did the ancientsmeasure their passage over it and how did they, oreven later seamen, know where they were upon itssurface? To the landlubber the question is merelyacademic and, in recent times, seems to have beenanswered. Taking for granted instruments that haveevolved over centuries of seamanship, modern mantends to entertain a casual or utilitarian view of theworld’s great oceans, shrinking them to suit a world-view largely devoid of wonder. Where lies the land to which the ship would go?Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.

Arthur Hugh Clough

After his long voyage on the Beagle, Charles

Darwin felt moved to express the awe that he hadcome to feel for the sea. He wrote that it wasnecessary to sail it in order to begin to comprehendits immensity. Flying over it, we arrive at adestination, never knowing what lies between wherewe started and where we have come. In a very deepsense, we do not know where we have comebecause we have not found our own way there. Wehave not struggled and dreamt and overcome all therisks while charting each phase of the journey. Thisis in marked contrast to the few master navigatorswho have charted their own courses from shore toshore over many seas and do not suffer from adelusive sense of time and distance or the limits ofthe passage. To one who simply follows a course oris hurtled from one position to another withoutgrasping the nature or significance of what hasintervened, the whole world is likely to becomeshrivelled and stuffed into tidy socio-politicalcategories that provide a false sense of order andunderstanding. This condition is so common that itappears to be normal, and one experiences a slightjolt to consciousness when confronted with thearbitrary and superficial nature of one’s sense ofdirection, distance and time.

Arguing that ancient people experienced a deeperand richer involvement in these dimensions, onenaval historian observed that it is we who have hadour conception of distance destroyed. The men ofthe Stone and Bronze Ages knew no frontiers nor

did they need any passports, identity papers ortickets. The earth was free, the oceans lay open, andthey wandered across them, acquainting themselveswith their myriad dangers and havens. Thus theycame to know the seas and lands as well asthemselves, never separating themselves from themor from the journey they had made across them. It isfor this reason that in their myths and religiousceremonies, all the ancient cultures merged into onethe path of migration and the voyage of self-discovery. One might argue that the sameexperience can be garnered by one who runs theobstacle course of growing up in a ghetto or simplysurvives the psychological odyssey of modern life.But one intuitively realizes that there was a greatercollective depth in the ancient experience, that thecontinual and progressive checking and counter-checking between man’s nature and greater Naturesurrounding him had resulted in a truer sense of hisplace in the universal scheme of things. In attemptingto understand the nature of the spiritual voyage, onecomes to realize the same necessity of confrontingevery phase of the journey oneself. As with theseamen of old, the goal is unknown, and the need fora means of establishing location, distance anddirection is equally pressing. The example of earlyseamen and their struggle to evolve the art andscience of navigation provides rich clues for thosewho would venture upon the great ocean of the Self.

Much of the earliest knowledge of seamanship

involved what is known as piloting: going from pointto point along a coast and relying upon a highlydeveloped memorization of numerous variablesoperating in any one locale at various times of theyear. Navigation relies upon the same use of thesenses, but the reference point shifts from thecoastline to celestial bearings observable on theopen sea. As with the cyclic motion of the evolvingsoul, the ancient navigator had to act upon aspherical world. The flat mental map of a localcoastline no longer provided him with accuratecalculations of location. Long centuries were toelapse before the logarithmic tables that eventuallymade spherical calculations a simple matter wouldhave been so painstakingly evolved. The errors anddisasters wrought by plane sailing (sailing accordingto flat-earth charts, where meridians were parallel toone another) persisted among Europeans until theend of the sixteenth century, when the Mercator chartwas developed and plane sailing became a termused to describe what appeared to be theuncomplicated business of sailing in a straight linefrom one point to another.

The discovery of a means of steering a ship withsome degree of certainty was a mechanical problemwhose complexity appeared originally to be no lessthan that of discovering how a sense of directioncould be maintained when out of sight of land. If oneis sailing north before a southwest wind and findsoneself further east than estimated, there must be a

current moving the ship eastward, and in the futureone must tack a little more to the west rather thanstraight to one’s destination. To do this, navigatorsmust know where they are. They learn that ships mayhave to sail a greater distance to avoid beingpushed to the lee shore (on the lee of the ship is theshore onto which the wind is blowing). In latercenturies, during the great voyages around SouthAmerica, it was essential that they beat hard towestward in order to clear the Horn when going fromwest to east.

The eight Mediterranean winds were named afterthe countries from which they blew and were chartedin a circle of directional points called a wind-rose.Their relative seasonal regularity enabled earlyseamen to sail by them with some confidence, justas navigators elsewhere voyaged with the variousmonsoons and trade winds. Where the winds wereless reliable, however, checks were made byobserving sunrise and sunset during the day and thepole-star during the night. In the Far North, if thewinds changed and the sky was obscured, theVikings released ravens, whose flight would indicatethe direction of land. They also used sun-stones,which were crystals believed to indicate the directionof the sun even through a cloud.

In his initial voyage Columbus relied upon deadreckoning, which involves a continuous record ofspeeds maintained over known periods of time by alog-line (a rope run out from the stern until the log at

its end had drawn it taut). This sort of method hadbeen used by earlier seamen, and it would later besophisticated by the English, who tied the line inknots every forty-two feet. This was set in conjunctionwith a fixed interval of time (usually half a minute) sothat one length of forty-two feet measured one mile(or knot) per hour. While using this mode ofreckoning as well as the pole-star to determinelatitude, Columbus found that his compass wasunreliable. In earlier times a lodestone was floated ina vessel of water and navigators attempted toascertain when it was freely and truly pointing to thenorth. By the twelfth century the lodestone was fixedin its own container but generally kept out of sight bythe navigator, who wished to preserve his reputationfor skill and avoid being accused of witchcraft. Thislatter threat was due to ideas associated with themysterious property of magnetism, for, as BrunettoLatini wrote in the thirteenth century, “No mastermariner dares to use it, lest he should fall under thesupposition of being a magician; nor would even thesailors venture themselves to sea under hiscommand if he took with him an instrument whichcarries so great an appearance of being constructedunder the influence of some infernal spirit.”

In addition to the unreliability of his compass, thesailors with Columbus steered badly. In one nightthey covered one hundred and twenty miles andfound themselves twenty-two and one-half degreesoff by dawn. The fact that they could calculate their

error was a result of being able to establish theirlatitude. This could be ascertained by measuring theangle between a line from the eye to the horizon anda line from the eye to the North Star (the smaller theangle, the further south one was), or by measuringthe altitude of the sun at noon, allowing each day forthe difference caused by the sun’s apparentmovement between the tropics as the seasonschanged. Quadrants, cross staffs, back staffs,sextants and astrolabes were gradually developed tofacilitate these measurements. The compass toowas improved and, overcoming superstitions aboutwitchcraft, was openly fixed on the ship. Itsmagnetized needle was fixed to a wind-rose card sothat, as the ship altered its course and the needleand card remained pointed to the north, the directionin which the ship was moving (in line with the centralaxis of the vessel) could be read off the card. Thus itwas that fairly early on in the great voyages, speed,direction and latitude could be measured with somedegree of confidence. There were still the currents,fluctuations of wind and weather, reefs, icebergs,rogue waves and many other uncontrollable factorsto concern these sailors, but, leaving aside badsteering, enough navigational knowledge had beengarnered to make possible the extraordinarycircumnavigations of the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies.

The great problem that remained was establishingaccurate longitude. It had long been known that the

earth revolves at a rate of fifteen degrees per hourrelative to the sun. Thus longitude could be got fromaccurately measuring time. The problem lay in theinaccuracy of the means that had been traditionallyused to measure it. On Chinese junks intervals oftime were measured with incense sticks. Sand-glasses were used on European ships and noonreadings were obtained each day, enabling theexact division of the watches (from which we takethe name for our portable timepieces). The extent ofthe problem can be appreciated when one learnsthat a thirty-degree error in longitude is equal toeighteen hundred sea miles at the equator. CaptainEdwards of the Pandora, who tried to find themutineers of the Bounty, used a chart which markedPitcairn Island far to the west of its real position, dueto such a thirty-degree error. The distance betweenthe moon and certain fixed stars (called a lunardistance) proved somewhat helpful in establishinglongitude, but it was difficult to rely upon in obscureweather or when the ship was rolling in a heavy sea.It was the development of chronometers whicheventually solved the problem and provided a majoradvancement in the science of navigation. Inventedby the British, they were extremely well made clockswhich were set on London time before the journeybegan. This time had to be checked against the timecalculated with an astrolabe at sea, the differencebetween them giving the longitude. The astronomerand first lieutenant aboard each of the sloopsResolution and Adventure (commanded by Cook)

kept the keys to the boxes containing thechronometers and were always present when theywere wound up. Greater and greater precision thusmarked the subtle transition of navigation from an artto a science. But there were still the imponderables -the unexpected changes of sea and weather and theweaknesses, strengths and sometimes purelycapricious behaviour of the ships themselves.

The sea has ever been more conservative than the land,for the simple reason that at sea every attempt to stepforward has to be paid for in human life rather than the coinof the realm.

Basil Lubbock

Ships are living vessels possessing temperamentsand hidden potentials. This is how sailors havealways seen them, and indeed the complexinterrelationship between strengths, strains, stressesand supports in their makeup results in constantadjustment. One especially thinks of the creakingand groaning of a wooden ship in heavy seas, but ametal ship equally adjusts, flexing its entire body as itbreasts rolling swells and dips down again into thetroughs. A good navigator comes to know his shipintimately and ever charts his course with hercapabilities in mind. He is like the mind striving towin its way back home, and he must act in totalconsonance with the vessel’s captain, who ordersfrom the bridge and could be seen to represent thehigher mind which is already linked to the Buddhicgoal. Among captains in the world there have been

few who could be said to have fully incarnated thislofty condition, but there have been some notableswho, helped by the gods or by their own wisdom andbreadth of soul, have inspired generations. Goodcaptains always know the worth of discipline andmorale, but captains like Cook have that indefinable“something more”. To sailors, service under such aone is an honour as well as a benefit. Along withsupreme confidence, Cook possessed a sense ofpresence, movingly affirmed by a Maori boy whoonce said in reference to him, “A noble man cannotbe lost in a crowd.”

Good seamanship can save a vessel even inviolent storms or when run aground. The leadsman ofthe Endeavour had just called out seventeen fathoms(off the east coast of Australia), and before he couldheave another cast, “the ship struck and stuck fast”.Under Cook’s command they downed the sails soshe would not press forward, put the anchor out at adistance to haul against and tossed all their extraweight overboard. With a little help from the gods,perhaps, the coral from the reef on which they hadrun remained in the hole and acted as a plug as shewas eased back into deeper water. In contrast to thisthere is nothing sadder than the wreck of a majesticand spirited ship through the inadequacies or lack ofskill of a captain and navigator. Many a noble shiphas been lost at sea or dashed upon rocks byuncontrollable natural forces, but many another hasbeen doomed by foolhardiness or by lamentable

errors in judgement. The long list of ships which havedisappeared with all hands lost at sea is amelancholy roll that reads like an ancient lamentationfor vanquished hopes and dreams of discovery. Thevoyages of men upon the sea have, indeed, beenpaid for in human life and the spiritual journey on theocean within has been no less hazardous. Many arethe wrecks that hang broken upon the astral reefsringing its continents and many more have been lostin unknown seas.

Alone, alone, all, all alone;Alone on a wide, wide sea.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Deep within the individual where one’s highersense of self arises, the desire to make this lonelyvoyage awaits. As Pompey recognized, thenavigational quest is more essential than life, andthe voyage, sooner or later, must be made. Thus onefollows the journeys of Odysseus or Jason orAeneas, sensing the immediacy of their trials inone’s own inner life. Every human being must reachhis true home and regain his rightful crown andqueen. Until the mind is fully united to Buddhi, thevessel of the personality will drift helplessly with thetides and cross-currents of the worldly sea. Thevoyage must be made and the individual, as his owncaptain and navigator, must confront every phase ofits vicissitudes. One cannot reach and realize thegoal by simply boarding another’s ship, for such apassenger crawls ashore and never understands

where he has arrived. But the inner ocean is astrackless as an unexplored astral wasteland whereinno landmarks present themselves. The lone sailor onthat sea cautiously feels his way through the mistsand is startled to come upon suddenly the wreckageof failed voyages and the ominous presence of greatreefs and bergs looming in the whirling currents. Thejourney takes him to the very entrance of Hades, oreven through its realms, and his astral eyes and earsare accosted by the horrors and woes that residethere. But it is only by journeying through death andback into the realm of the living while alive and still ina body that one may learn how to navigate one’scraft through the dangers and trials that aboundalong the way.

One learns true navigation when one gains thecourage to sail away from the shore where merepiloting suffices and enter the open sea, to the Riverof Ocean beyond. As the reference point shifts fromthe land to the celestial bodies, one slowly learns toplace more and more trust in the inner lights that riseupon the night sky of one’s deepest meditations.Voiding the mind of all known landmarks, one learnsto rest upon the great Ocean of Being and await withalert confidence the appearance of that fixed guidingstar. Thus gradually is the door of the mind openedto divine breezes which, like the gift of Aeolus (sopathetically squandered by the men of Odysseus),will reverberate through one’s instrument andmelodiously waft one towards the destination.

Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are weddedforever.

Herman Melville

Odysseus learnt from divine guidance. He, unlikehis men, used his native intelligence in its service.Thus, even the sorceress Circe, who destroyedothers, aided him, and Calypso too ultimately helpedhim on his way. Nymphs of the sea and aspects ofthe astral matrix that can either ensnare or help, they,in their turn, served him. In the case of Jason thiswas not so, for he neither understood nor did heultimately control the powerful sorceress who playedsuch a dominant role in his quest. Taking her loveand her malevolent magical practices equally forgranted, he was unprepared for her violent revengeand her curse when thwarted. Thus do foolhardyseamen challenge a stormy sea with all sails set butwithout knowledge of the jagged rocks that lieahead. In contrast to Jason, brave adventurer thoughhe was, Odysseus demonstrated the heightenedpowers of memory and observation required ofthose who know very well the nature of what theyexperience during the course of their journey andcome to realize fully what lies at its conclusion.

The ship in which the journey is made is a livingvesture, the ark that will give one birth. The compassneeded within is one’s conscience, the small voiceof one’s soul which always points to the unchangingTruth and which comes into conscious development(just as it was invented and slowly improved in

worldly navigation) as one hushes extraneousdirectives and learns to listen to its faithfulinstruction. One’s chronometer can be found in thesteady pulsation emanating from the cave of theinner spiritual heart. This is the true basis for allmeasurement while moving around the inner andouter world. When its beat has been consciouslycharted, the voyager can discover how its rhythmcomplements and blends with the fixed point ofTruth. Just as the invention of the chronometersolved the problem of establishing longitude, so toothe discovery of one’s spiritual heart facilitates anyreal progress towards the goal. Compassionpossesses a pulsation which can be consciouslyexperienced and is the motor force of truenavigation. Hearkening to this inner beating, andwith meditative eyes fixed on the star of Truth, thesailor upon the inner sea can navigate wisely,latitudinally and longitudinally, moving at easearound its shoals and doldrums and myriad dangers.Such a voyager thus recapitulates the navigationalmyth of Odysseus and comes to triumph over theastral abyss of the unconscious. Skirting the trap offorgetfulness presented by the Lotus Lands andCalypso’s cloying affection, the sailor-disciple canavoid the fate of the men of Odysseus who wereturned into animal-men or drowned in the mothersea. Even if others fail around him and are carriedaway on the mindless tide, the resourceful anddevoted navigator presses on. Even if the ship itselfis lost, he can, like Odysseus, hold fast to the axis

mundi of the mast and the balancing power of thekeel while drifting towards a temporary haven.

Each of the arduously garnered rules of worldlynavigation provides profound analogies for the innervoyager. Captain Cook was wise to act swiftly anddecisively when the Endeavour ran aground. Just somust the sailor-disciple respond when confrontedwith a challenge to his further passage. He should beready and willing to throw overboard all his excessbaggage. It will have to be done at some point in anycase. And he would be foolish to keep on sail whenthe winds of adversity would only drive him furthertowards destruction. It is unwise to jeopardize one’svessel before the other shore is reached or until, likeOdysseus, one is assured of divine guidance. Evenwhen the shore is sighted, resorting to plane sailingis not wise. Winds of unexpected change may forceone to temporarily tack away from the goal in orderto circle around towards it at a later point. Thus, evenin sight of the goal, one may be blown back andforced to assimilate the lesson that the soul’sevolution, like all real growth, takes place in cycles.Thus the spiritual navigator circumnavigates theglobe many times over, circling back over the sametrack but never meeting the identical seas. Alwaysthe trials are varied and of an ever more subtlenature.

The old salt, who requested the youth to lookdeeply into his eyes before taking to the sea, had, inthis way, voyaged many times around. His far-gazing

orbs were filled with mirrorings of the struggles andwonders he had experienced. On many a night hehad followed his fixed star and sensed the beating ofhis spiritual heart, but he had not yet wedded the twoand made of his mind a pellucid and eager servantto the divine within him. It may be that in this life hehad become too old to make the voyage again, andyet his concern for the boy revealed his hope that thelad, in taking precautions, might succeed in realizingthe goal. He recognized that quality in the boy whichwould rise up incontestably within himself insubsequent lives, namely, the longing to “go down tothe sea in ships” and “do business in great waters”.The voyage for such souls is undeniable. It must bemade whatever the dangers. For a haunting thoughmisty sketch of an uncharted shore has beenglimpsed by them and it can never again beforgotten. West of these out to seas colder than HebridesI must goWhere the fleet of stars is anchored and the young star-captainsglow.

James Elroy Flecker

Hermes, February 1985

THE DODECAHEDRON From man or angel the great ArchitectDid wisely to conceal and not divulgeHis secrets to be scann’d by them who oughtRather admire; or, if they list not to tryConjecture, he his fabric of the heavensHath left to their disputes, perhaps to moveHis laughter at their quaint opinions wideHereafter; when they come to model heavenAnd calculate the stars, how they will wieldThe mighty frame; how build, unbuild, contriveTo save appearances; how gird the sphereWith centric and eccentric scribbled o’er,Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.

Paradise Lost, John Milton

The ancient Greeks honoured the twelve signs ofthe zodiac in the sacred host of the Dodecatheoi,the twelve gods whose temples were placed in thetwelve equally divided sections which radiated outfrom the centre of the city of Athens. Their popularworship shrouded the secret correspondences ofsets of twelves observed in a multitude of natural andcultural phenomena. There were twelve hours of theday and night, twelve months in the year, twelve unitsin various measurements and weights, twelve

labours, columns of sacred temples, and the twelvedays between the winter solstice and the first day ofthe new year which marked a return to chaos and thesubsequent rebirth of order. The many derivatives ofthe basic term dodecatheoi in the Greek suggest afundamental twelve-part division discernible in manyfacets of human life. The number twelve itself wasseen as symbolic of cosmic order, archetypallyrepresented for much of the ancient world by thetwelve points through which the zodiac revolves.

Such correspondences were based upon arcanephilosophical tenets as well as upon actualobservations of natural cycles. Plato spoke of thetwelve signs (gods or theoi) of the zodiac as modesof manifestation of the single creative force whichgoverns the universe, calling them the Gates ofHeaven. The zodiac itself was associated with theDemiurge and the primordial Eros or the will tocreate. This is rather similar to the theme found inmany cultures of the twelve fruits borne on the Treeof Life or the twelve tribal progenitors.Metaphysically, the twelve divisions through whichthe sun seems to orbit have been seen for millenniaas corresponding to the twelve degrees or stages inthe continuous action of the active principle upon thepassive. This cosmic creation, within the division oftwelve, involves vital combinations of numbers suchas twice five plus two and three times four. It alsoinvolves depth and breadth of action on three andmore dimensions, yielding the fifth and final of

Plato’s regular solids, the dodecahedron. Just as thesymbolism of each sign in the zodiac springs fromthe number it bears in the series, so the twelvepentagonal faces of the dodecahedron express thepoint, the line, the plane and, in their totality, all thegeometric solids. Thus the dodecahedron, whichPlato called the supreme spiritual metaphor for theOne and the many, is a paradigmatic model to serveas the archetypal framework for every possiblemanifestation.

The Highest and most Good Creator in the creations ofthis mobile world and the arrangement of the heavens hadhis eye on those five regular bodies, which have been mostcelebrated from the time of Pythagoras and Plato right downto our own day, and that to this nature he accommodated thenumber of heavenly spheres, their proportions, and thesystem of their motions.

Johann Kepler

Confined by the theocentric language of his time,the bold statement of Kepler showed a vision whichextended far beyond the truncated notionsassociated with the unique creation of ananthropomorphic god that persisted in theseventeenth century. The Platonic concept that themanifest cosmos was gestated through DivineIdeation is clearly traceable in Kepler, as it is now inthe few daring contemporary physicists like FritjofCapra, who invokes “metabolic mentation” from cellsto the higher levels of conscious intelligence,culminating in the Cosmic Mind. He suggests that“both life and mind are manifestations of the same

set of systemic properties”, thus arriving, despite thelimitations of the language of systems theory, at thethreshold of Pythagorean-Platonic cosmology. Inconveying the majestic grandeur of cosmicmanifestation, the lofty prose of The Secret Doctrineenables us to explore the subtle correspondencesand textures of meaning lying in and around wordscapable of intimating that which lies beyond and alsoprecedes the visible cosmos. H. P. Blavatskydeclared that the visible universe “was built on themodel of the first DIVINE IDEA”, which existed frometernity in a latent state. Reiterating the teachings ofthe initiated Plato, she taught that, just as theanimating soul of the invisible universe is the CentralSpiritual Sun, so also the sun is the soul of the visiblewhich is built by the first-begotten of the One, whoconstructed it “on the geometrical figure of thedodecahedron”. This first-born is the aggregate ofthe Host of Builders or first constructive forces, theTetragrammaton at the head of the seven lowerSephiroth and the triad at the top of the Pythagoreandecad.

That there are distinct orders of Angels, assuredly Ibelieve; but what they are, I cannot tell; Dicant qui possunt; sitamen probare possum quod dicunt, saies that Father, Letthem tell you that can, so they be able to prove, that they tellyou true. They are Creatures, that have not so much of aBody as flesh is, as froth is, as a vapour is, as a sigh is, andyet with a touch they shall moulder a rock into lesse Atomes,then the sand that it stands upon; and a milstone in smallerflower, then it grinds.

John Donne

In the magical unfolding of cosmogenesis a vasthierarchy of spirits is involved, led by the Divine Fireo f Daiviprakriti, given direction and force by themysterious magical potency of Fohat. From thisprimordial motion the Fire and Aether, whichconstitute the Atma-Buddhic prototype of incarnatingmonads, come into being and give life to the Triads(the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic prototypes) who workthrough the sacred matrix of human consciousness(the Rupa Angels), in which lies the vital germ thatwill fall into incarnation. From this springs the fifthgroup of Dhyanis connected with the microcosmexpressed in the pentagon and the five-pointedfigure of man. In arcane philosophy the hierarchy ofcreative powers is divided into seven, whosecomponents four and three, when multiplied, equaltwelve: the four bodies and three faculties of Brahma(the four elements and three gunas), thus yieldingthe twelve orders of the zodiac expressed three-dimensionally in the dodecahedron.

Each descending level of this hierarchy is markedby increased differentiation which unfolds accordingto law. At the beginning of a period of activity thislaw, resting in a latent state of concealed wisdom(Chitshakti), awakens and begins to act in the pre-cosmic Mind. Fohat then commences to form theuniverse “in accordance with the conceptionsgenerated in the universal mind out of thedifferentiated principle of Cosmic matter”. Cosmicideation continues ceaselessly as long as there

exists a manifest world. If it ceased, even for afraction of a moment in time, the process ofdifferentiation would stop and the night of pralayabegin. Owing to a deep and lasting comprehensionof this fact, especially as it is expressed throughsound vibrations, the tradition persists that to utterthe sacred Word is to join one’s voice with avibratory current that can be traced back to the verygenesis of Being. In the mundane language ofsystems theory, this idea can be traced in terms ofinterdependent, living organisms which are always atwork, renewing themselves within their stablepatterns of organization and dying only when thecontinuous exchange of energy and matter with theirenvironment ceases.

The latent design exists in the one unborn eternal atom,the centre which exists everywhere and nowhere.

T. Subba Row

Conceptions of latency and of primordialbeginnings evoke questions about whether theuniverse is infinite or bounded in time. Is it closed oropen? Is it evolving or in a steady state ofequilibrium? Does the creative and destructivedance of Shiva Nataraj continue endlessly or does ittoo have periods of rest? Is it contained within thetwelve faces of the dodecahedron or is itbeginningless and without limit or order?Contemporary cosmological theories engaging theminds of astrophysicists tend to swing between thenotion of the universe as a steady state and the so-

called Big Bang theory. Proponents of the steady-state theory envision the universe as endlesslyexpanding, evolving new radiation in compensationfor that lost through expansion, whilst those focussedupon beginnings assume that an exceedingly simplematter exploded out of a super-dense kernel.Followers of the latter theory believe that this matterwas initially composed of photons, protons,electrons and neutrons, and that after only secondsthe universe cooled enough to permit theiraggregation into larger units from deuterons toheavier elements. In the early aeons of its expansion,light-energy predominated, subjugating, so to speak,the expanding matter in a sort of “reign of radiation”.When the temperature dropped (as a result ofexpansion) below the threshold of thermonuclearreactions producing photons, the “density” of radiantmatter decreased more rapidly than that of darkmatter, until the density of the latter exceeded that ofthe former, ushering in the “reign of matter”.According to this model, during the predominance oflight-energy, matter spread uniformly as a “thin” gasuntil, with its increased density, it broke up into gasballs which slowly drifted apart to become eventuallythe galaxies of our universe.

The problem with this model lies in its slavishacceptance of a dualistic reality wherein the term“matter” is muddled and pushed around toaccommodate everything that is acted upon bysomething. In addressing itself to primeval

beginnings, it places the same mechanicallyconceived muddle at the threshold of the infinite. Thesteady-state theory has the merit of leaving thequestion of causation alone. As a few modernthinkers (often borrowing freely from the ideasinherent in Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu metaphysics)have pointed out, mass is not matter (substance)necessarily, but a form of energy. What we callobjects are really patterns in a unified cosmicprocess. Things are events or happenings and onlysecondarily “things”. The teaching of Nagarjuna that“things derive their being and nature by mutualdependence and are nothing in themselves” isechoed by the atomic physicist Henry Stapp whenhe asserts that “an elementary particle is not anindependently existing unanalyzable entity. It is, inessence, a set of relationships that reach outward toother things.”

The energy patterns of the subatomic world buildup stable atomic and molecular structures whoseaggregation presents the “solid” appearance we call“matter”. At the macrocosmic level this translatesusefully into the idea of substance, but at the atomiclevel the idea loses its meaning. The dynamicrelationships of the sub-organic world describepatterns (rather than substance) like a dance ofenergy, and the answer to the question whether thecreation and destruction in the cosmic dance endurein a steady state is contingent upon the relationshipbetween the existence of patterns in the manifest

cosmos and the pre-cosmic Mind. Consideringthese ideas from the standpoint of relative cycleswithin cycles, it becomes apparent that the steadystate and Big Bang theories are alike partiallycorrect and inadequate. Hampered in theirexpression by mechanistic language and theintellectual polarization of spirit and matter that hascrippled the thinking of philosophers and scientistsfor the past two thousand years, they do,nonetheless, as theories manage to touch thegarment hem of a greater cosmological truth. Theinteresting idea here involves the notion ofrelationship within the whole manifested as apattern, a noumenal basis for seeing form in terms ofarchetypal designs rather than simply aggregationsof matter. In considering the process of the cominginto being of form or morphogenesis, modernphysics is coming to realize that DNA alone doesnot suffice as an explanation. This realization led, asearly as the 1930s, to a consideration ofmorphogenetic fields which are spatial dispositionsrather than material structures. In them is preserveda design body that is causal and guides thedevelopment of form, remaining associated with itand restoring it if necessary. Some investigatorspoint to the regenerative capability of certain plantsand animals as indicating the presence of such apurposeful form-fulfilling potential. Such fields arephysical in the sense that physics can explain thembut they are not material structures. They cannotnormally be seen or touched, but any member of a

species of any of the kingdoms of life taps into sucha field and is thus affected (even prior to birth) bydevelopments and adjustments experienced by thatspecies throughout its history. The DNA code is thusnecessary merely for tuning to the right frequencyand participating in patterns contained timelessly inthe right field.

Such a reaffirmation of arcane metaphysics opensdoors through which the fresh air of archetypalideation can flow and begin to sweep away thecreaking structure of Cartesian thought, which itselfhas become an imprisoning design in the collective“morphogenetic” field of the human mind. It has beensuggested that hierarchies of morphogenetic fieldswork upon each other, the more archetypal orderingand designing the lesser: some responsible for theforms of chemical systems, others for organisms orcrystals, etc. New compounds, lacking amorphogenetic field, are not strongly influenced (forexample in the case of a crystal) to assume aparticular form. But once they are crystallized a firsttime, each subsequent crystallization becomes moreautomatic. Precisely in this way learned behaviouramongst members of higher species spreadswithout any physical communication. It would seemto follow that the more generalized and universal theform, the greater its ability to tap into the higherarchetypal morphogenetic fields and express theirdesigns through form, behaviour and even thought.Here, the Theosophical teachings concerning the

levels of the astral light related to the sthula, lingaand karana shariras, as well as Akasha, are neededin order to carry the discussion further. The mainpoint in the concept of a morphogenetic field is that itindicates a continuous medium in which causationcan work through archetypal forms.

Another central fact about the universe, revealingsomething fundamental concerning the geometricalform upon which it was constructed, is that itmaintains an isotropic state. There is an isotropicuniformity with respect to the direction of arrival ofradiant energy, and cosmic expansion as a wholetakes place isotropically. No matter where a galaxyis found, its recessional velocity is related todistance by the same proportionality. This meansthat the universe is remarkably symmetrical, and itwould seem from these observations that we happento be at the very centre of it. But this is deceptive, asthe same would be true if we were observing andmeasuring from the standpoint of any other galaxy. Insuch an expansion every point is its own centre andthere is no preferred centre. One could say that ourgalaxy is indeed at the centre of the universe - but sois every other galaxy.

The form that best accommodates such anisotropic condition is a sphere whose centre andsurface constantly shift according to the perspectivetaken. But as Pythagoras and Plato indicated, thepoint and the circle (including the three-dimensionalsphere) cannot in and of themselves perform the

work of manifestation. Lines of connection mustenter the picture. In ancient cosmogenesis the labourmust fall upon the fiery triangles and pentagons. Thatthe dodecahedron with its pentagonal faces is theideal form to express this can be shown in terms of avast working of necessity which operates universallyand lies at the basis of all manifestation and growth.The dodecahedron answers closely to the sphereand expresses the isotropic tendency whichtranscends ordinary experiences of time and space,but it also represents order and interconnectedmacrocosmic and microcosmic relationshipscapable of generation.

The creation of the world is the combined work ofnecessity and mind. Mind, the ruling power, persuadednecessity to bring the greater part of created things toperfection, and thus after this manner in the beginning,through necessity made subject to reason, this universewas created.

Timaeus, Plato

In the orderly development of forms, a criterion ofspatial and structural economy involving the leastexpenditure of energy or movement to accomplishends is always observed. If the universe issymmetrically constructed and its faces are indeedpentagonal, then they will be regular pentagons andthe figure of the universe will necessarily be adodecahedron. Put differently, the dodecahedron isthe necessary representative or expansion of thepentagon in three-dimensional space. As aprojection of the pentagon, Plato considered the

dodecahedron to be the culmination of the hierarchyof five solids, alluding to a growth or developmentassociated with the four elements plus aether. Thusthe dodecahedron contains all the other elements,framing, as Timaeus described, “one visible animalcomprehending within itself all other animals” whileremaining more fiery than anything else. The ancientKabbalists put it in terms of “the Dodecahedron[which] lies concealed in the perfect Cube”,suggesting that the earthy body of the world containswithin itself the archetypal cosmic design whichreveals itself, however, only to the eyes of one whounderstands the mysterious process whereby theOne becomes the many through divine geometry.

In the development of solid forms, the icosahedronprecedes the dodecahedron and symbolizes therealm of the astral light. Thus, despite its fierytriangular faces, it is a form associated with waterand carries within it the seed of the design yet to beborn. In terms of the hierarchy of spirits, theicosahedron would correspond with the Rupa Angelswho follow the Triads and represent the matrix ofhuman consciousness, in which lies the germ thatwill fall into incarnation. Thus the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic prototype (of the Triads) passes into thatsubtle and watery pre-cosmic realm of anticipatedform before manifesting as the fifth group ofDhyanis, the Pentagons or Kumaras who sacrificethemselves in the “fall” of spirit into a gatheringdensity of matter. In the physicist’s description of the

shift from the “reign of light” to the “reign of matter”,one can recognize an echo of this conversion. Onecan also illustrate it by describing a sphere aroundthe icosahedron, from the centre of whichperpendiculars are drawn through its faces to meetthe surface of the sphere. If the points of theseintersections are joined together, the pentagonalfaces of the dodecahedron will be formed. Thus,points become lines and lines define the perimetersof the next level of geometrical complexity, leadingultimately once again back to the sphere, the circleand the point.

The pentagon is the shape of supreme sacrifice.This is symbolized by the fact that it is the only faceof a regular solid having angles wider than a rightangle. Its outspread arms at each corner seem toillustrate an open acceptance and willingness toaccommodate. Its five sides answer to the Sanskritma-karam, the name of the twice five or tenth sign ofthe zodiac and an anagram for the sons of Rudra-Shiva, the Kumaras. The number five itself signifiesthis willingness to uplift matter by bringing the fierytriad of spirit to bear upon the duad of the Mothersubstance in the embodiment of the Manasicprinciple. As a figure, five is comprised of the twoGreek accents over vowels which indicate whetherthey are aspirated or not. The higher, aspirated marksignifies the “strong spirit” of God, whereas thelower, unaspirated mark is that of the secondary“Spirit of Love” reflected in the world. Together these

describe the five mystic vowels uttered by Brahma atcreation and are expressed in the spiritual andterrestrial human compound.

Following the criterion of numerical and structuraleconomy inherent in intelligent Nature, the logicalelegance and beauty of the dodecahedron presentsitself as a perfect expression of the twelvetransformations of spirit into matter that are said tohave taken place during the four great ages of thefirst Maha Yuga. Thus the three of spiritual fire andthe four of the earth gave depth and breadth to thatwhich is represented in the ten points of thePythagorean decad. One can imagine the perfecteconomy of growth involved in this in terms ofsphere-points describing the Platonic solidsultimately contained within the dodecahedron. Fourequal spheres are the greatest number that can bein simultaneous contact. They represent the firstregular pattern, which is the tetrahedron. Six equalspheres form the next regular pattern, with eachsphere touching four neighbours in the cube, whichis the “dual” of the octahedron. Twelve equal spheresmay surround and touch, not one another, but anucleus of equal size. When this occurs, the formcontracts so that each sphere touches its fiveneighbours, completing a threefold transformationreferred to as the “twelve degrees of freedom”. Thelinear and turning movements required in thisprocess thereby draw together the tetrahedron (fire),the octahedron (air), the icosahedron (water) and the

cube (earth) into the dodecahedron containing all,plus the aether of the heavens.

This numerical and structural economy is furtherdemonstrated by the golden ratio which presentsitself diagonally on each of the pentagonal faces ofthis cosmic form. Within it the centroids of the twelvefaces are divisible into three coplanar groups of four,which quadrads lie at the corners of three mutuallyperpendicular and symmetrically placed goldenrectangles, their one common point being thecentroid of the dodecahedron itself. This perfectstructural economy results from a gnomic growth,from inside outward, as opposed to an agglutinativegrowth involving a simple addition from the outsideof identical elements. It is a more basic, subtle,internal growth which begins on the unseen planes ofthe Cosmic Mind and slowly takes on the logicallyunfolded expression of fully manifested life. It is anideational growth involving archetypal relationshipsthat yield patterns capable of echoing the One in themany. The beauty of the dodecahedron swells in themind with the growing understanding of this idea. Itcombines so perfectly the wholeness and onenessof the sphere (which is its constant reference point)with the great sacrificial presence of the Triads in thequaternary (represented in each of its pentagonalfaces) that its form could easily become the focus ofone’s deepest reverence and gratitude.

In the dodecahedron one can see the outline of theunmanifested ideal, the manifesting cosmic ideal

fathered by sacrifice, and the human microcosmcapable of centering itself and focussing - like one ofthe twelve disciples - upon the central nucleus whichisotropically informs the whole. Thus each humansoul can fulfil the potential symbolized by thepentagon and become a Gate of Heaven throughwhose five-limbed vehicle the undimmed Light of thefiery Triads streams. Each can do this by taking theperspective of the whole made up of galactic centreseverywhere, realizing that each true disciple ofKrishna experiences himself or herself as one withthe Lord at the centre of the universe. There can beno exclusivist element in this experience. Everypentagonal face worships and has its being in thatcentre, and each must come to know that in thiscentre lies its indivisible unity with all the other faces.Only thus is the macrocosm made manifest in themicrocosm and the disciple made worthy of enteringthe perfect cosmic symmetry reflected in the twelve-gated city of the Lord.

The cosmic dance is fiery,Yet it moves within a sphere;Pulsating with the drum of timeAround the centre there.The radiant flames encircleThe moon on Shiva’s brow,And the mixtured glow intonesThe sacrificial vow.“I, Shiv, bring forth my sons,A youthful virgin race,That all creatures yet to beMay come to see their face.”And so saying, the Fiery LordFrom point and sphere produced

From point and sphere producedThe Triads and the Pentagons,Their forms with light infused.Thus did the Cosmic Plan unfoldIn twelvefold symmetry,And thus did man obtain the formTo match Divinity.

Hermes, August 1985

THE MIRROR

For mind is like a mirror; it gathers dust while it reflects. Itneeds the gentle breezes of Soul-wisdom to brush away thedust of our illusions. Seek, O Beginner, to blend thy Mindand Soul.

The Voice of the Silence

“Last night I had a very strange dream, perhaps adream within a dream. I found myself, I know nothow, gliding down a long hallway. Mirrors lined itswalls - or were they windows? - I am not sure, but itscarcely seemed to matter, for the effect was one ofmyriad moonlit corridors ramifying out, each asinviting yet baffling as the next. As I turned towardsany one of them, I confronted a surprising variation ofmy own reflected image, as though each stood at theentrance of a gallery belonging to a different life. Andyet I easily recognized them as myself and wasstrangely moved to see them facing me, reflectingforgotten masks or even visages yet to be. One afteranother of these I passed, silently moving along thehallway towards a door at its end that stood partiallyopen. Or was it a reflection of a door, for surely therewas a figure approaching me from its moonlit portaland surely that figure resembled me. Was it areflection of the door through which I had entered thehall? Or was the door through which I had enteredmerely a reflection of the one ahead? Even as this

possibility crossed my dreaming mind I shuddered,for the more urgent question of whether I myself hadentered the hallway in a reflected form presenteditself. Or was the form in which I found myself indeedthe original, whose reflection now approached soprecisely in step and rhythm with the movement I wasmaking towards it? Was the ‘I’ that observed ailthese forms, these corridors of mirrored vistas, alooffrom all this coming and going, or was it too areflection of something else?”

Seeming to have come to the end of his narrative,the speaker turned to examine its effect upon theface of his listener. While describing the dream, hehad been gazing off intently in an abstracted way,almost oblivious to the presence of his comrade, butnow he saw that the latter had listened well andfollowed him in his imagination along the hauntingcorridor of mirrors. The listener might have initiallydismissed the dream, treating it like a sort of poeticfunhouse excursion, where one is confronted with aseries of distorted self images and rooms withmirrored walls leading nowhere, but the seriousmanner in which his friend had conveyed its detailsto him caused him to pause. Still, he tried to teasehim into a lighter mood, reminding him of themirrored stagecraft practised by trick artists andcarnival hucksters with their ghostly apparitions andmagic cabinets. He spoke of the time they saw thehalf-woman, whose normal upper body endedabruptly at a waist resting upon a table, under whose

thin unembellished top one could plainly see onlyfour simple table legs, the carpet and the drape atthe back of the stage. It had taken them aconsiderable length of time to figure out how the trickhad been done entirely with mirrors. But the light-hearted reminiscence did not succeed in divertingthe dreamer, and so his friend launched into anearnest discussion about the use of glaces àrépétitions in architecture, hoping thereby to engagehis intellectual curiosity. Perhaps an academicconsideration of the wonderful mirrored halls atVersailles or the Amalienburg Pavilion in Munichwould coax his mind away from the somehowdisturbing images of his strange dream.

Launching into an enthusiastic description ofmirrors opposite mirrors, creating oblique views ofwindows and doors leading the eye out alongfoliaged parkways or into rooms with other mirrors,the listener sought to capture the imagination of thedreamer. He tried to drag him out of the shadowrealm into what he fancied to be waking reality, like adirector leading the audience out of a play whichtakes place within a play. But he made the mistakeof speaking of architectural decoys and disguisesand of rounding off his point with an allusion toghosts that haunt the hallways of mirrors, while far inthe distance a true reflection looms of somethingreal which is very close at hand. As soon as thewords escaped his lips, he saw the shadow ofabstraction eclipse the dreamer’s face and was

forced to admit defeat. Narcissus-like, his friend hadbecome once again absorbed in the mirror of hisdream. Something fundamental concerning theproblem of individual identity and levels of reality hadbeen touched in him, and the listener perceived atlast that either he would have to withdraw altogetheror join his friend in a meandering and probingreflection upon the subject of mirrors.

The mind, that ocean where each kindDoes straight to its own resemblance find;Yet it creates transcending these,For other worlds and other seas,Annihilating all that’s madeTo a green thought in a green shade.

Andrew Marvell

The mirror is the symbol par excellence ofconsciousness, of thought as an instrument of self-contemplation. In the mirror is reflected the formalreality of the visible world from which the imaginationsoars to mirror yet loftier possibilities in itself. In themirror appearances find their champion, reflectionsof discontinuities, changes and substitutions,everything that is ephemeral and of the world. It is areminder that all images and forms are merereflections, contrivances of thought, effects of karma.Nature herself is an apparition, deceiving andcharming and filling one with dreams of longing forthe things of the senses. The deceptions can be verysubtle and need not be limited to such things as themagic box trick or the wiles of Nature. Plato pointedout how the Sophists, with their use of reason,

created “semblances”, like images in mirrors whichduped people into deceptively false lines of reflectedthought. For the mirror of the mind can be likened tothe capacity to think, making it all important that oneuse noetic discrimination in selecting the ideas to bereflected upon. The mind reflects the ideas andimages which are before it and which originate atmany different levels within and without theindividual, each level itself a reflection of somethingelse. The dust gathered on the mirror of the minddims the ability to discriminate and refracts furtherreflections that join the semblances and fragmentedimages gathered from outside, combining to createa collage of misleading impressions.

The physical mirror into which mankind routinelygazes is usually a shiny surface of flat glass with ametallic backing. The bright silvery backing is reallythe essence of the mirror, and the main function ofthe glass is simply to protect and stabilize it. Earlymirrors did not possess this glass cover but weremade of the highly polished metal itself, competingsuccessfully in clarity of reflection with water mirrors.Beautiful hand-mirrors fashioned by the Etruscanswere carved with the motifs of gods and goddessesand given as highly valued gifts at times markingmajor rites of passage. Metallic mirrors of ancientChina were likewise coveted, their presumed abilityto reflect the image of deities of all sorts causingthem to be used in many magical practices as wellas for toiletry. With the invention of Venetian glass,

European mirrors became increasingly large. Thesimple mixture of sand, soda and lime was refined ina highly guarded secret process, enabling craftsmento press large flat sheets upon mercury and silverbackings. The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles wasdesigned to accommodate three hundred suchmirrors, setting a fashion which promoted themanufacturing of plate glass in 1687.

The stunning amplification of light and the openingup of reflected vistas by the use of mirrors led toremarkable architectural innovations which musthave had a profound psychological effect uponpeople enjoying such surroundings. A wholelanguage of mirrors came into being whenindividuals spoke to each other’s image in mirrorsand watched each other’s as well as their ownbehaviour in reflecting panes, providing manysimultaneous dimensions to every movement orgesture. The illusion of individuals meetingthemselves walking into rooms, the déjà vu effect ofthings recapitulating themselves over and overagain, of people coming when they are going, ofwalls seeming to be windows and doors - all thisbecame part of a reflected reality accepted asnormal and, somehow, real. Perhaps becauseVoltaire sensed the importance of this in terms of itseffect upon the collective human experience, heconsidered the mirror (together with printing, thetelescope, gunpowder and the compass) to be oneof the truly great discoveries of mankind.

A regular or specific reflection such as one sees ina mirror requires a very smooth surface on which allirregularities have been rendered smaller than awavelength of reflected light. The surface must bevery bright in order to absorb as little and reflect asmuch light as possible. According to the laws ofreflection, the incident ray from an object strikes themirror and bounces off its surface at an equal anglein the opposite direction. Owing to the highlyreflective nature of the surface, the reflected light-energy bouncing off it can be said to contain thesame message as the incident ray. Nothing hasbeen absorbed so as to “restructure” the energyflow, and the observer sees the image of the originalin precise detail, right down to the necessary“reversal” that has taken place. The image of anobject seen in a plane mirror is as far “behind” themirror as the object is in front of it. This behind-the-mirror image or virtual image is actually at avanishing point, existing only as a theoretical vertexof the reflection angle. Whilst the plane mirror givesan image that is the reversal of an object, two planemirrors at right angles can eliminate this reversal.With two such mirrors set at a ninety-degree angle toone another, three images are seen; set at a sixty-degree angle, five images present themselves. Onecan see that, whether in terms of conjuring tricks,architectural illusions or semblances of the mind, theramifying possibilities represented by the physicaland symbolic mirror are infinite.

Yet within that plane, the illusion of infinity can becontained.

Pamela Heyne

What might be called mirroring power is inessence the ability to make things appear similar onor within something which is quite dissimilar. Thusthe mirror is an excellent symbol for analogies andthe evocative poetry of correspondences. In the faceof a great astronomical mirror one sees the heavenlybodies captured, as it were, their enormous light-energy reflected upon a few inches of glass. Thusobservatory telescopes, like that containing theseventeen-foot concave disc at Mount Palomar, arenot lenses but reflecting paraboloids which can bringthe far-travelled light-rays of outer space into a singlefocus. Despite this awesome capability, however,the mirror, with its silvery backing, is symbolicallyassociated with the moon, which receives light andpassively reflects it. Having no image of its own, itsability to reflect depends upon the presence of anobject to be reflected. There is no selective processinvolved nor does it seem to possess a power in andof itself. And yet the moon does exert anindependent influence upon the earth, which is farfrom passive, and one may wonder if this capabilitymight also in some mysterious way be true of themirror. One may question whether its proverbialreputation for revealing truth or exposing evil isbased only upon some material sense of reflectedrevelation, the observed glint in the eye or shadow

across the face.The Japanese kagami (mirror of accusation) is

said to reveal both truth and evil, but the fact that it isalso believed capable of being entered into by adeity would suggest that what was revealed wassomething more than just a physical phenomenonreflected in a glass. More fundamental to thequestion of whether the mirror is in itself powerful isthe assumption made by magicians and conjurors ofwidely diverse cultures that the mirror serves toinvoke apparitions, reflecting images which it hasreceived in the past. The Etruscans considered thatonce a mirror had held an individual’s double, itwould be imprudent to leave it lying around after hisdeath, and so it was entombed in the sarcophaguswith the remains.

The implications of such an idea are vast andpotentially alarming. If one believed that every actthat one had engaged in before a mirror, evenunwittingly, was permanently contained in it andcapable of being invoked by some conjuror, nodoubt one would become extremely self-consciousof everything one did and very careful to act in amanner creditable to oneself. Though few individualsare haunted with this concern in the modern world, itwas not long ago that most people turned mirrors tothe wall or covered them up when someone had diedso that the soul of the deceased would not be drawnto and linger within the mirror. They were concernedto assist in a clean separation between the immortal

being and the vestures left behind, and they alsofeared that their own well being could be affected bya failure in this process. One may not care to believethat the mirror into which one gazes becomespermanently stamped with one’s image or someaspect of one’s inner being, but for the apprentice inspiritual alchemy the similarity between this and thegreat astral tablet of Nature is most striking. It mightstrike a thoughtful individual that the mirror, like theastral light, is not reflecting upon an image in anactive or contemplative sense, but simply receivingit, containing it and reflecting it back. Thus mirrors“entered” by gods are reflecting surfaces off which areflected aspect of that being can reveal itself, theprojector of the image remaining invisible. Butmirrors from which “stored” images are conjured“contain” the subtle impresses of innumerable “photonegatives” which are invisible to the physical eye butcapable of being “developed” with the assistance ofthe magician.

Oh Kitty, how nice it would be if we could only get throughinto the Looking Glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! suchbeautiful things in it! Let’s pretend there’s a way of gettingthrough into it, somehow, Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass hasgot all soft like gauze, so we can get through.

Lewis Carroll

Some have seen the mirror as a symbol of a doorthrough which the soul may free itself by “passing” tothe other side, whilst others have seen it as thegateway to the realm of inversion. The anticipatedinversion can be accounted for much like the

interpreters of dreams do when they say that leftmeans right and black means white. The dream, likethe mirror, is still important as a reflection ofsomething which eludes the sense-oriented wakingeye. Again, the mirror presents two aspects of itself:one leading through to another world, the othercapturing and reflecting back. The ritual of interringmirrors with the dead as practised by the ancientEgyptians and Etruscans combines both of theseideas in a meaningful way, for they believed that themirror could contain the soul and carry it to a newbirth. Thus they thought that the mirror, during the lifeof an individual, could reflect the condition of the soul(exposing both truth and evil), and at death it couldact as a sort of doorway through which the soul wasliberated, while at the same time storing the impressof its residual elements. This idea easily lent itself togrosser interpretations and practices, but one cansee in it a dim reflection of subtler metaphysicalteachings regarding states of after-life and skandaicresidues impressed on the timeless astral light,

Amidst quickly flashing mirrors and reflections,past, present and future collide and interposethemselves on one another. It is often said that timeis the mirror of passing events, but it is also theprogeny of the mirror of Nature itself. Thus Merlin,gazing into his mirror which reflected the wholeworld, could see into the past and future alike. Aclairvoyant gazing into a mirror sees a smaller world,perhaps, but one which is still less grounded insequential physical events and therefore capable of

reflecting things that have happened in the past orare yet to be. Perhaps this is what the dreamerglimpsed when he saw visages of himself in differentlives gazing at him along the mirrored hallway of hisdream. He saw them out of the corner of his eye, asit were, which is how signs and visions in the astralmight present themselves. His dream had thatoblique or indirect quality as though afforded by theangled mirrors of the mind that permit, for a flashinginstant, a penetrating glimpse of a reflected truth. Hewas left with an afterglow, a haunting and dreamlikesense of having come into incontrovertibleconfrontation with some great, potentially all-embracing, revelation about himself and the selvesof others.

God is the mirror in which thou seest thyself as thou art hismirror.

Ibn Al-‘Arabi The universe is the mirror of God…. Man is the mirror of

the universe.

Ibn Al-Nasafi

Like Plato and the great poet-mystics of the Islamictradition, many have seen the world in terms of aseries of reflections of the ideal. In our time VladimirNabokov has characterized this in terms of a sort of“thievery”, wherein everything in the world had“captured” its nature by mirroring something whichexisted on a less phenomenal plane. One of hischaracters speaks of himself as “the shadow of thewaxwing slain by the false azure of the window

pane”. He is like the persona regarding the reflectionof the persona in the mirror and somewheresuspecting that the persona itself is but a reflectionof something else. If God is a mirror, as the Islamicpoet says, then who is man, the thinker, to say thathe is more than a reflection? And yet man can reflectupon God as a mirror and thus see himself as themirror of God. If the whole of manifest existence is ahierarchy of reflections which man is capable ofreflecting upon, then he is like the dreamer whoenters a vast hall of mirrors and gazes along them,trying to see what is at the end of the hall. It is thisPlatonic notion of hierarchical reflections which laysthe basis for all sympathetic magic and lends such apenetrating force to thought based upon analogy andcorrespondence and the consideration of symbols.In these terms the whole cosmos could beconsidered as a composite Narcissus in the act ofcontemplating its own reflection, and man, themicrocosm, as truly capable of reflecting deeplyupon the cosmic re-enactment.

The dreamer reflects upon a dream wherein areflection of reflected aspects of reality is mirrored.The wholeness of his multilevel existence is brokeninto refracted images and yet wholeness issomehow suggested, insofar as a sequence ofsuperimposed pictures can reflect a whole whichhas no limit or beginning or end. The reflectorreflecting upon the reflection of himself does so incoadunition with matter suitable to such a detached

and liberated state. Thus such insights areexperienced in dreams or in visions wherein themind is freed from identification with the body and itssenses. Even so, the reflector must beware of theflattering or distorting mirrors of many such states.For in trances and psychic dreams reflections maybe magnified, reduced or fragmented by dustgathered on the mind’s mirror, which itself may betarnished, clouded or cracked. Perseus may havebeen protected from the curse of Medusa by gazingat her only in a mirror, but mirrors can be very tricky,and instead of removing the danger by one notch,they may actually deceive the observer and lead himinto endless corridors of delusion. One has to becalmly assured that the mind is continually cleansedwith “the gentle breezes of Soul-wisdom” so that onewill know if the reflection one sees reflects a deepertruth or merely deceives. As in the case of thephysical mirror, one must take care that allirregularities are removed and a very fine andsmooth surface maintained in order to produce aclear, specific reflection.

There is withinA glass, they say, that has strange qualities in it;That shall resolve me. I will into see,Whether or no I man or monster be.

Thomas Randolph

One may come to learn to what extent the outerbody may reflect the soul within. An animal whichsees its image in a mirror thinks that it is looking at

another animal. Man, looking at his own image,knows that it is a reflection of himself but cannotnecessarily tell if his reflection faithfully mirrors hisinner condition. The experiments of John Deeshowed that any evil intent would reveal itself inmirrors. Many human beings brush shoulders withevil daily and even look into its face but do notalways sense that there is something amiss. It is notsurprising then that many look into the mirror and failto perceive the true inward condition of theirincarnated soul. Socrates taught that it was anexcellent practice to regard oneself regularly in alooking-glass in order to gain self-knowledge.Parents can often be startled by penetratingglimpses of their own inner nature when looking atthe mirror of self represented by their children.Sometimes these revelations may happen in themost unexpected and fleeting ways. One may bewalking down a busy street and suddenly catchone’s own image amidst the crowd as it is reflectedin a shop mirror. This can be a strangely movingexperience, jolting one into seeing one’s own formas merely typical of the human condition: one smallhuman being cast by karma into the vast sea ofhumanity at a particular time and place. One thusexperiences afresh a vividly distinctive glimpse ofthe collective psychological effect wrought bymirrors.

Ill read enough,When I do see the very book indeedWhere all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.

Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.Give me the glass, and therein will I read.

William Shakespeare

Unlike Richard II, who was dismayed to find that hecould not discover a congruence between his innerand outer condition, one can gradually learn toidentify clues revealed by one’s eyes reflected backin a mirror. Eyes which are said to be the windows ofthe soul are also its mirrors. Just as peoplecontemplate themselves reflected in the mirror ofanother’s eyes, so the individual seeks to find whatlies behind the reflected light by considering themirror image of these mirrors. If this is done eachday, one may come to notice subtle changes in thequality of light emitted by the eyes as well as in thecolour and clarity of focus. Checking this with one’sstate of thoughts, emotional and physical conditionand the quality of meditative efforts will slowly reveala portrait of an inner condition. Just as another’s follycan act as a mirroring of one’s own, so too one’sown reflected stance, one’s image caught unawaresor the eyes studied over a period of time can teachvolumes about one’s condition and what one shoulddo to modify it.

All too often individuals act from the basis of agrossly limiting idea of Nature and the Self. On sucha basis they conclude that they are great, good, bad,happy, miserable, beautiful, etc. The truth is that theyare actually none of these but simply involved incombinations of qualities that take on certainappearances. These appearances involve the

effects of the three gunas impressed variously uponelementals, which then become living mirrors inwhich man views and experiences himself on levelsbelow the plane of the fourth principle. Peering intothe mirror of the tamasic world, an individualperceives an image of himself which is dark andsluggish. That of the rajasic realm reflects backmyriad desires and urges to action which he willassuredly identify as springing from the innermostcore of his being. So native to his inner self will theseurgent desires seem that he will deem it unnaturaland soul-killing to deny their fulfilment. So also, upongazing into the mirror of sattvic elementals, ordinarymen or women will see themselves as happy,content and blissfully wise. They will be filled with aglowing satisfaction with themselves and with thingsas they are, until the wind shifts and the tamasic orrajasic mirror rises uppermost into view. As hasrightly been pointed out, “the ordinary man is sonegative and passive in his attitude that the merevicissitudes of circumstances, or the praise andblame of others, is sufficient to change his polarity inrelation to any given state and totally alter his idea ofself”.

To overcome this slavish condition, one needs todevelop the positive mirroring power which existswithin the mind. In the development of an innerdialectic process, one can sift through experiencesand thoughts, the thesis reflected in one mirror, re-reflected as antithesis in another, and transcended

as synthesis at a higher level of self-reflection. AMaster of Wisdom once said that one has to acquireParamartha - true Self-consciousness - if one is tounderstand the origin of delusion. Paramartha isSvasamvedana, “the reflection which analyzes itself.In the Stanzas of Dzyan, the pre-manifest state whenthe Alaya of the universe was in Paramartha isspoken of. Paramartha is enigmatically describedas Absolute Being and Consciousness, which areAbsolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness. But ifone examines the etymology of the term (paramameaning “above everything” and artha meaning“comprehension”), together with the meaning of itssynonym, Svasamvedana, one can begin toperceive the outlines of an archetypal mirroringprocess. Alaya which was “in Paramartha” is the“Soul of the World”. It is identical with Akasha in itsmystical sense and with Mulaprakriti in its essence.Eternal and changeless in its pre-manifestedessence, Alaya alters during manifestation withrespect to the lower planes, where it reflects itself inevery object of Nature. Thus it is not Nirvana but thecondition nearest to it. It is both the universal Souland the Self of a progressed Adept. According tothe Yogacharya school, Paramartha is reflective andtherefore dependent upon that which is noumenal toit. It is not Parinishpanna, which is emptiness, butthat which reflects and analyses its own reflection.Parinishpanna without Paramartha is described asextinction for seven eternities, implying thatParamartha is the first expression of the self-

conscious potential, the glimmering reflection of themirror of mind at the dawn of manifestation. Alaya ismerely the upadhi of this self-analysing capability,the lofty universally present Soul which will containthe flashing spark of the reflected light of pure Spirit.

The journey of one who would reach the thresholdof spiritual self-knowledge may begin with a dreamof mirrored hallways. In waking life such an aspirantcan gradually come to see every experience as amirror in which something critical about his own innernature is reflected. Slowly he can establish adistance between himself as a spectator and thereflected aspects of his thinking processes, hispersonality and other outward expressions. Wiselyhe comes to understand that the great astral tablet ofNature has surrounded him continually along hisjourney with its reflections of impressed photonegatives, and he has learnt to discriminate betweenthem and the reflections of the highest truth whichanalyses only itself. Knowing that the mirror of hismind must be blended with the soul of Truth, he everkeeps before his gaze the loftiest reflected idea ofthe Master within. Walking down the hallway ofmirrors, gathering oblique glimpses of his history asa soul and of his future potential, the aspirantapproaches the image walking towards him which ishimself. Not by any external characteristic does heknow this, nor by likeness to his own form, but by arecognition of the Master who has guided him insecret and who now reaches out to him and merges

with his own Higher Self. The concave mirror of hisown heart focusses clearly the dazzling light of thatsolar Serf and he becomes a perfect mediator ofDivine Will, his mind and heart reflecting the cosmicharmony of its design. Amidst flashing glassThe soul is glimpsed,And mirrors its Discovered Joy.

Hermes, October 1985

THE DRUM

O my Lord, Thy hand holding the sacred drum has madeand ordered the heavens and earth and other worlds andinnumerable souls. Thy lifted hand protects both theconscious and unconscious order of Thy creation.

Chidambara Mummani Kovai

In the emerald forest which has known little changesince the beginning of the world, a traveller, wishingto penetrate the leafen veil of the past, sat in a dug-out canoe. On jaguar skins he sat, together with thechief, while two native men operated the paddles. Inanother canoe men armed with bows and blow-gunssat together with a drummer, who awaited an orderthat would engage his critical skills. Two uprightforked sticks rose from either side of the canoe infront of him, near the centre where he sat. Fromthese sticks a frame was secured, angling towardshim and fixed to a horizontal bar which crossed thewidth of the canoe bottom at his feet. Across thisframe were lashed four vertical pieces of capipariwood of varying thickness, each hollowed out with alongitudinal slit and decorated with finely carveddesigns. The traveller noticed the chief give a signal,and the drummer, seizing skin-covered mallets inboth hands, commenced to beat out a complexrhythm of four notes on the drum slats. The soundwas awesome and the still forest around the small

party resounded with its echo. He repeated themessage several times, but receiving no answerfrom upstream, the canoes advanced another milebefore stopping to try again.

Very faintly came a reply from some invisiblesource. The traveller leaned forward eagerly from hisjaguar seat. He knew that the village towards whichthey were headed was at least five miles upstream,and he was deeply anxious to catch the gist of themessage conveyed by the distant rumbling of therhythmic beats. The message that had been sent bythe drummer in the canoe was: “A white man iscoming with us; he seems to have a good heart andto be of good character.” The answer that cameback along the waters of the river and through thedarkly overgrown jungle was: “You are all welcomeprovided you place your arms in the bottom of thecanoe.” With this, the small party paddled brisklyahead, and at the end of an hour’s work, made asharp turn in the river. Before them in a large openspace on the opposite bank, perhaps five hundredIndians had assembled to await their first glimpse ofthe fabled and feared “white” man. Their chief, alarge man adorned with squirrel tails around hiswaist and the brilliant scarlet and blue feathers of thearara parrot upon his handsome head, stood in frontwith folded arms. The traveller sat in stunned silencewhile the canoes glided towards the bank and weresecured at its edge. The two chiefs greeted oneanother and a dozen brown arms reached out to

assist the pale khaki-garbed visitor. As his feettouched the soil of the shore, the first thunderousrolls of the drum, whose muted pulse they had heardat a distance five miles downstream, formallyannounced their arrival. Looking over the sea offaces confronting him to the source of the sound, thetraveller saw a powerfully armed drummer absorbedin complete concentration as he beat his unerringmallets against an enormous tree drum resting on araised platform at the edge of the village clearing.

If the traveller could possibly have possessed anydoubt as to whether he had lifted the leafy veil of thepast, it was engulfed by the enormity of sound thatemanated from the drum. Like others who had daredto attempt to penetrate the primordial, he wasconfronted with its power in the form of omnipresentand insistent sound. Contained for a moment withinthe shape of the instrument, it seemed to haveemanated from everywhere and nowhere. It seemedas though it had always been and was now merelybursting forth in a fresh wave of expression. Thedrum is the archetypal symbol for this sound, nomore eloquently depicted than in the hour-glassdrum which Lord Shiva holds aloft in his right handwhilst dancing at the centre of the world. Buddhistslook upon the drum as sounding the Voice of theLaw and hearken to the Drum of Dharma, whosebeating awakens the ignorant and slothful.Primordial sound exists as a timeless potential insuch drums and need not necessarily be confined to

the archives of modern iconography or theuntrammelled and “primitive” reaches of a lost world.The resplendent intonation of creation might beheard in the cultured environs of a native village justas surely as in the barbaric night clubs of moderncities or in the temple sanctuaries of dying religiousfaiths. One cannot be certain where in the world orunder what conditions one might hear its hauntingvoice.

We treat the Drum as a person. That’s the way weMenominee were taught by the Ojibwa…. They even makespecial beds for the Drum. Keep it as a person. We Indiansdo that for the sake of God; appreciate, take care of thatDrum well, because that’s His power. That’s why wedecorate the Drum, make it look pretty, clean, because it’sfrom God.

The Plains and Woodland Indians revered theirdrums and took great care of those which theybelieved to contain the Voice of the Great Spirit.Drums with thunderbirds depicted upon them weretreated as sacred communicators of His word, andvarious ceremonial drums received enormousrespect during their use as well as when they wereresting or being transported. Among many tribes theGrass Dance drum was treated as a representationof the world. Members who surrounded it and playedit during a ceremony were thought to be “standing in”for spirits that hover around and guard the earth. Theold legends tell that it was first given by the GreatSpirit to a Mdewakanton Dakota from the “mysticlake” area called Tailfeather Woman. Because sucha lake does not exist in the physical world, people

think that it must have been the place of a greatspiritual vision through which the drum emerged intothe world. Tailfeather Woman’s revelation taught thatthe drum was to be passed on from tribe to tribe inaccordance with the will of the Great Spirit. It was totravel clockwise and to be kept no longer than fouryears at each tribal gathering place, during whichtime the Drum Dance ritual was to be learnt and areplica drum constructed. Thus, the drum passed tothe Mandan, the Hidatsa, the Ojibwa, theMenominee, the Fox, Potawatomi and Shawnee,among others. In every case, peace was establishedand the circle of brotherhood affirmed. Even todayDrum Dance members believe they are “sitting in”for the various spirit helpers of the Great Spirit, abelief which causes them to enact their roles withgreat seriousness. Their leader watches the ritualand corrects it on behalf of the holy drum, whilst theleading female dancer re-enacts the vision receivedby Tailfeather Woman when the Great Spirit drewher forth out of her hiding place in the lake.

Shaped on a wooden barrel, the frame of the drumis covered with a skirt decorated with dreamsymbols received in visions. Being a representationof the world, it is feminine, but women are forbiddento touch it at any stage of its construction. Whenplayed, it is only by men, who place the legs at thefour cardinal points like the pillars often depictedholding up the universe in Buddhist traditions. As inthe cultures of Africa, Oceania and Asia, the wood

used for the drum is that of a sacred tree, a “worldtree”, whose trunk conducts the sap of life from theunseen to the visible world. Beating upon the skinwhich once covered the heart of a consecratedanimal, the native drummers begin the slow,dignified pulse-beat which marks the antiquethrobbing of the Great Spirit within and upon thefertile sphere of His own making. Thus, it is believed,the Mother Earth will sympathetically bring forth life,and the women of the tribe, like Tailfeather Womanbefore them, assist in its birth and propagation butnot in its design.

O my Lord, Thy hand holding the sacred drum has madeand ordered the heavens and earth and other worlds andinnumerable souls.

Chidambara Mummani Kovai

Looking at the evidence presented by the ancientIndus Valley script, scholars have noticed that theorigins of the great god Shiva can be found in theguise of a pre-Aryan shamanistic ascetic. This is inaccord with the rich ideas associated with the MahaYogin who acts as the supreme mediator betweenheaven and earth. Shamans of all levels anddegrees of knowledge echo this function in theirattempts to act as mediators between human beingsand the invisible realm. Using the drum as a meansof translating their own power into rhythm and soundcapable of summoning supporting spirits, shamansgo into a trance state and are transported to thespirit world. Drummers smeared with specially

prepared paste are thought to be able to drumdiseases down-river, away from those they areafflicting, and medicine men try to call forth “allies”capable of diagnosing the cause of illness or guidingthem to medicinal herbs.

O Great Ones of the Sky World,Hear my drum!Lend me thy visionThat I may bring harmony.Hear me! O my chiefs.

Potawatomi Chant

In the damaru (drum) of Shiva one can perceive theinterlacing triangles of the two worlds between whichthe Great Lord acts as the archetypal bridge. Thedownward-pointing triangle represents the wateryrealm of the yoni, the upward-pointing triangle thelingam. Where they overlap at the centre, creationbegins, and when they separate, dissolutioncommences. With their coming together in the hour-glass-shaped drum, the primordial causal sound(nada) comes into being, inspiring the epithetsbestowed upon Shiva in his Nataraja aspect such asDa (meaning, simply, “sound”) and Nadatanu(“consisting of sound”). From this sound comes theWord which is the Law, the pulse-beat of the hiddenspiritual heart of the cosmos from which all forms oflife derive their vitality. From this voice mademelodious by the substance principle of themanifesting world (drum), all speech finds its sourceand all communication its energy. It is because theyhave glimpsed something of the implications of this

that so many people have cherished the drum assacred and surrounded it with great ceremony andcelebration. For in its voice lies the vibratory timbreand potential rhythm which is the basis of all magicand spiritual transformation.

I already dwell in thee, O, my world,Thy dream of me - ‘twas I coming into existence.

Alexander Scriabin

Having a voice, drums can talk. The whole worldhas heard of African “talking” drums. And yet mostpeople, if one asked them, would venture anassumption that this “talking” was reallycommunication by some sort of Morse code. “Notso!” say those who know. Tympanophony observesthe precise pitches and tones of syllables existing ina given language. As the famous H. M. Stanleynoted while passing through the drum language areaalong the Congo, “Their huge drums being struck indifferent parts convey language as clear to theinitiated as vocal speech.” Another early visitor to theCongo described how the particulars concerning thewreck of a mail steamer seventy miles away from themouth of the river were communicated by relaydrums within an hour’s time. He claimed that “a goodoperator with his drum sticks can say anything helikes upon the drum in his dialect…. The drumlanguage, so called, is not limited to a few sentencesbut, given a good operator, and a good listener,comprehends all a man can say.” The linguisticelements capable of conveying the morphological

properties of such tongues are: accent on aparticular syllable, stress or emphasis on a particularword in a phrase, pauses, stops, punctuation,duration of phrases and speed of utterance. In mostAfrican languages syllables maintain a fixed tonewherever they arise in a phrase. Thus a listener inthe Kele language can distinguish the differencebetween lisaka (a marsh), lisaká (a promise) andlisáká (a poison), as well as, one would hope,between liála (fiancee) and liala (rubbish pit). Soalso the Lya Ilu (Mother of Drums) of the Yoruba,which has an octave range and can produce theglides so characteristic of their language, beautifullyintones the subtle distinctions between oko(husband), okó (hoe), oko (spear) and óko (canoe)in the hands of an able drummer.

Many of these talking drums are similar to theLakele slit drum design. They are fashioned fromlarge camwood trees which are ritually cut,sectioned and hewn out through a long slot left on theside to be played. One side of the lips of this slot isrendered thinner than the other, producing a deeper,male voice. The thicker side produces the femalevoice, which is higher and often called “small”. TheAshanti, however, use skin-covered, barrel-likedrums for the purpose of talking. One high note andone low note drum are used in pairs and partiallysuspended from a frame so that they sit upright at aslight angle, awaiting the impact of elegant adze-shaped sticks held in the hands of one who has

inherited the privilege and skill necessary to bringthem to life. For they are living beings, these drums,and great care is taken not to desecrate them in anyway or fail to observe proper ritual in their use.

If the traveller who visited the emerald forest of theAmazon had been paddling up a coastal river of oneof the isles of the New Hebrides instead, he wouldhave been startled to see great ten-foot-tall slitdrums set up in “groves” outside each village that hevisited. Like ghostly giant sentinels they stand, eachhaving a mournful face etched upon it, each linkedwith a dead ancestor and capable of being broughtto life in a thundering orchestra of atavistic powerduring important religious ceremonies andsacrifices. Some, weighing well over eight hundredpounds, lean in huddled gatherings as though theypossess certain affinities for one another. Othersstand in a dignified solitude, slightly to the side,scowling down at anyone who would be so foolish asto go there without having proper business. Tocommunicate between closer islands in the SouthSeas, the Lali, or slit drum which lies on its side, isused. These are not talking drums but part of atelegraph system which best communicates in theearly morning or late evening when the air currentsare settled, their sound being carried over waterconsiderably further than over land. The messagesthey convey are not dissimilar in essence from thoseone might hear along the Amazon or the Congo.They announce a trading expedition, perhaps, or

send out a warning, one of the most common beingthat related to war. One only need recall the wardrums of North America or the drummer boysenlisted by military forces going back to the time ofXenophon to realize how frequently the drum hasbeen associated with war. The ancestral drums ofthe Hebrides, the Grass Dance drums, the talkingdrums - all these that are imbued with spirit and keptfor other purposes have heard and been witness tothe aggressive beat upon war drums. Even theVedic hymn to the sacred drum of Indra uses thelanguage of war:

Send forth thy voice aloud through earth and heaven, andlet the world in all its breadth regard thee;

O Drum, accordant with the Gods and Indra, drive thouafar, yea, very far, our foreman.

Thunder out strength and fill us full of vigour: yea, thunderforth and drive away all dangers.

Drive hence, O War-drum, drive away misfortune: thou artthe Fist of Indra: show thy firmness.

Drive hither those, and these again bring hither: the War-drum speaks aloud as the battle’s signal..

Rig Veda XLVII, 29-31

Europe had been largely bereft of drums until thethirteenth century, when the Arabian kettledrum wasbrought back from the Crusades. It was not longbefore it became an instrument used to announceweddings and festivals and, more often than not, thealarms of war. The military importance of the drumbecame so marked that if the enemy’s kettledrumwas captured, the battle was considered won, for

there no longer existed the means of signalling thetroops. The reply to the entreaty of a captureddrummer who begged for his life on the ground thathe carried no weapon conveys the critical role thedrum had come to play in war. For he was told that,though he did not carry a weapon, his drumming hadenabled scores of his fellows to use theirs withdeadly effect, and for this he must forfeit his life.Even the word “drum” is connected with military lifethrough the office of what came to be known in thesixteenth century as the drum major. The origin of theterm seems to come from the Old German (trom,drom), which was closely connected with the wordslag, meaning “to beat or strike”. In the English armythis relationship between “drum” and “beat” took ona more concrete expression, for the drum major wasnot only responsible for the drummers and theirmaintenance of the drums, but had to superintendthe flogging of soldiers and courts martial whichwere held at the drumhead. The sound of the beatingupon the skin of the drum, synchronized with theterrible thud of the whip across the skin on the backof some poor conscriptee of the Crown, was a harshuse of the drum’s voice, a terrible expression of thelaw it symbolized.

The idea of primordial sound and its manifestationthrough universal Law found a strange and almostunrecognizable parody in such practices. Thoughfew would associate it primarily with corporealdiscipline, for many in the world the drum became

firmly linked in their minds with uniforms, marchingand aggressive displays of ethnic or nationalassertiveness. One may wonder if the compellingbeating of enormous parade drums pounded alongthe pavements of Pasadena contain anything of thepower and cadence of universal Law. Is this whatmakes the hair on one’s neck stand on end whenone hears it? Is there something sacred in thatbooming sound, even on the streets of California?Among the Ashanti the question would not arise, forthere are clear rules as to what is a secular contextand what is a sacred context and when indeed it isappropriate to awaken the spirit of the drum. It is wellknown that a husband does not talk of his wife on thedrums at his home (one can imagine the relief!). Butit is quite appropriate that he praise her on the drumin the dance arena. A drummer of the talking drumscannot criticize his chief, but while drumming he isthe Creator Drummer or the Divine Drummer andcan say what he likes, being protected by theSacred Person’s Law. Every Ashanti knows of theseancient edicts and responds accordingly. They knowthat the drum of a god or a chief cannot be used toannounce the affairs of commoners and that theformal drum language of a collective ceremony hasfour parts, beginning with the Awakening and endingwith the Proverbs of the Drum.

Sacred drums are often painted for the purpose ofdivination as well as evocation. In Lapp mythologyconstant references to magic drum oracles describe

large disc-shaped drums with figures of gods anddenizens of the underworld painted on the skins.Shamans, placing a brass ring on the skin as theydrummed, routinely succeeded in inducing a trance,during which they would travel to the spirit or godupon whom the ring had settled. It is perhaps in thissense more than any other that the drum isconnected with religious ritual. Supplication,evocation and divination are all aspects of religiouspractice, often accompanied by drumming, but it isthe ecstatic experience of the shaman, dervish,voodoo cultist or Ghost Dancer which is directlyaffected by the drum. The key to trance and ecstasyis forged in great part by the steady rhythm of somekind of drum, and in this fact lies one of the mostpowerful aspects of the drum as a symbol ofprimordial sound.

In the night of Brahma, Nature is inert, and cannot danceuntil Shiva wills it: He rises from His rapture, and dancingsends through inert matter pulsing waves of awakeningsound, and lo! matter also dances appearing as a gloryround Him.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

The drum held aloft in Lord Shiva’s hand atChidambaram marks the first beat of the cosmicheart. “Thy dream of me -‘twas I coming intoexistence”, I, the pure sound of the antique heartsetting the rhythm, the very unfolding cadence of theworld to be. Through His damaru, the rhythmicpulsation of life thus begins, and as he dances to itsbeat, it is sustained. In His form of Nataraja, Shiva

holds creation, destruction, hope and release. Theworld goes on like the unending beat of time, but theecstatic release of rhythm is always potentially there.While it is Shiva’s foot held aloft that gives release, itis the pause that precisely provides the essentialelement producing rhythm. If the rhythmic dance ofthe Lord is the source of all motion, then motion itselfis some sort of mighty cosmic pulsation perpetuatingitself throughout a Mahamanvantara. Against thisbackground, it is easy to see why human beings findrelease in rhythm, why they drum and whirlthemselves into trances and rock themselves intomental oblivion. For vast masses of humanity, theonly release from the oppression of materializedminds is through abandonment to some sort ofhypnotic recurring rhythm.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions,perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let himstep to the music which he hears, however measured or faraway.

Henry David Thoreau

Some rhythms, beaten out loudly and indefatigably,can release powerful floods of joy, passion or anger.The gates to unexamined primordial desires areopened, and the body begins to twitch in itsunconscious efforts to express what is welling up inthe astral nature. The passions and desiresregistered in the broader astral world can be thusfocalized in an orgiastic dance circling arounddrummers hunched over their instruments. Or the

steady beat may be more like that envisioned byThoreau, who tried to live his life according to thedeeper rhythmic pulsation he sensed in naturalcycles and within the longings of his own soul. Thebeat which one hearkens to may be quitecomplicated; there are those who effortlesslyoperate in a polyrhythmic mode. In a collectivecontext, an outstanding example of this expressesitself in African drumming, where two or even fiverhythmic patterns are played simultaneously andsynthesized by a fundamental underlying beat. Aslong as all patterns coincide on the first beat of thefundamental cycle as it repeats, the whole intricatesystem expresses overall harmony.

Probably the most complicated and difficult tomaster of all rhythmic systems is that produced onthe Indian tabla or mridangam. Whilst themridangam is a two-headed drum played withelectric rapidity and complexity of rhythm inaccompaniment to the traditional Carnatic music ofSouth India, the tabla is actually a pair of drumsplayed side by side with the right and left hands.Called respectively the daina and the banya, theyboth have dark “eyes” in their centre which producea dampening effect. Different areas of their surfacehave different sounds, yielding a combination of atleast five fundamental tones which can be struck withdifferent parts of the ball of the hand and the fingers.The strokes of the right and left hands are all definedand named, and the combinations and variations of

these are unlimited in scope. It is small wonder thateven rhythmically gifted individuals spend long yearsin order to master many but not all of its possibilities.Without attempting to go into the whole theory ofrhythm in Indian music, one can appreciatesomething of its mathematical potential by listeningto certain ragas which seem to depict the gradualdescent of spirit into matter at the dawn of cosmicmanifestation. The great process percolates throughthe highest levels of inaudible sound, wherein dwellsthe loftiest and subtlest pulse-beat of the invisiblespiritual heart. As the entire unfoldment rushesdownward towards the waiting stage of the manifestworld, the drum begins its staccato marking of eventand sequence in time. Gathering strength andpower, the drum ushers in wave upon wave ofenergies, gods and elemental beings. Buffeted andmarshalled by the drum’s insistent pace, they rushabout and interrelate in what comes to be seen as awhole, delicately interconnected design.

As with African polyrhythmic patterns, the talas(distinctive groupings of fixed numbers of beats) actas the fundamental patterns with which all rhythmicalvariations must coincide to sustain this wholeness.They act as a basis, a ground against which theintervals of the sruti and the sequence of notes of thesvaras define themselves and express theirmeaning. Back and forth, back and forth, themasculine and feminine heads of the mridangam aswell as the tabla “speak” to one another, roll forth

their fecund beat in intertwined sequences as thebasis for each new stage of evolution reveals itself. Ifone imagines this great process in terms of Shiva’sdamaru, the male and female drumheads can beseen as the bases of two triangles barely touching attheir apexes. Softly, the inaudible drumming on eachof them moves them into slightly overlappingconjunction with one another, which increases as thebeat becomes stronger and the process ofmanifestation unfolds. At the meeting point betweenthem, creation begins, and as they overlap to formthe hour-glass, time comes into existence with thestill point of eternity captured in the exact centre ofthe diamond-shaped area of their interpenetration.No more perfect expression of the essential energythat lies behind all phenomena exists than in thesublime form of Shiva Nataraja. Those whoenvisioned it millennia ago must have soared ontothe highest Akashic heights at the centre of thecosmos, wherein its ideal form resides. No earthlycondition or experience could suffice to explain itstranscendent truth and beauty. Time and Eternity arereconciled in every line and epitomized in thealternating phases suggested by the damaru inShiva’s hand. Extending out over vast reaches ofspace, its pulsating rhythm sets the key pattern ofarcane mathematics in a primordial and universaltala.

Gathered around the sublime Maha Yogin, whoappears in the guise of enlightened Sages and great

Teachers in the world, the fortunate ones perceivewithin their hearts an echo of that fundamental beat.It is not just that they would try to become drumsupon which this rhythm is struck, but rather that theycan seize the opportunity to discover their ownunique rhythm and learn how to bring it to its fullestexpression while synchronizing it with the universaltala manifested through their Guru. Throughmeditation one can come gradually closer tounderstanding the nature of this archetypal rhythm,how its cycles repeat and what sorts of complexcombinations of pauses, sequences, emphases,phrasings and flurries are involved. One can come toglimpse something of the pattern, but one cannot norshould one try to imitate it. For it is a uniquereflection in the world of that design in sound thatestablishes the perimeters and possibilities for aparticular phase in soul evolution. Its inspirationconies from the still point at Chidambaram andpours like a flood of notes drummed in rapidsuccession through the hands and fingers of theTeacher.

Those who are intuitive may sense in this thelanguage of the constellations, the stars and planetsbrought into a rhythmic code for the sake of anyonewho desires with all their heart to bring their ownunique rhythm into synchronization with it. Thus, justas the heart beat of every human being ischaracteristic of his or her vast journey as a soul, sotoo the complexities of that journey find a unique

metabolic expression in the rhythm which is native tothem. In each of these rhythmic patterns there is thetruth of sound and the truth of the pause or still pointwhich interrupts it and breaks it up into a pattern. Bymeditating upon the purest tone, the tonic note whichexpresses the timbre of one’s true individuality, andupon the still, silent points wherein one’s highestspiritual potential rests in anticipation, intuitiveseekers can recognize and bring into play the finestfruits of soul evolution which they have to offer. If thisis truly done and the rhythm they rediscover inthemselves is unadulterated with unwonted glidesand slurs or asymmetrical accretions, it will certainlysynchronize with the beat at each beginning of thefundamental rhythmic cycle of the great Teacher ofthe age.

In this subtle sense, each human being is like thedrum of the world which can be played with their ownhands to produce their own unique expression ofprimordial sound. But there is one cosmic rhythm,one inaudible pattern, which beats behind all theseand which gives them all their reflected validity andpower. Those who hear the beat of this distant andsilent drumming at any point in human history arefew, and those who have the wit and intuition torecognize who they are, are fortunate indeed to havefound them. Such rare beings move in unexpectedplaces in the world. Just as the sounding of theprimordial note of creation might be heard at anytime or place, so also the Great Teachers of

Mankind, whose rhythmic thoughts continually referto that unchanging keynote, may be found whereleast anticipated. Wherever such a one may be,disguised in the trappings of the modern world orseated on a jaguar skin before the barrel of a sacreddrum, the beat which decides the metrical movementof their life will be silent. One might imagine oneselftoiling long and hard through the jungle of life andfinally breaking out into a clearing. There one mayencounter a solitary drummer seated in stillness withhis sticks in his hands. In front of him rests a greatdrum. It is difficult to know whether it is a talkingdrum, a telegraph drum or a war drum, for it has allthe characteristics belonging to these types and yetseems limited by none of their specialized functions.One could imagine that drum representing the worldand being passed clockwise as an emblem ofpeace. One could also imagine it coming alive andcalling down the gods in heaven or the elementalbeings hovering around the world. But the drum inthe clearing rests silently, and the Master Drummermakes no move to strike it.

One might then sit at the edge of the clearing,waiting and watching, with one’s ears straining tocatch a sound. The Drummer makes no move, thedrum’s skin does not vibrate, and yet, slowly, onebegins to hear a light but penetrating pulsation whichfills the clearing and dances through the trees andvines around. Subtle accents and pausesreverberate in complex cycles, coming in waves

across the clearing and doubling back inpolyrhythmic designs. Soon others appear at theedge of the jungle, breaking free of the trees, at firstnot hearing the rhythm but drawn towards the form ofthe Silent Drummer. Many begin to arrive, strugglingthrough to the clearing, each bringing with them theirown small drum. They all look and strain their earsand settle down, at last, to wait and understand.Some of them begin to hear the dancing rhythm ofthe Silent Drummer, some do not. Others begin totake up their drums and express their own tempos,beating with their hands or sticks in a cacophony ofvaried rhythms. The silence and the waiting havemade them restless and they do not know how toharmonize their beats. Some who have heard thesilent rhythm take up their drums and try to imitate itscadence, stopping and starting and attempting tomove their arms and hands in a way that they thinkwill produce the rippling cadence that they hear. Butthey lag and strike false notes and fail to pause inthe right places. They end up contributing to thecacophony of disharmonious rhythms filling theclearing.

Wise seekers who have toiled long and hard toarrive at the feet of a true spiritual Teacher willintuitively realize that they cannot imitate the cosmicrhythm as it pours through their being. They willremain silent and listen until they understand thefundamental underlying message of his beat andgrasp something of the pattern of its repetition. Then

they will strive to bring their own drum into tune anduse the tonic note, the initial beat of the masterpattern, as the unchanging reference point for theirown rhythm. Time after time they will cycle throughtheir own pattern of beats, but they will never fail tobring it continually back into synchronization with thegreat tala given forth by the Teacher. Thus inpolyrhythmic textures, greater numbers of drummerscan come together and express a beauteous andharmonious correlation of the parts of one whole.Gathered together around the silent, still and yetthunderously dancing form of Lord Shiva asNataraja, as Nadatanu and as their embodied Guruin the world, such privileged ones can come toreverberate, in every aspect of their being, with thepulsating rhythmic will of the great cosmic heart. On the pure white head of my dancing drum,O let me find thyDivine Beat!

Hermes, November 1985

THE LYRE

Number, fitting all things into the soul through sense-perception, makes them recognizable and comparable withone another…. You may see the nature of Number and itspower at work not only in supernatural and divine existencesbut also in all human activities and words everywhere, boththroughout all technical production and also in music.

Philolaus of Tarentum

Their paths converging at the entrance to a gentlysloping ravine, two men together began the descentto the undulating plain below. Their strides weresteady and they moved abreast and behind oneanother as the rocky terrain would allow. Thereseemed to be an urgency in their steps answering tosomething which drew them forward, which evennow could be heard floating up the sides of the hills.“Friend,” the elder addressed the younger, “mysoul’s own melody bids my feet to fly into itspresence, and I can see by the rapture stampedupon thy face that thou art likewise called.” “Yes,”answered the other, “I too hear this divine strain. Itsfirst notes reached my ears up yonder in the olivegrove, erasing from my mind all thoughts of why Iwas there and filling me with the desire to find itssweet source.” The older man noted the youth’sintent expression with sympathy and urged that theyshould press on until they located the fount fromwhich such celestial song had sprung. “It is not many

who hear the music of the spheres, whose ears arethus blest and whose hearts are filled with thepromise of encountering a divine presence. Let ushurry to what must be a veritable god of melody thatwe may resonate more closely with the strings of hisheavenly lyre.”

The two men emerged from the ravine onto acurving meadow festooned with a line of aged oaktrees and became witnesses of an extraordinaryscene. Upon a granite outcrop surrounded by a seaof waving grass sat a man so beautiful of mien andso gracefully postured that in his shape thesculptured lines of Nature’s growth seemed to exult.Cradled in his perfectly formed arms, a lyre bowedand scintillated as he lightly strummed its silverstrings. His voice rose with sweetly mournful power,perfectly tuned to the instrument’s pristine tones andcadence. It filled the dancing meadow and coaxedthe very trees into swaying and dipping their ancientboughs in empathetic rhythm. The men stood rootedto the spot at the edge of the meadow where theyhad paused, their souls suffused with the divinemelody. That they were in the presence of Orpheus,son of Apollo, they knew, for no other being, god ormortal, could wield such musical magic as that whichthey saw enacted before them. So poignantlyvibrated the strains of his melody, and his faceseemed to register all the wild beauty of love barelyshadowed by its not quite apprehended loss, that theolder and more learned of the two men marked this

near-tragic expression and was moved to tell hiscompanion of its cause.

In seasons previous, it seemed, this fair son of themuse Calliope and the great god Apollo had wooedand won the lovely dryad Eurydice by the charm ofhis heavenly lyre. As fate would have it, the newbride, wandering in a meadow, was killed by the biteof a poisonous serpent. The bard wept forth hislament to the breezes of the upper world and daredto descend to the cave at Taenaron, where the riverStyx marks the passage into the underworld. Insearch of his beloved, he ventured past ghostlythrongs of the dead and approached Persephoneand her lord where they ruled their shadowed realm.Before them he bowed and, plucking his melodiouslyre, made his impassioned plea. His eloquentwords floated about them in purest tones. Even theshades quivered with their power and the bloodlessspirits wept. The cheeks of the Eumenides weremoist with tears as they were overcome by his song,and Hades himself could not refuse his pleas. “Thenit was”, the story-teller continued, his tone deepeningwith feeling, “that the tragedy occurred. Orpheus wasgiven permission to lead Eurydice out of theunderworld to a new life but was warned not to lookback at her before they were both safely in the upperworld.” The old man sadly shook his head. “It waslove that turned his head when she stumbled alongthe path and love that looked upon her face as shewas drawn inexorably back into the realm of death.

He heard her utter a farewell as she disappeared,leaving him stunned with grief and stricken dumb fordays. Then he began to roam the mountains andvalleys of our Thracian countryside, wailing his wildsongs of love and shunning all women attracted bythe irresistible strains. It is thus, my friend, that weare privileged to hear his music now.”

After the tale had been told, the two men stood inreverential silence, listening and feeling themselvestransported to a realm of immortal longing andbeauty. It was only gradually that they became awareof the encroachment upon this idyllic scene of aband of rough-clothed women brandishing theirsense of rebuffed passion for the glorious bard in theform of menacing gestures and snarling epithets.With disgust and dread, the onlookers watched whilethe wild-haired band approached the musician andbegan to hurl stones and branches and roughimplements of the field. At first the hurtled weaponswere overcome by the magical harmony of his lyreand voice. They fell at his feet like suppliantsbegging for forgiveness. But the clamour grew, theshrieks, the horns and drums and hateful chanting ofthe angry maenads drowned out the sound ofOrpheus’ lyre, and the stones and other weapons,unhearing, grew red with the poet’s blood. The men,who moments before had basked in theenchantment of his song, now watched in horror ashe was pounded and torn apart. They saw his lyre fallaway from his crippled grasp, as his soul streamed

forth to meet the winds on the breath of his silencedvoice.

For you, O Orpheus, for you the trees let fall their leavesand shorn of foliage made lament. They say, too, that riversswelled with their own tears, and the Naiads and Dryadschanged their robes to black and wore their hair dishevelled.His limbs He scattered in various places; his head and lyreyou got, O river Hebrus; and - O wonder - while they floatedin midstream, the lyre made some plaintive lamentation, Iknow not what; the lifeless tongue murmured laments too,and the banks lamented in reply. And they left his nativeThracian river and were carried out to sea.,.. The shade ofOrpheus went down below the earth and recognized all theplaces he had seen before; he looked amidst the fields ofthe pious and found Eurydice, and clasped her in his eagerarms.

Ovid

The magical power of Orpheus’ instrument wasshared by other members of the Hellenic theogony. Itwas considered an attribute of Apollo, Erato, Aeolusand Harmonia, and believed to have been inventedby Apollo’s enigmatic and divinely creative brother,Hermes, who was inspired with the idea one day ashe happened upon an obliging tortoise. Using thewilling animal’s carapace, Hermes ingeniouslystretched across its underside the hide of an ox, andfixed to its sides two horns that curved upward tosupport a bridge from which seven strings werestretched. When struck, the lyre produced thesweetest of tones, delighting its creator and makinghim loath to hand it over to Apollo under theinstructions of their father, Zeus. But Hermes hadmischievously stolen his brother’s cows and was

forced by a powerfully ruling parent to compensatewith the gift of his heavenly creation. Apollo madethe lyre his own. He mastered it and made it hisattribute. Through it he expressed all the powers ofdivine reason and the rhythm of discipline ofinstinctual animal life.

Apollo’s lyre, so majestically immortalized inmarble by Praxiteles, had seven strings, each tunedseparately upon its own roller. On each roller a smallpeg projected, around which the string was looped.By turning the roller, one could raise the pitch, and itwas fixed by slipping the end of the notched rolleronto a fastened piece of wood of correspondingshape. This represented certain sophistications overthe creation of Hermes, but even later designscontinued to suggest the shape of a tortoise’scarapace. Choric song, so prominently discussed byPlato in Laws, required an instrument with strongertonal carrying power, encouraging the adoption ofthe kithara form of lyre, said to have been introducedby Terpander, a seventh-century poet from Lesbos.Though of Oriental origin, the kithara, as well asHermes’ lyre, was firmly fixed in Apollo’s province,unlike the four-stringed Asiatic phorminx referred toby Homer, or the barbitos associated with Dionysus.In general, the Oriental influence emphasizedunreason and ecstasy, and the aulos (or flute) cameto be regarded as its chief musical expression.Thus, in its pristine usage, the lyre was seen as aninstrument of refinement, intellectual triumph and

harmonic purity.The lyre is the symbol par excellence of the

harmonious union of cosmic forces. It represents,with its basic seven strings, an underlying numericalharmony of the universe echoed by the sevenplanetary spheres. Pythagoras taught that at thecentre of all Unity was the source of harmony, theLogos which is no number. But the world was calledforth by sound or harmony and constructedaccording to musical proportion. He believed thatthe distance between the moon and the earth wasone tone; between the moon and Mercury, one-halftone; thence to Venus, one-half tone; Venus to thesun, one and one-half tones; the sun to Mars, onetone; thence to Jupiter, one-half tone; Jupiter toSaturn, one-half tone; and thence one tone to thezodiac. Philolaus of Tarentum, speaking of this later,pointed out the evidence for these harmonicrelationships in what the soul could recognizethrough the senses in human activities, technicalproductions and especially through music.

Both cosmic and microcosmic aspects of harmonyare suggested by the etymological roots of the word.According to the oldest evidence in Greek,

(harmonia) referred to a joining, afastening together (of a ship’s planks, for instance),a covenant, agreement, settled governmental orderor, simply, a concord of sounds. Originally, it is said,Harmonia was a mythical personage. According toBoeotian tradition, she was the daughter of Ares

(War) and Aphrodite (Love), a duality which could besaid to be blended in harmony. From her lineagesprang the royal founders of the city of Thebes,whose walls were built with stones moved by themagical harmony of Amphion’s lyre. That harmonicorder could be supremely demonstrated with the lyrewas a very old belief among the peoples of theMediterranean world. In teaching of cosmogony andcosmology based upon harmonic relationships,Pythagoras used the lyre. If numbers were theconstituents of reality, then string lengths arranged ina pattern of twelve, nine, eight and six gave theintervals of the fourth, fifth and octave, withconsonants as the framework of scale derived fromarithmetic and harmonic means between twoquantities in the ratio of two to one. The strings of thelyre were thus the audible and visible manifestationof numbers as lengths as well as differences intension and so forth. Tone or pitch was thus anexpression of number, and consonance of multipleand super-particular ratios, all of which were relatedto and demonstrated by the tuning and playing of thelyre. Such abstract and fundamental concepts ofharmonia lent themselves well to cosmic as well aspolitical and musical interpretations. The idea of acertain order expressive of the correct harmoniawas discussed by Plato (Laws) in terms of culticsong as well as political order, both of which hereferred to as nomos. Governance believed toreflect a higher divine order had been symbolized bythe mastery of the lyre among the Sumerians, who

placed the instrument in the tombs of their kings longbefore the time of Pythagoras and Plato. But it wasthe Greeks who gave the idea the most explicitphilosophical expression and raised the lyre to thelevel of divine symbolism.

Grant me, sound of body and of mind, to pass an old agelacking neither honour nor the lyre.

Odes, Horace

T he kitharodos or lyre player took his or herinspiration from the example of Apollo. The frenziedmusic and dance of the orgiastic Mysteriesassociated with the flute of Asia (Thrace andPhrygia) contrasted dramatically with the calmnessand control of the musical expression of the lyre. Thepaean associated with Apollo was based upondecorous stamping of feet and measured chantsand exclamations. It was exemplified in the dignifiedseated position of the kitharodos or the slow,symmetrical and militaristic dance of the ancientDorians. Dionysian music was dithyrambic,expressed most usually by the aulos in a Phrygianmode calculated to inspire powerful emotions andtrance states. Comparing the two instruments, onenotices that, while the lyre’s tones cannot project themelody with great carrying power, those of the auloscan. The notes of the lyre are individually distinct,offering a precise rhythmic punctuation of poeticmetre or dance, while those of the aulos arenecessarily slurred. The instrument can merelyaccompany rhythm, not dictate it. It is this distinction

which caused the Greeks to value the lyre rather thanthe aulos in a paedeutic role. In the Republic, Platoadvocated the banning of the aulos from Kallipolis.He wished (especially in Laws) to make music whollyhieratic, utilizing the lyre, and, like other seriousthinkers, found any theory of modality dependentupon the aulos to be suspect. They believed that truelearning depended upon freeing oneself of moraland conceptual slurring, and grasping instead theunderlying mathematics of reality through the pureand distinct notes of reason.

It is idle to play the lyre for an ass.

Greek Proverb

Up to the fifth century, Greek music embracedmany styles differing markedly in emotionalcharacter. The notes required for each necessitateda harmonia, or tuning of the lyre. These diversemodes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Aeolian, etc.)expressed not merely a particular scale pattern but adistinctive musical idiom or dialect, similar to theragas of Indian music. It could be said that each tribehad evolved a characteristic harmonia whichexpressed its cultural values, its sense of reality.Rhythm, playing a role in this expression, was seenby Pythagoras, Plato and others as a refinement ofinnate impulses appearing in bodily movements,cultivated movements revealing the character ofindividuals separately and collectively. Tropos(manner expressed through mode) dealt with verticalrelationships of pitch between successive notes,

while rhythm was seen to express horizontalrelationships over time. Members of various tribesthen, as of various cultures now, shared thus acomplex, subtle and highly developed ethos whichthey brought to bear in an evaluation of the ethicalworthiness of a musical piece. To people of suchhighly integrated musical awareness, aesthetic orethical blunders committed by a player would beimmediately apparent.

The development and refinement of this awarenesswas closely related to the usages of the spokenword in magic, religion, poetry and song. It is ofgreat significance that words cannot be chanted orsung while playing the aulos. Language represents aconscious expression of cosmic and humannumerical relationships. Uttered in the proper pitchand rhythm, it was believed to have immensepotential occult power. In its original forms, Greekpoetry was musical and always sung to theaccompaniment of the lyre. The oracles at Delphiwere sung in hexametric form to the lyre’s clear noteand beat. These songs were called (thespaoide), related to (thespis, thespian),meaning to have words from or be inspired by God.Thus, though the lyre was less able to project apowerful melody than was the aulos, it was morevalued because it could accompany with precision ausage of sound deemed to be of higher spiritualvalue than melodic strain. The harmonia expressedby the lyre had its direct root in the mathematical

precision of universal order rather than in asecondary or tertiary expression of it.

When the Ideal Forms spoken of by Plato becameaesthetic, they rendered Truth, Beauty and Virtueperceptible to embodied consciousness. Whenmusic thus became perceptible, it became ethicalthrough rhythm. The rhythm of language, metre,tempo, mode and dance expressed by the lyredelivered all these qualities to the threshold of aconscious human order based upon a perceivedorder in Nature. Natural philosophy could not alonecontain this expression, and it was inevitable that itwould flow into every aspect of society and artamong the Hellenes, just as it had done in moreancient cultures. In bringing these ideals into thehuman sphere, a reciprocal exchange took place inhuman consciousness infusing ethical, religious andaesthetic values into Nature which sometimesreflected faithfully a deeper truth, but at other timescoloured the manifest world in highly emotional hues.

Harmony in human affairs, based upon aknowledge of the true nature of things rather thanupon feelings of like and dislike, was believed byPlato to be of primary importance in education. Hetaught that fundamental notions of justice and moralaction could be developed through musicalinstruction on the lyre because the harmony of thesoul was capable of being awakened through theear, and the properties of the human body could belikened to the lyre, which does not itself furnish the

elements of harmony but can express them. Thebody could be brought, he asserted, into harmonywith the soul by fine tuning its strings and learning thecorrect modes and rhythms suited to its bonding.

In singing and playing the lyre, a boy ought properly toreveal not only courage and moderation but also justice.

Damon of Athens

Education in ancient Greece revolved aroundaristocratic values and courtly accomplishments, andincluded training in song and dance and lyre playingas prominent features. As with other ancientpeoples, models of greatness were enshrined insong, and the chief mark of a cultivated man was hisability to transmit them with grace and precision.Plato advised that a compulsory education of bothboys and girls be universal and include three yearsof lyre study begun at age thirteen. In Laws he saidthat for the sake of good melodic mimesis(representative of the soul of a good man under thestress of events), the lyre must be used so that itsnotes will be clear. Playing it in unison with the voice,no heterophony or ornamentation should beencouraged, nor should closely spaced notescontrasted with wide, or fast tempos with slow, orhigh range with low, be permitted. The stately andclear expression of one note only for each singleword was the ancient ideal. In one of his parodies,Aristophanes even criticized Euripides for setting aword to more than one note in his lyric dramaticchoruses. Aristophanes contrasted him with

Aeschylus, whom he acknowledged as making adeliberate effort to represent the older order whenthe tragic poet was poietes, “maker”, neverborrowing from other nomes but remaining faithful tothe one-word/one-note standard. When Platoproposed to achieve his paedeutic ideal by chantswhich would have the power to “en-chant”, he fullyrealized that all music enchants. Because of this, heurged that the rhythms and modes played on the lyreshould be subordinate to the words of the text inorder to observe their rightful place. He believed thatmusical material ought to be used no longer thannecessary, for the object of its instruction was not toachieve virtuosity on the lyre, but to recognize moralexcellence in melody and rhythm. To Pythagoras,Plato and other upholders of the ancient standard,the virtuoso was merely a workman who sold his art,not to be compared with the free citizen using it as ameans to rise above the pleasures of the senses toa higher moral bliss.

Numerous tales in Greek literature attest to thebelief in the irresistible moral powers of music.Empedocles is said to have prevented a murder byhis lyre playing, and Homer recorded the manner inwhich such music could calm the most tortured heart.This sort of inspirational effect shades almostimperceptibly into the enchanting potentials of thelyre as a magical instrument, as demonstrated byOrpheus and Amphion. But this was quite distinctand immeasurably more lofty an art than that which

had begun to develop in Plato’s day. The greatphilosopher believed that a poet-singer could be auseful member of a community by performingappropriate social and political activity. He did not,however, envision that this would include virtuosiskilled mainly in self-aggrandizement. Whenfreeborn amateur lyre players began to be replacedwith professionals pandering to mass tastes withstock devices and calculated gimmicks, he musthave been deeply saddened. For thus his standardsof self-education in order to harmonize the lowernature with the soul were inverted and transformedinto external standards dictated by crowds. The twoPlatonic goals of music - “to take pleasure rightlyand to discern what is excellent” - were thus stood ontheir heads, with the result that a slave mentalityincreasingly replaced the liberated self-determination of the true autodidact.

Plato claimed that musical consciousness was agift from the Muses as well as from Apollo andDionysus. That he included Dionysus, yet advisedexclusion of the aulos from Kallipolis, does notnecessarily represent a contradiction. In siftingthrough his dialogues one comes to the conclusionthat the Orphic influence is very strong in Platonicthought, as it had been in the Pythagorean school,an influence profoundly stamped with both Dionysianand Apollonian characteristics. In Laches, Platoshowed that the true musician is in tune with a higherharmony than that capable of production on the lyre

itself, for he has arranged in his life a harmony ofwords and deeds. This would reflect a harmonybetween the tripartite aspects of the soul, adjusted insuch a way as to produce a perfect harmonybetween it and the perfectly tuned vehicles. Thecorrect mode, rhythm, pitch and tropos would beunique to each individual and reflect in distinctivelyvarying balances the soaring potentials of mysticalecstasy associated with the Asian god and the clearpowers of pure reason and illumination related toApollo. That the instrument of that former deity couldbe used for less than worthy purposes has beenshown. It is not the instrument itself which is immuneto corruption, no more than the human body. Rather,it is a question of the potential production of thespiritually unadulterated sound which does notensnare the listener in lower psychic realms. Onecould readily imagine that a Krishna in the Hindutradition breathed the pure breath of God into hisflute and enchanted many on behalf of the spiritualemancipation of mankind. But on the lips of the satyr,the wandering shepherd of the hill or the frenziedBacchae, the flute could easily slur the sensibilitiesinto a non-discriminative dream of sensual beautyand psychic escape. The clear intervals of silence,so critical to understanding sounds, ideas and theorder of manifestation and so wonderfully producibleupon the lyre, are missing.

It is significant, therefore, that Orpheus, whocharmed and enchanted even while addressing the

soul, should have played the lyre. In his profoundlymysterious magic, words played a major part. Hemoved the lords of the underworld with his words aswell as with the intonation and rhythm of hisaccompanying instrument. In sixth century B.C.Greece, the Orphic religious movement paidallegiance to Dionysus but also incorporated theApollonian cult, especially at Delphi. Thus themystical emphasis on purification through ecstasywas wedded to clear perception and a knowledge ofPlatonic Ideas. Orpheus, its prophet, was, after all,considered to have been at once a mortal spiritualteacher and the son of Apollo. As the movementspread, doctrine was added to ritual and mythicalthought moved closer to philosophy. What had beena Dionysian cult was thus elaborated into a monasticcode of life. The science of harmonics tookprecedence over the wild outpouring of emotionwhich had so dismayed Pythagoras as a young boygrowing up in Samos. His teachings as well asPlato’s were strongly influenced by Orphic concepts,blending ritual purification and catharsis with theaffirmation of the immortality of the soul andproviding a disciplined control over the ecstaticpassion of the Mysteries.

The very sorts of contraries which, when “fittedtogether”, “adjusted” and brought into a new “order”,produce a harmony were blended in the Orphicmovement. Just as Harmonia had been the daughterof the seemingly opposing forces of War (Ares) and

Love (Aphrodite), so too the new philosophicalMysteries were the progeny of reason and vision, atranscendental blend of the mind and the heart. Thevery concept of harmony rests upon the inevitabilityof a relation between opposites. It presumes auniverse of constant flow and change, a processrevolving around a balance of measure andproportion rooted in wholeness, which is the centralconnection between permanence and change. If theLogos is the source of harmony, harmony itself is thechild of arcane duality. The contraries over whichshe, as the goddess Harmonia, reigns are both hercause and her effect. From the very beginning thisidea was connected with music, for though theharmony for the world remains an abstraction thatmust be intuited, in the tuning of the lyre there wasdiscerned a simultaneity of mutual adjustment whichcould be immediately heard and experienced in itsplaying. All the spatial, vertical and horizontal,sequential and simultaneous elements of karmicadjustment could be sensed by the awakening soul.This is why Plato so strongly advocated its use ineducation and why he was so concerned not to letthe instrument become an end in itself. Heunderstood that a polarity of spirit and matter, rootedin the Absolute, mixed and blended in human natureto produce good and evil qualities. He also fullyrealized that these contraries were necessary toembodied life and that they were mutuallyinterdependent aspects of what could be potentiallya harmonious whole. In the continual balancing of the

contraries, “if one is arrested, the action of the otherwill become immediately self-destructive”. Arecapitulation of the cosmic War in Heaven takesplace.

Looked at in a more negative sense, karma can besaid to be the effect of an act which cannot but beharmful lo others because it is producedegotistically, whereas the law of harmony dependson altruism. Looked at in a broader way, karma isthe eternal action itself. It creates nothing nor does itdesign anything, for it is man who creates anddesigns while karma simply adjusts the effects. It isuniversal harmony tending ever to resume its originalorder, its mode reflective of wholeness in the cosmicrealm. Thus, the contraries of karmic law can begathered in an adjusted harmony within the humanheart and mind as upon the strings of the lyre.Eternal action, like sound, cannot cease nor can theeffects of human ignorance disappear immediatelyfrom the realm of manifest existence. But anindividual can learn to separate the pure notes oftrust and love from the clutter of extraneous noisesand embellishments. He or she can practise thosenotes upon the lyre strings of the inner being untilone discovers gradually the correct mode, the timelyintervals, the pitch, the rhythm and the overall melodyof the soul. Finding thus the harmony within, one canbless with the uttered word, make of one’s relationswith others a song, and, like Orpheus with his goldenlyre, move to sway in ecstasy the very rocks and

trees. But one must learn the strength of reason andwed it to the heart so that the two in harmony walk asone, never doubting, never looking back, out of thejaws of death into immortal life. Along the coasts of ArcadyThy melody yet lingers,Thy strings mount up into the clouds,The winds caress thy fingers.Thy chanting circles round the globeMournful yet endearing.Each note a pluck upon my soul,Each word a boon to hearing.

Hermes, October 1986

THE CROSS

The philosophical cross, the two lines running in oppositedirections, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the heightand breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at theintersecting point, and which forms the magical as well asthe scientific quaternary, when it is inscribed within theperfect square, is the basis of the occultist. Within its mysticalprecinct lies the master-key which opens the door of everyscience, physical as well as spiritual, ft symbolizes ourhuman existence, for the circle of life circumscribes the fourpoints of the cross, which represent in succession birth, life,death and IMMORTALITY.

Isis Unveiled, i 508

Like many people who have blundered out into theworld without knowing what they might expect to find,the Europeans who came to the New World weresurprised and gratified to find objects and symbolsamong the natives similar to many of their own.When they saw crosses decorating faces, clothing,baskets, tools and religious paraphernalia, theypresumed these had a meaning akin to that held byChristians and were puzzled that the symbol couldbe so widely cherished by such primitive and “un-Christian-like” people. Where explorers ormissionaries tarried long enough to learn the variedmyths that told of a great deluge or the coming toearth of an arcane spiritual teacher, they often leaptto the conclusion that hitherto unknown contacts withChristians or even the Apostles themselves were

responsible. Some of them, ironically, experiencedno doubts whatever in claiming antique visitations bythe peripatetic St. Thomas. To this day, sites wherehe is believed to have taught or performed miraclesare trustingly pointed out in Yucatan, Mexico andPeru. The possibility that the cross might havesymbolized philosophical and cosmologicalconcepts gestated out of the spiritual and culturalexperience of the natives themselves occurred tovery few. Fewer still of these ethnocentrics perceivedin its ubiquitous presence proof of the fundamentallyuniversal nature of the cross. Centuries would passbefore the world would realize how late in the day theChristian rood had joined a long parade of crossesdisplayed and venerated by human beings forcountless millennia.

According to the Sia Pueblo Indians, the initial actof Spider Woman, the First Being, was to draw across in the amorphous womb of the causal world.Focussing upon its eastern and western points, shebrought forth Utset and Nowutset, mothers of theIndian people and of other races. Eventually Utsetled her people through a reed to emerge through asipapu into the physical world. Wandering for ages,they finally found their way to the middle place of theworld where, circling around on the arms of aswastika pattern, they arrived at the centre of thecross, which was the sacred heartland of thephysical Mother Earth. Marking the emergence oforder out of chaos as it does, the Sia cross stands

at one end of a spectrum of meanings associatedwith manifestation, the cardinal directions and theconjunction of heaven and earth. At the other end ofthis spectrum lie beliefs linking the cross with humanbeings, serpents and stars. Many Plains tribes,perpetuating variations of a beautiful myth, told theirchildren of a mortal maiden who was taken as a wifeby a solar being who lived as a brilliant star in thecelestial world. Abiding with her husband in thatastral realm, this greatly honoured lady gave birth toa child who was of heaven and earth combined. Withjoy the young mother watched him grow and taughthim the laws of the sky world as she knew them. Shehad tried to adapt herself fully to her husband’s realmand had taken care to observe its teachings andtaboos. In her heart, however, she had never beenable to subdue an intense curiosity, and so it wasthat she came to uproot a plant she had beenexplicitly forbidden to touch. Beneath its root, insteadof greater depths of astral mists yawned a gapinghole opening out onto the physical world far below.

She had opened a door from which she could notretreat and was forced to descend to the earth,leaving her husband and child behind. The NorthAmerican tribes envisioned stars in the shape ofequilateral crosses which, in the case of this sadlyfallen mother, beamed over her during many lonelynights as reminders of her loss. The Kiowa versionof the tale continues, telling of how Little Star (theson of this lonely mother) descended to earth, took

on human form and killed a great serpent, which thenlodged in his head. Though his body disintegrated,he lived on in the shape of a cross until, after ferventprayers, the serpent came forth from what wouldhave been his mouth. In this way he was restoredand, using the serpent’s skin as his weapon, hebecame Venus, the morning star.

The mysteries suggested in these provocativemyths are complex and reveal so many similaritieswith universal occult teachings concerning the fall ofspirit into matter and the sacrificial role of Venus-Lucifer that one cannot avoid being reminded ofPlato’s notion of archetypes. In the realm of symbolsand myths such as these there can be foundabundant evidence of the global “borrowing” from therich collective storehouse of highly refined andsynthesized ideation that has existed for as long asthinking man. Out of this tapping and culling thecross has emerged with a frequency that suggestssomething both essential and universal, not only atthe level of cosmic prototypes but buried deep withinthe individual and collective human mind. Platoalluded to the more cosmological aspect of thiswhen he described the creator “splitting the wholeworld along its entire length into two parts and joiningthem together across one another”. As with theactivity of Spider Woman, the perpendicular andhorizontal of the cross here express in the mostfundamental manner height and breadth: thegeometrizing deity dividing from its intersecting point

the above and below, the right and left, the beforeand after - in short, all dualities expressed in amanifesting world.

The cross expresses division and conjunction andepitomizes the paradoxical melding of unifying andopposing forces that typify human nature and theworld of which it is a microcosm. Thus, the verystructure of the garden of Paradise in myth isdecussated by crossing rivers, at the intersection ofwhich grows the axis mundi or Tree of Life uponwhose cross-branches sprout the fruits of good andevil. Looked at from one point of view, the design ofthe garden is the symbol of and symbolized bycrucified man. It also shadows forth the perimeters oflaw, justice and evolution. Eating from the Tree ofLife, man is crucified on it, and it comes to representthe history of his evolution. But it also represents anorder which sustains and balances a conjunction ofhigher and lower forces whose complex interrelationmust necessarily be marshalled. One sees a cleargrasp of this at some level in the belief of the ancientSumerians, who heralded the cross as the emblemof the god Shamash, who gave to King Hammurabihis famous laws.

The identification of the cross with the idea of orderis echoed in the axis of the Buddhist wheel of theGood Law, whose spokes delineate a multiple of itsbasic four arms. For many peoples the law exerts itseffect through the lords or genii of the four quarters.The circling swastika of the American Indians, the

ancient Aryans or the Tibetans conveys the samenotion, while the still centre of the cross, like theheartland of the Sia, is the place of the rosy flame oftranscendence. It is the sacrificial fire burning wherethe wood pieces cross in the Inipi Lodge of theDakota, which, like the fire sticks of Agni, bringtogether in conjunction the opposite forces of life. Inthe mundane world of daily coming and going thisopposition is met every time one arrives at acrossroads. It is at such a point that choices aremade and law comes into operation. One isconfronted with choices that may lead one onward,to the right or the left. They may lead intoenlightenment or confusion, white or black magic, lifeor death. The antiquity of this idea is responsible forthe many beliefs about demons and witches whohover and perform their dark rites there. In culturesall over the world people have gone to thecrossroads on a full moon or new moon night toenlist the forces waiting there in their magical efforts.The road that is crossed may be full of possibilities,or the greatest loss in one’s life may have beenavoided by not turning into it. Or the crossed roadmay have led to endless night, a darkness of missedopportunity, a lamentation of shrinking hopes.

But man must light for manThe fires no other can,And find in his own eyeWhere the strange crossroads lie.

David McCord

The conjunction of opposing forces or possibilities

can be traced in common English slang where to“double cross”, “play the cross” or do anything “onthe cross” implies dishonesty and deception in theface of certain concepts of law or morality. To“cross-examine” someone is to question them fromopposite sides of an issue in an effort to discoverthe truth, while to be “cross” is simply to be inopposition to or out of harmony with someone orsome particular set of circumstances. The emphasisshifts subtly when considering the various types ofcrosses that have been carved into stone, stitchedinto silk or buckskin or shaped out of a living tree.The cross in the form of an P signifies the upper andlower worlds, the + orientation, the centrifugalforce, the or centripetal force, the peripheralforce. The cross as a bridge or ladder to God is likeJacob’s ladder or the great tree laid down as part ofthe entrance leading into Solomon’s temple. Herethe main idea has shifted away from conjoiningforces to the link connecting heaven and earth. TheSiberian Voguls thus kept a fir-wood “pillar” withcross-pieces bearing sacrificial offerings, at thebase of which they said the son of God tied hissteed while visiting his father. Sacred poles withcross-pieces readily function as meeting pointsbetween God and man in rituals like the great SunDance of the Plains Indians. There the central pole isthe emblem of life and cosmic organization and thelink between the solar god and the warriors who, byattaching themselves to its top with rawhide linesand dancing about it while gazing at the sun,

sacrificed of their stamina and flesh to their deity.The tree chosen for this important rite representedthe world Tree of Life similar to that symbolized bythe tau cross among the ancient Maya of Yucatanwhich was, along with their equilateral cross,mistaken by the Spaniards as proof of an earlierChristian influence.

When the link between heaven and earth and thenotion of communicating spiritual power is thusemphasized, the cross can clearly be seen asrelated to the Tree of Life and Knowledge aroundwhich a serpent is coiled. One can identify this formand meaning in the caduceus, wherein theoutstretched wings appear as the horizontal bar andthe dark and light serpents embody the opposingforces of good and evil. In Mexico the cross was theemblem of Quetzalcoatl who, like the SumerianShamash, gave to the people their laws and all theirarts while being identified as the plumed serpent.Crosses are associated with his shrines andpowerfully dramatic serpentine representations. As aman, Quetzalcoatl was believed to be pale of skin,having a long white beard and robes. In his struggleswith the forces of darkness in the world there came atime when he was forced to abandon mankind andcross the Eastern Sea to Tlillan Tlapallan, the restingplace of the gods. When the white-skinnedSpaniards came, with robed priests carryingcrosses upon ships sporting tall masts and cross-spars, the Maya along the Caribbean coast believed

that their god had returned to them and theyunwittingly embraced their future conquerors. Takingfull advantage of this mistake, the meagre forces ofthe Spaniards were soon able to subjugate farvaster numbers of the relatively peaceful nativepeople.

Onward, Christian soldiers,Marching as to war,With the Cross of JesusGoing on before!

The common factor lay in the frequent identificationof some form of the cross with a divine messenger.Whether it be Thor’s fylfot, Hermes’ caduceus, thetau and cross pattée ( ) of Quetzalcoatl, theansated cross of Venus-Lucifer or the ankhassociated with Osiris, it is an emblem of life and ofall the sacrifice attendant upon the manifestation inthe world of a spiritually enlightened being. As theinheritor of such great archetypal sacrifices, manhimself can be likened to the cross. If he is imbibedwith the desire to embrace this sacrificial spirit, hestands straight with his head thrown back and hisarms outstretched, looking for all the world like across. The Chinese believed this stance symbolizedman’s divine potential, and because they believedcertain criminals had profaned this, they crucifiedthem on crosses. In willing the fullest manifestation ofhis potential, man stands at the crossroads ofevolution, his nature the meeting-place of allopposites. With his arms extended and his bodyerect, he is the figure of humanness at full stretch, the

potential bridge between heaven and earth. Lookedat in this way, man joins the ranks of the greatTeachers and spiritual sacrificers spoken of in mythand religious tradition, and the cross takes on amuch broader association, its arms extending incyclic time to include the whole of humanity, notmerely one central being.

In the Christian tradition the P stands for (Christos) as well as for “cross”. Coming to the worldthrough the Greek language, the basic concepts andsymbols in Christianity were stamped with themeanings associated with the Hellenic alphabet andwords. P stands for “chaos” and “chasm”, but it alsoyields (chrio), “to be rubbed on”, and (chrien), “to anoint”. Thus Christ, associated with thecross that emerges out of chaos, was known as theAnointed One. We have seen that this P crosssymbolizes a conjunction of the upper and lowerworlds, and it is interesting to note the oppositemeanings attached to its popular usage, where the Xof the Vikings’ runic alphabet meaning “bad luck” isbalanced off by the X of the Romans, meaning “akiss”. Though the crossbones X beneath a skullsignified pirates in earlier times and poison to usnow, X is equally associated with number andincrease as well as unknown factors. Identified withman, it contains all these opposites and has been forages his signature mark. In the shape of the X theChristian cross was borne up the tortured path toCalvary, and Emperor Julian waged warfare with it

emblazoned on his banner, believing that theelongated vertical of the Latin cross abused theoriginal symbolic association with the occultmeaning of the crucifixion. But the more abstractideas represented by the equilateral cross gave wayover time, and the emphasis in the Christian traditioncame to rest ever more exclusively upon the materialcross of crucifixion echoed in the physical form andpassion of Christ. There grew an increasingconfusion wherein aspects of the Tree of Life, theansated cross, the P of Christos and the rod or stafflinking heaven and earth were all mixed andmoulded to suit a particular event.

Ironically, the legend of the Holy Rood (the cross ofChrist) provides clues of greater symbolic latitudeconcerning the cross than does the dogma ofChristian theology. Beginning with the Garden ofEden, the legend makes the connection between thetree at its centre and the later cross supposed tohave been used for the crucifixion. The imagery isrich, describing how Seth, the third son to Adam andEve, attempted to locate the fruit of Paradise.Arriving at the Garden of Eden, he saw through itsclosed gate four streams coursing out from a centralwell where stood an aged tree. The top of this treebore at its highest heavenly point an unborn babe,while its roots reached to the nether realms of hell.From its branches an angel gave him three pipswhich Seth planted on earth and watched grow into acedar, a cypress and a pine. These, it is said, were

later used as rods of divination and curing by Moses,after which King David brought them to Jerusalemwhere he planted them once again. They grew intoone marvelous tri-branched tree which KingSolomon used as a bridge leading to his temple.The legend meanders on through these remarkablegenerations to tell how the Queen of Sheba, visitingSolomon, advised him to bury the tree reverentiallyat a place where subsequently sprang up a deepwell capable of miraculous healing. The tale thendescribes how, when Jesus was born, the treebegan to float on the well water’s surface, wherethose who prepared to crucify him later found it. Thecross was made of two-thirds of the great beam,with eight cubits standing above ground and three oneach side.

O tree, thou art only made for traitors,Yet virtue is slain along with vice.Truth now united to treason.With a thief my son is hanged.

Mary Disputes with the Cross

After the Crucifixion, the legend relates, the HolyRood was buried with the crosses of the two thievesand Adrian built a Roman temple over the spot.Years later, during the reign of Constantine, hismother Helena went to Jerusalem to find it. The Jewsthere tried to keep its whereabouts secret but shethreatened them with severe consequences and,interestingly, a man called Judas finally told herwhere it lay. It is said by some that four equallydivided parts of the cross were sent to the four

quarters of the earth, but the more popular notion isthat Helena sent part of it to Constantinople andenshrined the rest at Mount Calvary. Its extraordinaryodyssey did not seem to rest even there, for it isrecorded that in A.D. 615 the Persian king Khosraustole the Holy Rood and that it was captured by theemperor Heraclitus and brought back to Jerusalem,where, it is suggested, its presence filled the air witha sweet aroma. One comes to the conclusion of thissaga impressed with the numerous elements thathave been woven together to create a sort of livingtree capable of extending its branches, as it were,from the beginning of the Old Testament to the endof the New. That this is artfully done cannot bedisputed and yet, behind it lies a continuing focusupon the terrible agony suffered by Christ on thisCross.

… pain’s almost the GodOf doubtful men, who tremble expecting toEndure it, their cruelty sublimed. And IThink the brute cross itselfHewn down to a gibbet now, has been worshipped;It stands yet for an idol of life andPower in the dreaming world.

Robinson Jeffers

Miguel de Unamuno made a profound distinctionbetween the utterly killed and dead Christ portrayedin the painting The Recumbent Christ of Palenciaand the eternally agonizing, living Christ ofVelazquez. As for Pascal, to whom Christ would“continue to be in agony until the end of the world”,

so too for Unamuno, the Christ of Velazquezsymbolized endless struggle. This view focussesupon the cross and the condition it represents as anongoing fact about the world and humanity ratherthan as a specific historical event. The implication isthat the agony leads to a redemption which is alsoongoing. If one reads the Gospels with a deeperintuitive awareness of the cosmological anduniversally human symbolism involved in theCrucifixion, one will readily see that Christ is notdepicted as a martyr. Instead, one will see that theCross plays a fundamental role in what is a divinetransaction transcending time and space andindividual suffering. But for centuries much ofChristendom has been mesmerized by the bloodand agony marking one particular highly dramatizedevent. In popular and serious religious art as well asin poetry and plays, the tortured bloodiness of theCrucifixion has undoubtedly affected the collectivepsyche of vast numbers of people.

Reacting strongly to this in his inimitable way,George Bernard Shaw asserted that in Europe “theinstruments of his (Jesus’) torture were madesymbols of the faith … and the crucifixion thusbecame to the churches what the chamber of horrorsis to a wax work”. While this may be anoversimplified exaggeration of the problem, it doesprovoke questions about the deep-seated morbidtendencies which have caused so many to enjoysurrendering themselves in waves of transferred self-

pity and supplication before the most harrowingstatues of Christ, depicted in bleeding agony uponthe Cross. There is little doubt that elements of thislugubrious identification would tend to flow intoirrational expressions of doleful righteousness givingvent, from time to time, to bigotry and even violencetowards those of other faiths.

Odour of blood when Christ was slainMade all Platonic tolerance vainAnd vain all Doric discipline.

William Butler Yeats

In the catacombs of Rome the early Christiansfocussed upon the Resurrection instead of theCrucifixion. But it was not long before a sort ofreligiocentric righteousness, partly motivated by avague sense of justifiable reparation for themartyrdom suffered by Jesus in the hands of non-believers, led to a stronger and more aggressiveidentification with the emblem of his terrible passion.The emperor Constantine saw the cross in a dreamduring a battle at the Danube. He fixed its image to abanner, so they say, and drove his heathen foebefore him as they panicked with its display.Increasingly such banners were carried aloft in war,contributing to a more intense and militantconsolidation of messianic fervour focussed uponthe cross. With the eclipse of the classical world andthe conversion of many within the Roman fold to thenew religion, it was perhaps inevitable that the crosswould become a central symbol of the waxing

Christian era. It was worn as an emblem, traced in aritual sign across the breast and carried forth bypilgrims or settlers as they entered a new land. Moreand more, as the centuries passed, this shape ofsuffering and hoped for salvation dotted thelandscape of the Old World and embedded itself intothe architecture, the minds and emotionalassociations of countless generations of people. Bythe thirteenth century it would seem perfectlyreasonable for Thomas Aquinas to teach that thecross itself should be adored with supreme worship.

The majority of Christian crosses carved in theearliest centuries during which the new religionspread were wheel-shaped. Those in Ireland andplaces like Cornwall were exceedingly simpledesigns having flat, circular heads of stone withMaltese (cross pattée) crosses carved on each face.Some of these, smoothed by winds and snow, stillbear dates placing their origins in the sixth andseventh centuries. As in other northern countries,they far outnumbered Latin crosses, the old pre-Christian associations with the Nordic and Celticequilateral cross prevailing, even in the recognitionpaid to the increasingly dominant new religion. Manycenturies would pass before the elongated cross soemblematic of the actual Crucifixion would becomethe most clearly recognized symbol of organizedChristianity. The slow shift of favour away from thecross within the circle to the cross with the circleabout its centre and, finally, the Latin cross with no

circle at all occupied several centuries. Modestlyadorned with the lamb of God or some other non-anthropomorphic symbol, all of these stylesremained relatively simple and abstract until theQuinisext Council of Constantinople in 692 decidedthat it was permissible to depict the figure of Christin human form instead of the lamb. It was thisdecision which lent an edge to the Latin cross,whose shape so closely echoes that of man andwhich quickly began to be seen, supporting in woodor stone or on canvas, the emaciated and bleedingbody of the Prince of Peace.

This shift from the circled cross to one outside acircle is a reflection, writ small in a few centuries, ofa far greater shift that can truly be related to a vastand antique process of spiritual involution.According to the symbolism depicting this greaterprocess, the cross first appeared as part of an occultsequence beginning with a boundless circle. Withinthe unformed space of this circle a Logoic pointemerged, to be followed by a horizontal linesymbolizing “a divine immaculate Mother-Naturewithin the all-embracing absolute Infinitude”. Avertical line dropping down from this forms thesacred tau cross, the “Alpha and the Omega ofsecret divine Wisdom” and glyph of the androgynousThird Root Race up to the point where theseparation of the sexes took place, symbolized bythe crossing of the horizontal line in the circle with anequal vertical. As long as the cross remained within

the circle it symbolized a state wherein, though thecause of all manifestation may not have beenpresumed knowable, there persisted a refusal toworship an external god of physical generation. Thecircled cross affirms the universal presence of vastand recurring cycles of space and time typified bythe Hindu chakra or Plato’s decussated circle. Fromthe fully encircled cross evolved the crux ansata ofthe ancient Egyptians, the ankh or key to life held bythe goddess of truth, Maat. This symbol, identical inessence to that associated with Venus, still clung tothe expanded sphere of the Logoic point andcontinued to assert man’s fundamentally spiritualancestry. Suspended below the sphere, the cruxansata indicated that mankind and all animal life had“stepped out of the spiritual circle and fallen intophysical male and female generation”. From the endof the Third Race this sign took on a phallic meaningwhich came to be fully expressed in the cross havingno circle at all.

The evolutionary history of the cross is as complexas that of man himself. The crux ansata marks astep in a line of development moving from arelatively subjective oneness of consciousness andbeing to a separative objectivized conditionmanifested at its greatest extreme in man. Parallelwith this, the simple ideas of the four cardinal pointsand their presiding powers, the axis of the wheel ofthe Law in Buddhist or American Indian belief, andthe idea of the tau as the Tree of Life flow and

become blended. Many glyphs and legends tracethe development of the intertwined characteristics ofthese various crosses.

Astrologically, Taurus was said to have “pushed offthe dragon” with the ansated cross on his horns. Theancients believed that this celestial event wasreflected on earth in terrestrial generation involvingthe cross as the “framework of all construction”. Tothem Taurus represented the lower physical worldthat eclipsed the realm of intuitive wisdom by meansof the cross. Such notions might seem to be arrivedat over the millennia through man’s observations ofthe constellations and their shifts relative to thisglobe. But the double glyph that underlies the idea ofthe cross is not of human invention. “Cosmicideation and the Spiritual representation of thedivine Ego-man are at its basis.” This is alluded to inthe Hindu idea of man crucified in space andidentified as “the Second God who impressedhimself on the Universe in the form of Cross”. It isdescribed in terms of the Universal Soul which, as amaterial reflection of the Ideal, is the sevenfoldsource of life represented by the cross, whosebranches are light, heat, electricity, terrestrialmagnetism, astral radiation, motion and intelligence.

The dragon eclipsed by the cross of Taurus isechoed in the serpent so frequently associated withthe cross. The dragons of Wisdom are, however, tobe distinguished from Nidhogg gnawing at the baseof the Yggdrasil tree, just as are the white and dark

serpents wound round the caduceus. Behind thisduality presides a necessity based upon the fact ofmanifestation itself and relentlessly expressedthrough its basic cross-shaped framework. Thetranscendent source of this necessity cannot bearrived at in one leap but requires many steps alongthe arms of its doubled dualistic expression.Beautifully expressing this, the powerful stone-carved pyramids of the ancient Maya slope up to asacred capstone where man and the gods werebelieved to meet. Each of their four sides iscentered by a tapered band of steep steps leadingup to the shrine on this platform. Looked at from anaerial view, the steps resemble the arms of a crosspattée extending out from a square centre, while thecorners of the pyramid describe an X or St.Andrew’s cross. An illustration of this cross in theCodex Ferjervary-Mayer reveals a tau cross or Treeof Life in each of the larger cross-arms symbolic ofthe four seasons of cycles great and small. Thecross-bar of these tau trees rests at the wide outerextremities of the arms, while the trunks extendtowards the centre, from which flows the life-givingspirit of the mother and father of the gods.

Looked at from above, the tree crosses extendfrom the central heavenly source upside down intothe world. Like those of the sacred Ashwatha tree ofHinduism, their branches bear the leaves andcreatures of phenomenal existence whilst their rootsdisappear at the top of the steps, merging into the

realm of the noumenal. The divine king whose deathscene is so powerfully and elaborately carved on thesarcophagus at Palenque sits tilted backwards infront of an upright Tree of Life cross. He appears tobe about to fall backwards into the underworld of thedead. Turning this around and assuming that theancient priest-artists understood that everything inthe world is an inversion, the king is actually fallinginto the realm of the divine, whilst the tree can beseen to be growing downward into the world.

Growing down into the world, as it were, the fourarms of the Mayan cross pattée containing the treesalso represent the four elements. Extending out, theseparate elements are bound to perish, but if unitedby the central platform of the fifth principle, thecentral sun, they will merge in creative life. Thiscentre is the heart, archetypal to that around whichthe Sia cross of migration circled. It is the preciousjewel where opposites meet and transcendenceoccurs, the symbol of the solar messenger, Venus-Quetzalcoatl. Through this heart animal man anddivine man merge, inaugurating a force capable offreeing the world from inertia whilst preserving thesacred fire of spiritual awakening. In this heart lie theseeds of both crucifixion and redemption acceptedand pursued through the sacrificial compassion ofinitiated Adepts. This was initially understood by theancient Maya, whose later degraded sacrificialpractice of cutting out and offering to God a livinghuman heart simply represented a loss of spirituality

reflected in a gross concretization of the idea. Justso, the crucifixion upon the arms of that great heartcan be understood at many levels. The poignancyand profundity of human consciousness can eitherbe suffused with a realization of the ongoing,omnipresent nature of sacrifice in the entire manifestuniverse, or it can be shrunk to the focus of oneagony, one sacrificial passion crucified on the crossof time and place.

If the heart of the cross, the still, central solar point,is ever held foremost in consciousness, thesedegradations would never occur. Only with the lossof the circle extending to encompass all space canthe cross be shrunk to a piece of wood or aphysically anthropomorphized theme. The Tree ofLife grows out of No-thing and extends endlessly intomanifested existence, inevitably yielding the crossupon which the great compassionators of mankindwill deliberately and willingly suffer. The cross wasalways there, for it is the unfolded cube throughwhich the solar unity of all lays itself out, stretchesitself to the full in the plurality of manifested life. Aswith the tree in paradise, there is nothing intrinsicallygood or evil about the cross. Only man’s mentalexaggeration of the fall of oneness into manyness,his concretization of its nature and fixation uponphysical separation, has blinded him to its cosmicnature and rendered him incapable of seeing in it thesimple necessity of its character.

The way to bliss lies not on beds of down,And he that has no cross deserves no crown.

And he that has no cross deserves no crown.

Francis Quarles

The cross, like the Tree of Life, is unavoidable.There is no manifestation without the circle havingbecome pointed with the Logoic seed, crossed andcrossed again in the union of the father and motherfrom whose embrace extend the limbs of the world.Having arms and legs like branches from the trunk,the cosmic man is thus crucified in space so thatdivine intelligence may percolate out through hisethereal substance into the world. Inheritors of hisintelligence are also inheritors of the burden of thiscross. Human beings carry its weight from morn tonight through much of their lives. Only those wholocate its centre within the depth of their own heartcan free the cross from its rigid Latin stance and turnit into a moving wheel within an all-encompassingcircle. The terrible weight of doubt, anxiety, fear andhatred born of prolonged identification with one life,one body, one event in time, crucify lesser mortalsover and over again. Only the wonderfully bold andgreat-hearted have the vision and strength to discardthis and use the cross as a means for emancipation.

Those few who have succeeded in doing this freetheir own souls into the hands of their higherimmortal selves and thus arrive fully inconsciousness at the intersection where heaven andearth meet. Of these only a few will turn back andattempt to gather up the rest of mankind to share intheir enlightenment. Only a few will take up the cross

- not because they must any longer, but on behalf ofthe human race. In their crucifixion lies not an eventwith beginning or end, but a willingness to shoulderand lighten the inescapable suffering of worldlyexistence. That part of Christ which cried out “MyGod, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” was hislink with the mind and consciousness of the fallenhumanity he sought to uplift. In seeking to lead ittowards the truth, he had to join it and take on itsfear-ridden characteristics. This is the agony willinglyassumed by great redeemers. It is their cross ofsuffering which may weigh so heavily at times upontheir hearts that they cry out in a momentarilybewildered sense of loss.

The poignancy of this would touch any human heartcapable of trying to imagine the trials of such greatsouls. It would be a great mistake, however, toimagine that any such being’s sacrifice could do thejob for others. Its merit lies in that it can inspire andarouse a deep compassion and desire to emulate, adesire to accept the cross of existence, even as it isweighted down and distorted with human ignorance,and bear its burden as bravely and lightly aspossible. Struggling along with this worldly weight, apatient and courageous pilgrim will eventually reachthe hill of Calvary, the place of Odin’s tree, theplatform of the Mayan pyramid. There his terribleburden will fall from him and he will see before himthe great cross of initiation upon whose arms he willbe bound into the mysteries of the immortal fire

burning in the central Spiritual Sun. This is hisdestiny and the ultimate destiny of all human souls.The cross is always there, it ever awaits. It is up tomankind to shed the crippling moral andpsychological shape of its splintered and morbidlylimiting shadow in order to embrace the joyouslyliberating truth that lies at the crossroads of its heart. Mounting the steps of its armsThe pilgrim pauses.He looks out over the familiar world.The pyramid looms above.Mounting higher hePauses again.And the world appears less realA dizzying distance below.Weary beyond measure,He closes his eyes andTrudges on,Step by step and narrow step.His feet are like lead,His breath in short rasps,His mind fixedOn the summit above.He does not know what is there.He does not look up or down.He raises his aching limb.And suddenly, he is there.

Hermes, December 1985

THE FOOL

Foole Upon Foole, or Six Sortes of Sottes: A fiatt foole anda fall foole, A leans foole and a cleans foole, A merry fooleand a verry foole: Shewing their lives, humours andbehaviours, with their want of witte in their shew of wisdome.Not so strange as true.

The Nest of Ninnies

On his Olympian heights Zeus yawned withboredom, for there was not a fool among the godswith wit enough to keep the divine assemblydiverted. Complaining in the midst of such celestialennui, the king of gods frowned with displeasure andsent a ripple of anxiety through the heavenly halls.Hermes, ever quick to mediate in times of need,directed his attention to a large field on earth below.“Great god,” he said, “look at that broad tract of landnear Aliakmon. It is all alive with mortals in theirholiday dress. See how they are eating sweetmelons, singing till they are hoarse and dancing untilthey drop. Can we not find in their revelry theentertainment we lack here?” Observing them for amoment, Zeus chuckled. “I do believe that with a fewimprovements this rustic festivity will indeed provideus with a laugh. By my decree, let that priest, who isfast asleep by his deserted shrine below, announcethat a shower is about to descend but that it shall wetnone but fools.”

With a muffled sound of thunder, the arousedservant of the gods stood up and made the requisiteannouncement to the people. Upon hearing it, aphilosopher standing nearby hastily covered hishead and retreated into his modest habitation. Noneof the others who were gathered around prepared toavoid the tempest, and each, waiting to see thedrenching of the fools, was, in two minutes, wet tothe skin. When the sun reappeared, the philosopherwalked out into the field. The thoroughly soakedidiots, observing his comfortable condition, hailedhim with the epithet of “fool” and pelted him withstones. Bruised and staggering, the philosophernevertheless contrived to keep his wits. “Osagacious asses!” said he to the roaring crowd,which at once sank into silence at the complimentpaid to their wisdom, “have patience for a momentand I will prove to you that I am not such a fool as Ilook.” Bending back his head and turning the palmsof his hands upwards to the sky, he cried, “O wisefather of the witty and the witless, vouchsafe to senddown a deluge for my individual benefit. Wet me tothe skin even as these fools are wetted. Constituteme, thereby, as great a fool as my neighbours; andenable me, in consequence, a fool, to live in peaceamong fools.”

At these words the idiots below and the Olympiansabove shook with laughter. Down came the showerof rain prayed for, with the peculiar effect that thephilosopher rose drippingly from his knees ten times

wittier than he was before. Hera, leaning close to theear of Zeus, whispered, “We have spoilt that goodfellow’s robe but also made his fortune, for I have putin the mind of the local ruler the wish to take thephilosopher home with him as instructor fordiversion.” That night all Olympus looked down intothe court of the prince where the wise fool lay,pouring forth witty truths as fast as his lips could utterthem. “That fellow”, cried Zeus, “shall be the founderof a race. Henceforth, every court shall have its fooland fools shall be, for many a day, preachers andadmonishers of kings. Let us drink to the health ofthe first fool!”

Had the gods communed in Latin, they may havelooked down upon the revellers and remarked alongwith Seneca, “Tanta stultitia mortalium est…” Whatfools these mortals be! But in isolating the wise fooland making him the admonisher of kings, theyestablished a relationship on earth which broke allthe rules of order they themselves held dear. For thefool is the symbol of chaos; he inverts the order ofthings and his penetrating criticisms would havefound a less than welcome reception from the gods.Perhaps the institution of his race was merely anunkind joke played upon mortals who were held, itoften seemed, in low esteem by the Olympians. Orperhaps the introduction of an agent of chaos intothe pathos of world order was considered by them tobe a just and fitting antidote to the conceits ofstrutting empire-builders and self-created

lawmakers. Whatever the reasons may have been,the court fool would find himself in a position at thebottom of a scale of temporal power at whose top aruler of castle and kingdom could be found.Sometimes less than wise, the fool was often at thetotal mercy of those above him and may not evenhave known from whence he came or where he wasgoing, His only freedom lay in his lack of place, hispowerlessness within the social scheme of things.Being always an outsider, an oddity, a forceunfettered by reason or cultural grace, herepresented the unexpected and irrational, theupsetting and absurd. Being a fool, he could saywhat he pleased and caustically unleash a drenchingdam of truth upon the free play of sophistry andmanners.

Well might one ask, if such caustic critics theycould be, why would anyone wish for the company ofa fool? Why would anyone seek out his companyand even come to love and cherish such a one? Thecourt fool was often mentally or physically abnormal.Many were dwarfs, some monstrous in form, othersquite definitely insane. Deprived of both humanrights and responsibilities, they could become eitherpathetic recipients of abuse or impossibly lazybarnacles cluttering up the halls of royalty. Why wouldpeople of wealth and power wish to surroundthemselves with abnormal outcasts who sometimespossessed neither wit nor will?

The earliest trace of such beings is revealed in the

accounts of the mysterious little pygmies calledDangas, who held positions of some privilege at thecourt of Dadkeri-Assi, a Pharaoh of the FifthDynasty. Some of these were apparently hisconfidants and one, Knumhotpu, was even madesuperintendent of the Royal Linen until his death,when his dwarfed form was immortalized in a statueat Giza. The Egyptians were awed by the Dangasbecause they were from the mysterious South, thecountry “ten leagues beyond man’s life”, the region ofghosts and talking serpents. The pygmies, big-headed and clothed in leopard skins, could dancelike the god Bisu from Puanit, thus diverting the courtand rejoicing the heart of the king. But there wasmore to it than auspicious diversion. Forty yearsafter the time of Assi, a magical invocation wascarved into the pyramid of Papi I. Addressed to thepilot of the boat bearing the king’s soul to theBlessed Isle of Osiris, it reminded the gods thatOsiris eagerly awaited Papi “because he is theDanga who dances the god”. What this meant wasthat the Pharaoh hoped, rather touchingly, to comeas a “fool” and thus be welcomed in the celestialcourt of Osiris. The several things suggested hereinclude the notion that the Dangas could cross overthe boundary between mortals and gods and that, asfools, they possessed a magical power related tothis ability that could somehow be transferred tomen, Pharaohs included. The fool, even the insanefool, or perhaps especially the insane fool, wasbelieved to be in touch with the world of spirits and

gods. To keep such people close and in one’s carewas deemed an act of wisdom rather than charity.

The magical power associated with the foolderived also from his role as scapegoat. Though it istrue that sometimes this role thrust the fool right ontothe sacrificial altar, in most cases it manifested in hisacting as a decoy capable of drawing away evil fromhis master. Whilst certain Romans becamenotorious because of keeping morons or deformedslaves for entertainment, most of their wealthycountrymen, like Persians and Egyptians beforethem, kept such people only because they genuinelybelieved that their immunity to the evil eye wouldprotect them from the arrows of envy and malice.This is based on the notion that the malign power ofthe evil eye is not only concentrated in some peoplebut suffused in a vague and undefined waythroughout the universe. Therefore, the self-mockeryand verbal abuse so characteristic of the fool couldact as a deflecting screen against evil capable ofsurrounding the person of a rich and enviable man.The king who is mocked before witnesses not onlysupports the only role given to one who is himselfimmune to envy, but he also deflects the potentialgrudge which his unassailed superiority mightinspire. As a slight variation on this theme, the foolwas often treated as a sort of spiritual whipping-boy,for when bad luck threatened it was thought wise totransfer it by provoking someone and getting his orher abuse. In our own time some people do this with

only a partially conscious purpose, having a sort ofinstinctive tendency to stir up someone else’santagonism and thereby shift the burden ofattachment through dislike onto the other’s shouldersfor a while. Using a fool for this sort of arcanemanipulation could easily have been madepermanent by employing a perpetual scapegoat whoabused his owner as an official duty. On the otherhand, the tie between king and fool might havebecome so complex and strong that the latter wouldwillingly substitute for his master in ritual or evenactual performances of regicide. Or he might do itout of love. The Irish fool Dodera was so loyal that hechanged clothes willingly with his master, PrinceMaccon, and died in his place in battle. Macconused to say, “Since Dodera is departed, no laughteris produced; for after Dairine’s merry jester there isdesolation.”

In a letter written early in the sixteenth century,Desiderius Erasmus expressed the opinion that “thesorts of fools which princes of former timesintroduced into their courts were there for theexpress purpose of exposing and thereby correctingcertain minor faults through their frank speech”. Thisidentification of the fool as truth teller is brilliantlyillustrated in Shakespeare’s King Lear, whose tragicprotagonist reiterates the theme by enigmaticallycrying out at the discovery of his daughter Cordelia’sdeath, “And my poor fool is hang’d”, thus recognizingin her the truth teller. Being but a truthful innocent,

Cordelia could not speak the truth during her lifetimewith impunity. Only the fool could do that and, with hisabsurd rhymes and ridiculous antics, get away withit. From outside the ordered world of self-seriousreason, he could dash in and out with his parries,make his caustic point and leap away intoundignified self-mockery. A magical decoy, ascapegoat and a teller of truth in the face of powerfulauthority, the fool added to his role the sometimesunconscious, sometimes conscious, element ofcomedy. Clever fools played the fool with amarvellous sense of timing and circumstance.Others were simply laughably foolish by naturedespite their sudden ability to penetrate to the heartof some matter or other.

The ability for which the fool was forgiven all hisdefects was that which enabled him to rendereveryday life comic at the moment, on the spot.Man’s appetite for comic relief has flourished for avery long time. One wonders if it acts upon the spiritas a sort of vitamin, or could it be more aptlydescribed as a narcotic? Does the enjoyment of itengender a deeper insight into human nature, akeener critical faculty, or does it merely encouragean evasion of reality? Perhaps one can answer suchquestions only in terms of many subtle combinationsof elements, but the fact remains that societies offools which carefully recorded jests have existedsince ancient times. Philip of Macedonia paid atalent in gold for the mere loan of the jest book kept

by the club of wits in Athens known as “The Sixty”.Culled from the quaint lunacies of fools, both naturaland assumed, these laugh-provoking sketchesquickly became stereotyped so that theirappearance in the borrowed jesting of a would-befool could easily elicit the dampening observation,“Ah, that comes from the Sixty.” Much adaptedfoolery did, however, find a ready patronage, if for noother reason than the persistent belief that having ajoker at the table was good for the digestion.

In later centuries the Romans and theirdescendants encouraged a host of buffoons whoseantics astounded and amused and were partiallyrecorded for posterity by Boccaccio, Sacchetti andBandello. With the development of such charactersas Punch, the entertainment provided by fools toooften reflected a sensual and heartless appetite forlow comedy, sustained by certain patrons as well asthe public at large. A note of pathos, however, wasintroduced into the picture through the foolishcharacter of Pierrot, whose pantomimed sketchesthreaded their way between the tragic and thehilarious. The wistfully absurd figure of a Deburau ora Chaplin has memorably exemplified this moretouching aspect of the fool. Their comic appealengages the sympathy of the audience even whilethey reveal absurd truths about the human condition.They are foolish but so clever as to cause one tolaugh with them at oneself. Being the outsider or theunderdog, they do not threaten directly the worldly

personality, the puffed up sense of dignity menstruggle to protect. Rather, they seem to havepopped in from the moon, with their wildlyunconventional point of view.

Nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patientself-inspection.

F. Moore Colby

Outsider though he was, the fool was the inversionof the king and therefore, in a sort of negative way,integral to the structure which was believed to reflecta divinely ordained society. Close to the king asspiritual adviser was the priest or cardinal whohoped to sway the temporal ruler in the direction ofthe ecclesiastical concept of God’s plan forhumankind. But the burden of rulership has oftenbeen tedious to kings and many of them frequentlyturned for relief to their fools. If this resulted in merelya passing hour or two of frivolous gaiety, naughtwould have come of it, but the fool had a knack forbluntly speaking the truth about matters dear to thechurch as well as to the king and a good deal ofenmity was stirred up. It was well known that WillSommers, fool to Henry VII, was a much despisedenemy of Cardinal Wolsey, and there was acontinual feud between Louis XIII’s favourite fool,Marais, and Cardinal Richelieu. The very nature oftheir roles ensured that this sort of enmity wastypical, despite the fact that a good many of the foolsfavoured by monarchs were extremely simple-minded. In his role as inverter, the fool would

naturally be at odds with the pious establishment ofthe church, for he was the king, not of the sociallyaccepted rule, but of misrule. His license to turn thegrim realities of life into a farce flew in the face ofsober-minded and penitent sinners as well as thosewho merely used the respectability and influence ofthe church for their own worldly ends. Thus, though allfools did not inspire universal affection or sympathyin the courts, their real enemies were usually thepriests. Historically, this seems odd if one considersthe Vatican patronage which exalted certain fools toheights of enormous privilege. Pope Leo X’s valetde chambre had the authority to admit them at anytime to his apartments to the exclusion of anyoneelse. Descriptions of Fra Mariano Felt, capo di mati(“chief of fools”), jumping up on the supper table andrunning from one end to the other, slapping cardinalsand bishops all the way, do not prepare one for themore cool and critical differences of interest to befound later between fool and priest.

Suddenly, it was as if the world began to take itselfmore seriously. Divine madness receded more intoa past regarded with suspicion and distrust.Inversions began to be seen as perversions and notdialectical broadsides capable of clearing the airand opening up a more critical perspective.Organized religion began to lose its ability to laughat itself and a broader wedge was driven betweenthe sacred and secular realms. It is difficult tooverestimate the effect this had on human society.

One wonders if people remotely realized that theywere losing a critical check which worked to forestallthe tendency to concretize the spiritual and shrink itdown to ego size. As difficult as it may seem tounderstand at first glance, ancient wisdom hadhitherto prevailed when the “Lord of Misrule” and the“Abbot of Unreason” played their mocking role evenin connection with such arcane mysteries as thosewhich took place at Eleusis. It still pervades suchcelebrations as that of the rural Indian Holi Festival,where the King of Holi rides backwards on a donkeyamidst a joyful chaos of social reversals andinversions of every sort. He is the chief fool amongfools, kept busy with the task of turning the castesystem upside down and reversing roles of age andsex which otherwise tend to become so inflexibly setand grimly adhered to. Whether in a communalsituation like this or on his own, the fool strips awaythe facades and exposes human weaknesses forwhat they are. Quite naturally he would have had arole to play in preparing a candidate for initiation orin tearing aside the veil of worldly identity so thatvillagers might see beyond appearances and greetLord Krishna in their midst.

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is morehope of a fool than of him.

Proverbs 26:12

If the fool can perform such valuable functions forhumanity, his extremely marginal position in societycan only be understood in terms of humanity’s

ignorance about the whys and wherefores of its owntraditions. It is as if the role of fool really did come byway of a whim of Zeus and mankind neverpossessed an intelligent understanding of his truenature. At any rate, the fortune of the fool has alwaysbeen chancy, with very little assurance that he wouldbe able to avoid living and dying as an underfedbeggar or worse. In ancient Greece certain types of

called Parasites used to take part inbanquets by special invitation in association withpriests and magistrates. Gradually these becamedegraded and began to show up at symposiawithout invitation, brazening their way in withimpudent repartee in order to garner a free meal.The Parasites were usually free-lance and lived bytheir wits, having names like Lark, Pod or Mackerel.They seem to have been more wily than mad, andthey abounded in the rich courts of Philip ofMacedonia and his son, Alexander. To pursueconsciously the life of a fool entailed a willing andopen acknowledgement of one’s failure to attain thenormal standard of human dignity either in bodily ormental tendencies. Such a one would then set aboutexploiting his own weaknesses to the advantage ofhis security and comfort. In order to have succeededin such a tricky profession, these fools must havepossessed a great ability to adapt themselves towhichever way the wind happened to be blowingfrom moment to moment. Placed in an inferiorposition at table, Aristippus, fool to the tyrantDionysius, managed to maintain his audacity in the

face of ridicule. When asked if he liked his new seat,he boldly replied, “Ay truly, for the place I heldyesterday, I despise today, since I hold it no longer.”Trickier still was the test of Nasr-ed-Din, who wouldhave lost his head when he first presented himself tothe conqueror Timur-leng (Tamerlane) had he notwittily been able to answer the questions put to himby the Mongol. That he succeeded in pleasing hisnew master was borne out in a story describing howTimur-leng once wept to see lines of ageing in hisface when he looked into a mirror. His entire courtwept in sympathy along with him for two hours, butthe fool continued to sob even longer. Finally, askedby the conqueror why he still wept, he replied: “If yousaw yourself in the glass for a short moment andwept for two hours, is it surprising that I weep longersince I see you the whole day?” How nervouslyrelieved the onlookers must have been to see Timur-leng collapse in uncontrollable laughter!

Other fools evidently pushed it too far, risking lifeand limb for their antics. Charles Chester, fool toElizabeth I, irked Sir Walter Raleigh and othernoblemen until they bricked him up to his neck in acorner and he shrieked repeatedly for mercy. Someof the natural fools had trainers or prompters andreached remarkable levels of inspired madness.Around the turn of the fifteenth century, one HaincelinCoq wore out an inordinate quantity of shoes and onone occasion tore his clothes into shreds while wildlyleaping and dancing before Charles VI. More

poignantly, an order form written up for the seat ofthe Duke of Burgundy in 1494 requested a fool’sdress patterned with the arms of the city of Lille for alad described as “mad and out of his senses”. It isdoubtful that such fools were wise, but they weresometimes visited with the remarkable insights andeven prophetic visions associated with the fey or theinsane. Fools less natural and more shrewd wereoften capable of a good deal of wisdom in handlingawkward situations. Some of these were actuallyentrusted with the business of arbitration, as in thecase of a quarrel that broke out between a streetporter and the keeper of a cook-shop in Paris. Theporter had sat down near the shop door in order thathis fare of plain bread might be made more savouryby the smell of roasted meat. The avariciousshopkeeper wished to charge him for this privilegeand a fight between the two ensued. Seigni Johan(court fool to King John), who was called in toconciliate the brawlers, effortlessly pronounced thatthe porter should pay for the smell of the roast withthe sound of his money. Such cleverness wouldhave, no doubt, been beyond the dancing fool toCharles VI, but in many other cases it was notalways so easy to discriminate between the wisefool and the cunning fool, let alone the mad, themystical or the merely malapert.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knowshimself to be a fool.

William Shakespeare

The fool’s relationship to the philosopher seems tohave been closer than to the priest, with a good dealof overlap on both sides. Xenophon described howthe fool Philip presented himself uninvited at thefamous supper party of Callias, where he providedwelcome diversion from the serious moraldiscussions led by Socrates. He parodied andbadinaged, indulging in impertinent comparisonsand personal remarks directed at the guests.Socrates rebuked him for his impudence but wasunable to subdue the fool’s self-satisfaction. This ison its own somewhat misleading, as Socrateshimself was given to childish play and extravagantdancing when the mood seized him. Indeed, Zenocalled him the “Athenian buffoon” and Alcibiadesclaimed that he resembled the image of Silenus,chief of the satyrs, who rides as a fat, drunken manupon the back of an ass. Doubtless there were timeswhen such a superior mind, flooded with theunworldly elation of noetic perception, would breakthe bounds of its earthly vessel and release thenymph, the Puck and the inspired fool in the body ofa very plain, ageing man. How wonderful to imagine,for surely only a natural fool or a truly wise man couldgive himself so effortlessly to an unself-consciousdivine madness. But while a philosopher may act thefool, are fools potential philosophers? Does their“gyring” and “gimbling” disguise a sort of specialaccess to disinterested truth? Certainly, many a dim-witted fool would seem to be further from this thaneven a puffed-up doctrinaire. But history has shown

a peculiar propensity to confuse the two and arecurrent tendency to bring them together. It pleasedpatrons in Germany to watch professors from theuniversities augmenting their incomes by playing thefool at court in the eighteenth century, and muchearlier a favourite sport at Roman banquets was topitch rival philosophers against one another, eggedon by a fool. No doubt some found it gratifying totheir own feeble intellects to witness learned menbeing made fools of by a fool or making fools out ofthemselves. But one suspects, at least in the formercases, that the learned men needed little assistance.Their egos did the job for them nicely, proving onceagain how hypocrisy and pedantry could bepunctured by that prime dissolver of formalization,foolishness.

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.

Publilius Syrus

Acting as an aggressive agent of dissolution, thefool breaks down the distinctions between folly andwisdom, life and art. When he is really successful, hebreaks this barrier for us, his observers, as well, sothat we too can inhabit for a moment a no man’s landbetween the worlds of what is and what might be. Hedraws out our latent folly and, by our recognition of it,we are freed to follow the fool into a chaos ofpossible new beginnings. The genius of the fool, hisability to make us believe that he can divert the evileye, draw us away from pain and outwit theintolerable tyranny of worldly circumstances is

contingent upon his continual tendency to invert,dissolve and ever play the wild card. Like the finalenigma of the tarot, he plays the part of the zero thatcan become any number at all. He is unnumberedand unplaced, his many-coloured costumesymbolizing the multiple and incoherent influences towhich he is subject. But he walks in the mountainousheights where one may not know what is going on inthe world below yet receive glimpses of visionsglittering beyond ordinary men’s dreams.

The fool as a prophet or seer is a soothsayerwithout a temple, a lunatic or, perhaps, an oracle. Inthe ancient Semitic and Celtic traditions they wereoften considered possessed men who used verbalarrows to do war against established andcomplacent forms. The Shā ‘ir of Islam, the kāhin ‘ararrāf, all were believed inspired by jinns in wayssimilar to the Irish fill or the Teutonic thul. They werefauns who spoke as mouthpieces of the spirits andoften appeared bumbling in their varying conditions,as did Parsifal, who was called the Pure Fool.During the Christian era mystics continued to speakand behave in ways often outside the understandingof society. As “fools of god” they pursued their ownpeculiar path after the fashion of St. Paul beforethem. Inspired by the intense abandonment ofworldly reason demonstrated by Francis of Assisi,Franciscans liked to call themselves Fools of theWorld (Mundi Moriones) and deliberately wore thepointed cap of the fool. Russian holy fools walked

with heavy chains about their naked bodies fromvillage to village, railing against every injustice. Theysometimes froze and starved and often ridiculed thechurch but no one doubted that they were on fire witha love of God. In fact, the God-intoxicated individualhas often been thought a fool by ordinary peoplebecause he does nothing to protect himself or furtherhis own interests. Thus Prince Myshkin,Dostoievski’s Idiot, was taken to be a fool by thosearound him simply because he was incapable ofunderstanding their mixed motives. With the mysticfool, the higher mind can take possession preciselybecause the lower mind is inactive. With the psychicfool, glimpses of truth may often be revealed as hereacts to the changing forces whirling around him.But he is an erratic seer, a pawn capable of beingpossessed by any sort of entity as he revolves in hisdesperately madcap dance through life.

The aura of mysticism adhered to even the psychicfool, however, and it is significant that only whenbelief in the divinity associated with kings began tobreak down did the fool cease to have a deeperraison d’être in society. As men increasingly soughtdignity and respectability in worldly contexts insteadof a place in cosmic law, the fool became lost in thecomedian, the harlequin of the stage and the clownof folk fairs and circuses. This was a great loss tothe world, for together the king and the fool hadrepresented solar and lunar dynasties or racesamong men. However imperfectly, the king had ruled

as the sun rules the solar system and the fool hadacted as his fluctuating check against over-concretization. Like the tarot Fool whose tunic bearsthe crescent moon, the king’s idiot ever movedtowards the edge of chaos, dragging with him acourt otherwise too complacent, too prone to blindand self-serving rationalizations. The solar kingsymbolizing Manas in the world had, from the time ofRama, fallen from the heights of manasicrighteousness into increasingly lower manasicblindness, but the true and natural fool neverpossessed such worldly reason. Informed either bymystical visions, madness or possessing spirits, helooked on the machinations of the lower mind asthough through a window from the outside. Heleavened the lump of man-made order, which alwaysthreatened to get too hard, and acted as a living linkbetween men and gods.

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the fool’s role seemsto exist to emphasize one strange and tragicinstance where the positions of the fool and the kingare reversed. The king, in his foolishness, acts todissolve the order of things by turning over hiskingdom to his daughters and placing himself in theposition of their childlike dependant. This act of follyunleashes powerful forces of good and evil whichpour forth in exaggerated form through the importantcharacters in the play. Lear’s fool, being a mandevoid of worldly wisdom, has the wisdom to seehow the worldly are fools. In response to his master’s

ill-conceived action, he jokes and sings his sillysongs and tries, in his grief, to expose the nature ofthe folly. The great evil expressed through two of theking’s daughters results from the inversion wherebythey both embrace the adage “Evil be thou myGood.” Embracing this, reason cannot reach them. Itcannot prove them wrong in itself. This perverseassertion that love and fellow feeling are foolish canonly be reinverted by the fool, who says, “Folly (love)be thou my wisdom.” The breaking of blood ties andthe denial of love are so abnormal as to suggest agreat convulsion of the natural order of things, andwhen Lear finally becomes aware of theinhumanness of Goneril’s heart, his wits begin tolose their bearings. As his madness sets in, hissympathy and vision expand, inspiring his fool tocomment, “Thou woulds’t make a good fool.” And,indeed, having hit the bottom, having lost his place insociety as well as everything else, he has becomethe fool. He comes to see clearly that “When we areborn, we cry that we are come to this great stage offools.”

The fool is the unbinder of man’s slavery to thelower mind and the creator of freedom, but it isunwise to try prematurely to play his part. Learseems to have indulged a whimsical but alsoegotistical fancy in thinking that he understood theconsequences he was about to reap from hisgrandiose gesture. Far from understanding the truecharacter of those around him, he had equally little

understanding of himself or his responsibility in theworld. By playing the fool, he was catapulted intomadness rather than into a state of visionarywisdom. In dissolving his kingship, he cut away theraft of manasic control which could have seen himsafely to the other side of chaos and onto the shoreof true spiritual perception. He had plunged himselfinto the state of the most pathetic and witlesslydependent of fools. In a similar manner, the disciplewho struggles along the path towards spiritualenlightenment encounters the same dangerouspossible miscalculation. Though in essence a kingpossessing the germ of divinely endowedintelligence, such a seeker may fail to realize theimportance of engendering within himself the rule ofthe true philosopher. He may free himself from thelimitations of worldly identity and position only to casthimself into a turbulent psychic sea. The old myth ofZeus and the philosopher can, if properly interpreted,assist an aspirant to avoid such a pitfall. For thephilosopher who had wished to be made a foolamong fools was a truly wise man and had the witsto realize that he could shed his wisdom upon hisfellow mortals best disguised as a fool.

Who knows how many wise men there areamongst us who pass thus disguised! How manysouls have chosen in this or in past lives to forfeitrespectability and position in order to work out someline of deeper truth while appearing the simpleton toothers? Can we distinguish them from the witless

fools whose appearance they share? Along thesidewalks and country lanes of the world walklegions of fools lacking in divine madness. Dull, withconfusion swamping their minds, they are prey tocunning spirits or the grief of uncomprehended loss.Perhaps lives ago, perhaps even more recently, theyabdicated their crown of manasic responsibility andtried to play the child, the freebooter, the unwise fool.These are not the truth tellers nor do they have theability to deflect or neutralize the evil eye. The onlydissolution they accomplish is wreaked upon thefeeble order of their own minds, which skitter andthreaten to break away entirely from their souls. Themystic Fool of God sees them upon the stage of lifeand knows them for what they are. He sees too theother fools, the buffoon playing at playing the fool, thepriest playing at truth, the king playing at God. Hesees, and yet he too is a fool, self-chosen in somelife. For he knows his foolishness and is willing toabandon all concern for the opinions of men in orderto become a better vehicle of his higher vision, hisdivine madness. He is a fool but also a philosopher-king. He is in control and yet pierces and dissolvesthe facades of control imprisoning the lower mind.He is chaos threatening the lower orders andsweeping like a peal of compassionate laughterthrough the hearts of weary humanity. Oh welcomehim, the seer, the unexpected visionary with mattedlocks or fool’s cap! Welcome him when he comes!

The dullness of the sunIs eclipsed by the moon on a foggy day.But the moon truly shinesOnly by the blessings of the sun.Therefore, wed thou the moonTo the solar orb;And let them in tandem rule the way.

Hermes, April 1986

THE DWARF

Oh Son of Virochana! This dwarf is no other than theeternal divine Lord Vishnu, who is born of Kashyapa andAditi, with the object of accomplishing the will of the gods.

Bhagavata Purana

Weaving richly embellished tales into a tapestryabounding with gods, giants, heroes and dwarfs, theold Norse Eddas trace back to events occurringbefore the creation of the cosmos. In theboundlessness of space they describe how, onopposite sides, there arose fire and ice. Betweenthem was a great emptiness, a void in which hugeclouds of vapour billowed out from the ice, calledforth by the warming flickering of the fiery realm. Theclouds churned and thickened as flame and icemerged more closely, producing heavy droplets thatreflected light around them. Swelling in response toa growing heat of life within, the crystalline drops ofmelting ice joined together to form a rudimentaryshape of gigantic proportions whom the ancientsidentified as Ymir. Exhausted by his titanic struggleinto manifestation, Ymir slept. From the sweat thatgathered in the hollows of his colossal armpits, agiant man and woman were formed who quicklyspawned a race of their kind. These were the frostgiants of chaos, who ruled the void before the worldwas ordered.

While they multiplied, an enormous cow took shapeout of the melt-water of the ice. From her udderflowed their nourishment, while she took sustenancefrom the ice itself. As she steadily licked its frozensurface with her tongue, she uncovered thebeauteous figure of an entombed god who sprang tolife with his first breath of the warm air. From hissingle being he bore a race of gods who grew invitality and power and came to feel themselves therightful masters of the anticipating world aroundthem. En masse they fell upon Ymir’s vastness, bitinto his flesh and tore away his arteries, releasing agushing tide of blood which drowned almost all hiskind even as he himself died. Thus, the old Norsesaid, from the parts of Ymir’s body was fashionedthe world over which the gods would reign. Within itssoil, life began to quicken; squirming movement likethat of earthworms working through rich loam beganto show itself. It bubbled and seethed across thefallen carcass of the future world, until it erupted in avast army of dwarfs, children of the earth, who wouldbe endowed by the gods with wit and speech and aphysical form that was a squat parody of their own.Four of these the gods set at the corners of the worldthat they might support the sky for as long ascreation endured. The rest they left to the clefts andgrottoes of the earth.

Those who remained in the hidden places of theworld were earth-coloured and shunned the daylight,which could turn them to stone. They moved through

underground passes with as much ease as a fishmoves through water or a bird flies through the air.The earth was their element and they understoodintimately its structure and possible transformations.Like their four brethren who upheld the sky, they tooin their fashion were agents and upholders of order.Being first in the world, their appearance ushered inits manifest possibility and they closely associatedthemselves with the material out of which it wouldtake its shape. Thus, many races of dwarfs wereknown for their marvellous powers of metallurgy.They could fashion the sharpest, most exquisite,most magically potent tools and weapons for whichlater human mortals would pay dearly. One writer,comparing the dwarf and the giant, aligned theformer with the arts and quoted Jonathan Swift, whonoted that “they [the Lilliputians] see with exactnessbut not at a great distance”. This is interesting whenviewed in the light of Carl Jung’s assertion thatdwarfs stand as guardians of the thresholdseparating the unconscious realm (chaotic void ofYmir) from the conscious. In their artistic powers theyact as agents of a vast and powerful order cominginto being.

But they are not consciously aware of exactly whatits source is, nor do they seem to be able to sustaincontrol over its manifestations.

Possessing wit and speech and magical skills, thedwarf yet remains just outside or at the doorway ofconsciousness. Symbolized by his hidden life within

the earth and his shunning of daylight, the dwarfsexistence embodies mischievous, childlike andamoral forces which become tempered andsometimes exaggerated in his dealings withhumans. But he is a guardian and a protector aswell. In the archetypally meaningful story of SnowWhite, the Seven Dwarfs immediately took it uponthemselves to guard their lovely house-guest nightand day when she fell into the swoon induced by thewicked queen. Even so, to most mortals, dwarfs area race apart, a “second” race now seldom seen. Inearlier times they had mingled with heroic mortals asequals, and earlier still, before the coming ofhumans, they had known unequalled power andglory. Slowly they became a race in decline. Old asthe rocks, they still possessed the mundaneknowledge and power of the earth’s mysteries, butbefore mankind’s heavy-footed march they began aretreat.

A retreat, yes, but they did not remain entirelyunseen, at least if one is to give due recognition tothe stories about dwarfs passed down for millenniaamong almost every group of people that has livedon this globe. From The Secret Doctrine one canlearn that the old Turanian races were typified bydwarfs and that there were Atlantean dwarfs as well.The ancients of the Mediterranean world identified

(pygmies) as descended fromPygmaeus, a son of Dorus who founded a racebelieved to live in India where, it was thought, they

lived under the earth on the east bank of the Ganges.Others wrote of the Pechinians of Ethiopia whosustained an annual attack by Scythian cranes whoeventually exterminated the tiny militia. The word“pygmy” describes a fist and was recognized by theancients as an increment of measure (from fist toelbow). The term “dwarf” comes from the Old Norsedvergr, whereas Viruli, Virunculi, and Montani findtheir etymological roots in Eastern Europe. TheGermans passed down tales about Erdleute andStillevolk, the Britons of goblins, knockers andleprechauns, and the Scandinavians added to theirfamily of dwarfs, trolls, bergfolk and huldrefolk.Russians, Africans and Asians all have names intheir folklore for dwarfs who, not content withpopulating every continent, followed the Polynesiansout onto the many islands they made home andbecame known as Menehune, Patupaiarehe,Chokalai, Malavui, Luveniwai and Ponape, to namea few.

High in the midst the chieftain-dwarf was seen,Of giant stature and imperial mien;Full twenty inches tall, he strode along.

James Beattie

It is interesting to wonder if such beliefs couldpersist for the great length of time that they havewithout evidence of the actual presence of dwarfs inthe world. Are they twenty inches tall? Are the tinydwarfs of myth and lore being confused with dwarfedraces of human beings? Can the dwarfs of the

Eddas and other traditions be seen by the physicaleye of man? It is said that humans have come uponthe telltale signs of their industry: tiny forges in rockfalls and caves, the sweepings of minute smithies.Some have believed that certain hollow trees in theforest have lodged them, noting the remains of smallfires. Children often quite naturally assign them suchdomiciles, having reverentially identified the homesof the Seven Dwarfs in many far-flung places,including the redwood trees along the wild and rockycoast of Big Sur. A description of an actualencounter passed down among Nordic folk living onthe Faeroe Islands is revealing. The tale refers tolong ago when a peat gatherer, inching his wayalong a mountainous cliff overlooking the sea,stumbled upon a cave containing activity which soastonished him that he dropped his peat knife downon the rocks below. Upon the noise, the dwarfedoccupants of the cave froze and the fire they tendedat their forge died down. Straining their eyes,unaccustomed to daylight, towards the mouth of thecave, the tiny smithies waited. Their dumbfoundedobserver moved not a muscle and watched withbreath held as one of the dwarfs bent over a pile ofcompleted tools and selected a knife as long as amortal man’s forearm. The observer drew back infear until he noticed that the dwarf held the knife byits blade as he, “bandy-legged and hunch backed …scuttled quick as a spider across the rubbled cavernfloor. With a glance that mingled shyness and a hintof warning, he thrust the knife into the man’s grasp.”

The observer marvelled at the fineness of the bladeand the beauty of the workmanship, but when helooked up to thank the tiny workers, his eyes weremet with naught but a yawning stone wall. The dwarfswere closed in the living rock once more.

The dwarfs magical power over lifeless-seemingmetal is evidence of their effortless acquaintancewith the subtle structures composing the substancesof the earth. They work easily with fire because it isthe earthly manifestation of light which in its otherexpressions they shun. They understand perfectlyhow things grow and change and can be altered onthe subtle plane of material becoming. Thus theyprovided the gods, who functioned to effect things inthe manifesting world, with wondrous weaponswhose fame was so great that heroes amongemerging mortals eagerly sought out the littlecraftsmen for their counterparts. Even the gods whoacted as celestial smiths were sometimes depictedin dwarf form. The Egyptian Ptah and the GreekHephaestos are two such examples believed tohave given structure and shape to the elementalforces of creation while hunched in diminutive statureover their forges. Mortal heroes found it easier tostrike bargains with earthly dwarfs than with suchlofty craftsmen and sometimes took great risks toacquire riches or magical weapons from them. Forhis assistance to the Nibelungs, the hero Siegfriedwas awarded the fabled sword Balmung, which hethen was forced to use against its givers who

subsequently attacked him. Though he had aided thedwarfs in settling a quarrel amongst themselves, theycould not contain their avarice and perfidy andtreacherously turned against Siegfried, causing himto vanquish them and take away the cloak ofinvisibility and their treasure.

Though many stories tell of the generous and oftenunsought assistance the dwarfish races have offeredto man, a frequent theme in other tales points to thefact that dwarfs tend to be prey to lust and pride andresort to cunning when things do not go their way.This may be traced to the fact that their links with theearth necessarily involve a close involvement withthe death and decay inherent in Ymir’s corpse.Avarice, lust and pride are all qualities sprung fromblind identification with material forms, and it is notsurprising, perhaps, that dwarfs should beuncontrollably seized by these forces from time totime, especially in their relations with men who bringto the contest an extra focus of conscious vice orvirtue. The strange theme of dwarfs lusting aftermortal women or vice versa, which can be foundeven in some of the characters of the Arthurianlegends, suggests a confusion of longing born out ofa sense of inferiority and of atavistic perversion. Inthe story of Snow White the dwarfs do not participatein such futile and envious longings. They simply loveher purity and beauty of soul and wish to protect it.They are tiny and deformed and cannot play the roleof the prince who will awaken her, but it never occurs

to them to lament this fact. No more does SnowWhite see in the dwarfs anything other thanguardians who flourish under her grateful and wisecare. Her love for them is born of gratitude but shedoes not intrude herself backward into their place inevolution. Instead, an interaction delicately basedupon respect and open-hearted wonder is preservedbetween them.

Dwarfish smallness is often interpreted by man asdeformity, abnormality or inferiority. After all, thedwarf under Shiva Nataraj’s foot is unhesitatinglyidentified as symbolic of the blindness of life and theignorance of man. Perhaps it is something about thisblindness that explains why human physical dwarfshave so fascinated people in the past. This is not tosay that even the more perverse of these mistook ahuman dwarfs size as an indication of lack ofintelligence, but that the size of such an individualconveyed a childlike and unthreatening quality. Toindividuals whose lives embodied some degree ofthe wilful pursuance of atavistic decadence, small,ungrown people offered a pleasantly gratifyingdiversion away from the difficult business of manasicdevelopment and responsibility. It is significant thatrulers like the emperor Augustus of Rome, whoadored tiny, well formed dwarfs, had them sent tohim from all over the world so that he could immersehimself with them in play and childish prattle andforget, for a time, the cares of the world. In thisindulgence the emperor joined the ranks of many

wealthy and aristocratic persons of full stature whohave taken enjoyment in surrounding themselveswith dwarfs who marched conspicuously in theirretinues, sat for portraiture with their families andoften wore extravagantly tailored clothes designed todraw attention to their diminutive physiques. Suchowners were often fixated upon the size andpossible deformity of their hapless chattle to theextent that they placed them, consciously orunconsciously, in the position of legendary dwarfs.Thus, an appreciation for their talents andintelligence was frequently obscured by childish orcrudely insensitive interaction, treatment bearing theimprint of attitudes reserved for an inferior, less thanhuman, race apart. It is a telling fact that the longestcareer enjoyed by the dwarf in human art forms isthat of the small, deformed hunchback rendered inplaster or stone for the garden. He is a perfectcaricature of certain chondrosystrophic dwarfswhose antics delighted the jaded eye of courts fromtime immemorial.

The human physical dwarf is most commonly theresult of a genetic mutation. In the seventeenthcentury one of their patrons, the Empress of Austria,caused all known dwarfs and giants of the land to beassembled in Vienna for study. Amusingly, sheplaced guards to protect the dwarfs from the giants,only to find that the latter were mercilessly preyedupon by the former, who teased and insulted androbbed them repeatedly. The guards’ instructions

were altered but the incident gave credence to theold folk saying, “Long and lazy, little and loud.” Afterattempting it, Isabella d’Este conceded that “youcannot raise a race of dwarfs”. What she and othersgradually came to realize was that most of the oneout of ten thousand births producing a dwarf involvenormally sized parents. In the case of a dwarf like thegifted painter to King Charles I who married anotherdwarf and fathered nine children, the survivingoffspring were all normal size. Other dwarfgenealogies more recently traced show that dwarfscan indeed produce dwarfs but that the majority ofoffspring will revert back to normal size. This isparticularly interesting, as the factor favouringdwarfism involves a dominant gene with complete orhigh penetrance. A Danish study of one hundred andeight dwarfed individuals revealed that out of twenty-seven offspring, ten were chondrodystrophic dwarfs,the type of dwarfism where the extremities aredisproportionately short relative to the trunk of thebody. This condition as well as that ofdyschondroplasia (disturbance of skeletal growth)are both due to genetic mutation affecting theendocrine or pituitary glands (also thought to lie atthe root of racial dwarfism such as that exemplifiedby the pygmy people of Africa, India and Oceania).Metabolic disturbances caused by disease andcertain environmental forces are far less typicalcauses. The discovery that fathers of mutant dwarfsare often disproportionately older than mothersreveals that older sperms have a greater chance of

containing mutant alleles and suggests thatspontaneous mutation of this kind is due to errors ingenetic replication.

The smallest human physical dwarfs are thosepossessing normal proportions. Of these, some areprimordial dwarfs from birth, others undergoretardation in growth after their first couple of years.Such dwarfs (or midgets) remain sexually immatureand are sometimes quite attractive, as in the case ofCharles S. Stratton, known to the world as GeneralTom Thumb. Born in Connecticut to normal parentsin 1832, he grew to a height of little more than twofeet, his head barely reaching above the knees of anormal individual. With the famous P. T. Barnum, hetravelled to England and began a series of tours thatmade him the toast of the crowned heads and hoipolloi of Europe. In England “this little, great smallman” had an elegant carriage made and furnished inthe richest style. Its body was twenty inches high andit was drawn by a fine pair of tiny Shetland ponies,with two small boys acting as footman andcoachman. Certainly, with all his triumphs andresultant wealth, the tiny General remainedunintimidated by the biblical warning (Leviticus21:20) which brands dwarfs as blighted and decreesthat their presence shall not be suffered at the altar.Nor was he embarrassed by the frank fascinationothers showed him. Unlike some dwarfs who havebeen forced to make a living from their deformity, hethoroughly enjoyed his fame and waxed proudly in its

glow. Others, like Jeffrey Hudson, who was knightedat Hampton Court in the early seventeenth century,so overwhelmingly waxed in their self-perceivedglory that they repeatedly had to be put in their place.The many recorded instances of this sort ofuncontrolled swaggering or lust after something orother tend to strengthen the comparison betweenmortal dwarfs and their less admirable counterpartsin myth. The fact that they arrived at their conditionthrough a genetic mutation instead of through anatural and necessary step in cosmic evolutionstands in contradistinction to such similarities, and itis probable that human expectations eliciting thissort of behaviour are at least partially responsible.

What vast perfection cannot Nature crowdInto a puny point.

Attributed to Sisyphus, two-foot-highdwarf of Marcus Antonius

In the great and richly symbolic Hindu tradition themost famous and illustrious dwarf is Vamana, thefifth avataric incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The storygoes that in the Second Age, called Treta Yuga, theDaitya king Mahabali performed such sacrifices andausterities that the gods were rendered helpless todeal with his growing control over the world. Theyfeared he might gain ascendancy even over theheavens through his powers, and so they imploredVishnu as the embodiment of the perception ofcosmic law pervading the three worlds to put thingsaright. In the form of a dwarfed Brahmin (whosename, Vamana, etymologically suggests that which

tends to the left, is perverse or turns things around),Vishnu appeared before the king. Thoughexceedingly small, he was comely to look upon and,as a Brahmin, he was treated with great respect andcourtesy by the ethically minded ruler who requestedhim to ask for a gift. Modestly, the tiny guest askedonly for as much ground as he could step over inthree strides, and the king, smiling to himself, readilygranted that he should have it. Of course, as soon asthis had been granted, Vishnu grew into giganticproportions and took three mighty strides across theuniverse. He took as his own the earth and theheaven of the gods, leaving to the generous king therealm of Patala.

That dwarf form of that infinite Hari, comprised as it is ofthree gunas, miraculously expanded to such an extent as toinclude that earth, the heaven, the cardinal points, the spacebetween the heaven and the earth, cavities and hells,oceans, the subhuman beings, human beings, gods andsages and everything else.

Bhagavata Purana

King Mahabali was the grandson of Prahlad, thatarchetypal devotee of Lord Vishnu who had livedduring the time of the latter’s Narasinhavatara.Being a Daitya, he was the Hindu equivalent of aTitan or a giant who ruled before the gods whosubsequently presided over the orderlymanifestation of the worlds. Here there is a strikingparallel with the Eddaic Ymir and the frost giants, forthe Daityas and Titans were similarly defeated andput in their place, their substance (chaos) becoming

the stuff marshalled by the gods in accordance withtheir materializing design. While the dwarfs in theEddaic myth emerged from the matter of the fallenYmir as earthly ushers of anticipating order, thedwarf Vamana acted as the vehicle of theestablishment of that same law, Vishnu deliberatelyassuming that form to wrest command of theenergies and powers of creation from the Daityarace. Another parallel lies in the identification of LordVishnu as an Aditya, one of the children of Aditi, theInfinite Light, the pure consciousness of infiniteexistence, one and self-luminous. As daughter ofDaksha (one of her offspring) Aditi becomes thethought of this divine consciousness in the symbolicguise of a cow whose udder feeds all the worlds andwho, like the cow in the Eddaic myth, gives rise tothe gods. “Aditi is the infinite consciousness in thecosmos espoused and held by the lower creativepower which works through the limited mind andbody, but [which is] delivered from this subjection bythe force of the divine or illumined Mind born of her inthe mentality of man.” Thus, she is the source of allcosmic forms of consciousness from the physicalupwards, including that which enables man to realizehis true divine nature.

It is said of the Adityas that they have a twofoldbirth: one, above in Divine Truth as creators of theworlds and guardians of Divine Law and, two, herein this world and in man as cosmic and humanpowers of the Divine. In the visible world they are

male and female powers associated with theelements just as the dwarf is associated with theearth. In his three steps Lord Vishnu moved like theLight of the highest Sun of Truth, on earth expressedas fire, in space expressed as lightning and inheaven expressed as spiritual, omnipresent sunlight.Reversing this, Lord Vishnu, heeding the entreatiesof the gods, strode down from his heavenly state likelightning flashing through the sky and presentedhimself on earth in the guise of a fiery dwarf, whoproceeded to act as the agent extending the gods’rule and banishing (for the manvantara) to the lowerregions the kings of chaos and untimely dissolution.

Vamana is identified with Brihaspati or the planetJupiter. Called in the Rig Veda Brahmanaspati, “thedeity in whom the action of the worshipped upon thegods is personified”, Brihaspati represents thematerialization of divine grace through means ofritual worship. In the occult hierarchy of themanifested cosmos, the Cosmocratores whofashioned our solar system are said to be prior tothe gods and the spirits of the earth. As each of theseven great races of this globe evolves, it receivesits light and life from one of the seven planetaryDhyanis who radiate (in conjunction with a planetarybody) the pure spiritual rays of the Invisible Sun. Thefirst race received such through the sun, the secondthrough Jupiter, the third through Venus, the fourththrough the moon and earth, the fifth throughMercury. Thus, the Second Age or Treta Yuga is

linked up with the Second Race which, in thescheme of manifesting forms, possessed relativelyunformed ethereal bodies, forerunners of theconscious human entities that would emerge in theThird Race. The dwarf is then an agent of theSecond Age, a partially conscious usher functioningto prepare the soil for a fully blooming self-consciousness to follow.

When the tiny dwarf smithy gave the peat-gatherera wondrous knife, he also gave him a shy butwarning glance. His glance held a world of meaning,for he must have known that it was dangerous for themortal standing at the entrance to his cave to evencontemplate following him back into his world. With adelicate observance of unspoken law, heacknowledged the superior potential of the humanbeing by presenting him with a gift while clearlydiscouraging any further exchange. He did not wishthe mortal intruder to look back on him and his kind,seeming to know that this was unwise for allconcerned. It is interesting that the human in the storywas unaware of this etiquette and quite consumedwith his own curiosity. But whereas the dwarf canknow what the proper order is and how to work withits elements as they present themselves to him, aman (albeit ignorant of many things) has the potentialability to consciously grasp the meaning of this orderand join the smithy’s fire to the spiritual light ofunderstanding by the lightning of intuitive thought.Whether of dwarfed or normal stature, the human

being has passed the threshold guarded by thedwarf and must not look back or perversely interferein matters pertaining to a previous stage in evolution.

Thrice Vishnu paced and set his step uplifted out of theprimal dust; three steps he has paced, the Guardian, theInvincible, and from beyond he upholds their laws. Scan theworkings of Vishnu and see from whence he hasmanifested their laws. That is his highest pace which isseen ever by the seer like an eye extended in heaven, thatthe illumined, the awakened, kindle into a blaze, evenVishnu’s step supreme.

Rig Veda 1.22:17-21

No doubt the mutation responsible for physicaldwarfism has often been the karmic result of an egolooking backward in evolution, getting caught insome sort of atavistic fixation. But there have beenremarkable souls born in dwarfed bodies who seemto have lived out their lives as witnesses of a hiddentruth about evolution or even as guardians andreminders of the precious gift of self-consciousnesswhich man possesses yet so constantly squanders.One need only recall the sage-like dwarf in The Shipof Fools to realize the danger of attempting crudelyto understand the history of a human ego in terms ofexternals. The highest pace of Vishnu may be seenby a seer in a dwarfed form who, like Doc in theSnow White story, acts as a wise leader, marshallingthe Sleepy, Dopey, Sneezy and Grumpy forces of hisless evolved brethren.

In becoming a self-conscious child of Aditi, anindividual steps through space in such a way as to

marshal the dwarfs, sylphs, salamanders, undinesand all their powers within his or her own being. Thisis accomplished not by focussing upon these beingsor trying to bargain for their energies, but by raisingone’s inner sight to the source of power that liesbeyond them which they, themselves, in theirobedient natures serve. When man has purified thesoil of his lower nature and rendered its most rock-like and resistant parts into instruments of a trulyrefined nature, capable of responding to everydesire of the higher Divine Will, he will command adevoted army of dwarfs eager to assist him in everyway. But unless his spiritual nature rules, he wouldbe wise to leave them in the land of myth and legend,for, disturbed while yet undominated by Divine Will,dwarfs may easily fly out of control and repayignorant curiosity or desire for powers withtreachery. To the pure soul of Snow White the dwarfswere devoted friends, and blessed are they whowould seek to match this purity. Before their gaze thestony wall of the whole universe will open wide toreveal hidden treasures, powers and races unseen. Within the cavern of the mind,Inside the crevasse of the heart,A golden sword of Truth consignThe members of a race apart.

Hermes, June 1986

THE DESERT

A science that could comprehend and describe thephenomenon of deserts would possess the key to the pastand future of our planet.

Uwe George

Out in the Pinto Basin, far beyond the last trace ofCalifornia sprawl, an eroded washboard trackbumps along the alluvial skirts of a low desert range.Very little vegetation breaks the ochre stretch of thehills, leaving only the igneous outcrops and theoccasional arroyo to relieve the eye. Sounds travelfor miles there and, in spite of an engine grindingunder the floorboard, the creaking moan of loosetimbers from the deserted Virginia Dale Mine cancapture one’s attention long before its spindlyderrick reveals itself around a curve of the slope.There it stands, all worked out like other wrecks leftbehind: the desert’s claim to man’s squandereddreams. But over the range the road winds toanother vista where the hills curve down around thepebbled floor of what was once a vast inland sea.Circling around its edges, the Coxcomb and Eaglemountains offer jagged profiles to the relentless sunand collect long vertical shadows as the afternoonwears on. The eyes of few have watched this dramaday after lonely day, and since the Indians leftcenturies ago, only those of one old miner had learnt

it all by heart.He was an immigrant who, as a young man, had

somehow made his way across the world to end upmucking out in the hard-rock mining operations thathad survived the turn of the century in this area. Andwhen the companies folded and the prospectorsdrifted away, he stayed on to follow his own vein ofgold and life. He lived alone all those years andworked six shafts in as many days of the week. Thushe was able to grubstake himself and sit in theevenings watching the shadows curl up the arroyosin the basin and set off the flames lit by the dying sunon the hills. He was a man of contemplation. Whenhe looked at a person he seemed to be looking waybeyond them, and yet he knew exactly what was ontheir mind. Once a young greenhorn dropped by tovisit him and enthused about the great romance oflife alone in the desert and how he would like topursue its challenge. Old Carl gazed at him andthrough him with eyes that measured by theincrements of mountain ranges and advised him, inso many words, to put up or shut up. The desert hasthat effect upon people who are drawn to it and stayin it. It destroys the embroidery work of the mind andleaves behind only the glaring contours of truthperceived at a distance. There is no room for fuzzythinking in the desert. And the mysteries it reveals inthe evening stillness cannot be expressed by merewords.

If one tries it, one will find that the experience of

tramping through desert wastes, trusting only inone’s own abilities, has a way of throwing a personback upon who one really is. In a landscape whosevery starkness prompts the spirit to exult, one returnsto the most deeply buried dreams of childhood. AFrench Saharan explorer once said that the desertmight be the most intensely loved environment onearth. But it is also frightening in its boundlessnessand lack of obvious landmarks. In many languagesthe very word “desert” is used to mean the oppositeof shelter, safety, order or the familiar. It symbolizesinstead that which is empty, lost, without bearingsand yielding seemingly nothing. Within the greatSahara there are areas as flat as a table, stretchingwithout feature, to the equivalent in size of the stateof New York. Called “serir”, such places support onlythe life of micro-organisms, and a camp tent pitchedat random would be the only visible (if artificial)landmark. Leaving his small party in their tent onemorning, one geologist walked out upon the serirwith his eyes fastened on the “desert pavement”looking for tiny forms of life. So intent in his studywas he that he had covered some distance beforehe stopped to look around. To his horror he couldsee nothing. In all directions miles of flat, featurelessterrain stretched with no camp in sight. He hadwalked more than the five miles which, on the sea oron perfectly flat land, results in the disappearance ofsuch things as ships or tents due to the curvature ofthe earth. An indescribable sense of loneliness anddesolation clutched at his heart. He experienced a

loss of a sense of relationship to anything, ofmeasure, of time or place. There was no soundaside from the throbbing of his pulse, and his eyesfrantically sought out the faint outline of his ownfootprints leading back to camp. Though an olddesert-hand, having spent years of geologicalexploration in such places, he panicked and ranwildly along that track until he could see the tent overthe horizon, with the Land Rover parked nearby. Onewonders what he would have done in his fright ifthere had been no footprints at all. Standing there,as we say, in the middle of nowhere, he might aswell have dropped down out of the sky, possessingno beginning or relationship to things in this world.

As a symbol, the desert represents desolation,abandonment and contemplation of that which liesbeyond the familiar. It is the most propitious place fordivine revelation, being, in its starkness, the realm ofabstraction, where the non-essential is strippedaway. It is the domain of the sun, not in terms offertility on the physical plane (which involves water),but as pure celestial radiance, blinding in itsmanifestation and capable of consuming the bodyfor the salvation of the soul. The vegetation, theoverwhelming variety of life forms thriving cheek byjowl in other types of environments, endlessly divertthe senses and create a structure of compellingreality which directs and moulds the desires andefforts of men. The desert is bereft of such props. Inthe words of the fabled poet of the desert:

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts uponTurns Ashes - or it prospers; and anon,Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,Lighting a little hour or two - is gone.

Omar Khayyam

It was in the desert of Sinai that Moses saw God,who, manifesting on the Mount there, gave to him theCommandments by which his people should live. Itwas also in the desert that the ancestors of Christ’sdisciples received manna from heaven and Jesushimself advised them to “come ye yourselves apart,into a desert place”. The desert was regarded as aplace of abstraction, revelation and sacrifice by thetribes of the ancient Middle East, but it was filled withmystery and danger as well. In its desolate placesthe Jews forgot the teachings of Moses and“tempted God”, and Jesus underwent severe trials oftemptation. A tricky place where one can lose one’sway and forget, the desert is believed by many to behaunted by djinns and evil spirits of various kinds. Tothe Egyptians it was the region of the dead ruledover by Osiris, and people of Central Asia believedthat the tormented souls of unmarried or barrenwomen wandered there. Keeping company withspirits attracted to the earth, they became evil overtime and were much feared by the Yakuts, Buriatsand Altaic Tatars who believed they used thedeserts of Turan and Gobi as centres from which toset out on their destructive excursions. Awesomeand desolate, the spiritual rejuvenation offered by thedesert could be matched by unexpected forces of

trickery and death.But a desert stretched and stricken left and right, left and

right,Where the piled mirages thicken under white, hot light;A skull beneath a sandhill and a viper coiled inside –And a red wind out of Libya roaring “Run and hide.”

Byron Khun de Prorok

On the edge of the Gobi, the remains of giganticstatues lie partially buried in the wind-driven sand.They are said to have been shaped by theLemurians long before the cycle of floods which leftthe Central Asian plateau high and dry. Transformedinto a sea twelve thousand years ago, at its centrethere remained an island of great beauty inhabitedby the last remnants of this Third Race. The Chineserecords also mention these “immortal men” whofound refuge in the Gobi Desert, where “they stillreside invisible to all, and defended from approachby hosts of Spirits”. Their dwelling place isShamballa, which has fascinated so many and luredthem into the wilderness in vain. Covered now by thesands of an enormous wasteland, there is little hint ofwhat lies hidden. Nor do we know much about thetraces of past greatness concealed in other deserts.Occultism, however, teaches man to be patient andcontemplate the nature of the spiritual impulseswhich utilize matter in ever-shifting cycles. Of theseven continents and races of this manvantara,Sakka and Pushkara will be the last into which willenter portions of desert lands now existing inAmerica, Africa and Central Asia. Thus, drawing

upon concealed resources whose effects in theworld at present are difficult to trace, the stage forfurther human evolution will be set. If one considershow the knowledge of the phenomenon of desertscould provide the key to the past and future of ourplanet in this light, one adds a greater breadth anddepth to Uwe George’s proposition.

The distribution of deserts on our globe is alsolinked with its spherical shape, the inclination of itsaxis and the rate of its spin at the equator. Mostdeserts of the world lie within the horse latitudes, orthe belts known as the Tropics of Cancer andCapricorn. In the Northern hemisphere this isexpressed in the Sahara, Arabian, Iranian orMexican deserts, while in the Southern lie theKalahari, Patagonian and Great Victoria. Thereason for this is largely due to the angle at which theearth spins around the sun, exposing these areas toits rays, each for half of the year. It is the angle of thesun’s rays that determines the temperature, whichacts as the most powerful agent of desert formation.In addition to this, the turning of the equatorial belt atone thousand miles per hour heats up air masseswhich rise, causing low atmospheric pressure andrain. The dry air descends on either side of this,creating high pressure areas where the warm airabsorbs the moisture of the lower atmosphere,leaving the land dry. Other deserts are encouragedby cold ocean currents moving from the polestowards the equator along the western sides of

continents, whilst relief deserts like the Gobi liebeyond high mountain ranges that stop the rain.

The lack of rain and high temperatures are closelyconnected. In such an area clouds form rarely andthe moisture content in the air is very low (two to fivepercent), so that the sun’s rays strike the groundalmost unhindered. In a temperate climate clouds,plants, rivers, lakes and general humidity absorbaround forty percent of the sun’s rays. In sometropical rain forests as little as one percent of its lightreaches the actual floor, while the desert can easilyreceive as much as ninety-five percent. In the Saharathe exposed igneous rock areas reach atemperature of 185 degrees Fahrenheit, with rapidcooling at night to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, resultingfrom the same lack of atmospheric obstruction. Suchdramatic temperature changes boldly express theunembellished starkness of the desert as it liesexposed and unprotected beneath the celestialforces acting upon it. Over some areas of the vastfour million and more square miles of desert inAfrica there may fall as little as two inches of rain in ayear. During some years there is no rain at all andthen a whole year’s rain falls at once, creating flashfloods, carving out wadis and arroyos like scarsacross the baked land. The water races over thedesert pavement, soaks the dunes and, in a fewhours, disappears without a trace. It is a dramaticaction, fast and seemingly unprepared for, like thefloods of a revelatory vision - flashing through the

mind, filling the cavity of the heart and thenevaporating.

Aided and shaped by the wind, deserts can growand spread. If a small clearing is created in a forest,the trees there are less resistant to Aeolian forcesthan on its fringes and so others will be toppled. Leftunreplanted, the clearing will spread, animals willfeed upon the grasses which take the place of trees,and overgrazing can lead to erosion and theincrease of windblown dust and sand. Man hascome to play an increasingly powerful role in thisprocess over the last few thousand years. With hisshift away from the hunting and gathering of wildanimals and plants, he began to exert a radicalinfluence upon the globe’s fragile ecosystems,joining his impact with the fundamental forces oftemperature, rainfall and geological upheaval thatcause the formation of deserts. This complicates thepicture considerably, especially from a symbolicpoint of view, for man-made deserts are the result ofignorant mismanagement of resources sustainedlargely through lack of humility and increasinglymaterialized motives and goals. It is one thing forhuman beings to go into a desert seeking that whichis capable of being revealed. It is quite another forman to create deserts in which subsequentgenerations are forced to live. In the longer curve,however, the cause and effect relationship betweenman and the conditions of the earth is far moregeneralized; race and national karma operate in a

very broad sense where cycles exist within cyclesand one man’s desert revelation is another man’spoverty and despair.

The ‘orse ‘e knows above a bit, the bullock’s but a fool,The elephant’s a gentleman, the battery-mule’s a mule;But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said ‘an done,‘E’s a devil an’ a ostrich an’ a orphan-child in one.O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont!The lumpy-‘umpy ‘ummin-bird a-singin’ where ‘e lies,E’s blocked the whole division from the rear-guard to the

front,An’ when we get him up again - the beggar goes an’ dies!

Rudyard Kipling

To the Taureq, the Bedouin or the Berber, thequestion of whether anyone can love a camel isacademic. Without the wondrous beast, they surelywould never have been able to navigate theawesome sea of sand and rock that stretches fivethousand miles from Mauritania to Arabia. As withthe Gobi, there was a time when the Sahara was asea, then a fertile continent, only to become, aftertemporary resubmergence, a vast desert. In thecourse of this fluctuating history it had been part of avast land stretching from its present easternboundary across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. Thus,it bears within its shifting dunes the imprint of anAtlantean age with all its creative powers andabuses. Now a vast and growing desert, it is wellnamed by the Arabs a “sea without water” (bahr belàmà), upon which they have traditionally embarked asthough upon a voyage to another shore. The greatdunes are like frozen waves of the ocean blown into

ridges sometimes a thousand feet high. Acrossthese ergs or great dune areas skilful navigatorsaboard their superbly trained camels have madetheir way along well known routes for thousands ofyears. It would seem impossible to imagine how aroute could be established in windblown sand, butthe surface of the desert changes only very graduallyand old maps show the same great ranges andgassis (corridors) for centuries at a time. The nativesof the Sahara have never been known for theirpeaceful ways but they have shown a wise humilitybefore the desert, learning gradually its secrets andcoming to feel a great love for its stark anduncompromising ways. Many a European testing itsdesolation has failed to understand the need for thathumility and has come to grief. Kipling’s picture of astalled army division is amusing to imagine, but ithides a history of intrusion and ambition come tonaught through ignorance and misplaced dreams.

Far hence he lies,Near some lone desert town,And on his grave, with shining eyes,The Southern stars look down.

Matthew Arnold

More recent in the making is the Thar Desert ofRajasthan, which is thought to be a mere twothousand or so years old, at least in its present state.Its beginnings are probably much older, traceable toMiocene times, thirty-five million years ago, when theHimalayas thrust themselves up to initiate themonsoon cycle and the sea retreated, leaving

behind it the sedimentary deposits of the desertfloor. Parts of the region were evidently well woodedand capable of supporting extensive humansettlements at the time of Alexander’s visit. Peoplein civilizations on the Indus and Saraswati Riversflourished and scarce would have believed that athousand years hence their descendants would benomads eking out a slender living from the arid land.The monsoons would shift to the east, anddeforestation for fuel resulting in erosion andsalination of the river systems would bringdestruction more surely than any invaders from thenorth or west. Man would add to the workings ofNature to create a vast and ever-growing desert.

On our globe the desert areas are growing at therate of forty miles daily, killing directly or indirectlyabout two hundred people in the same amount oftime. Crop-smothering sandstorms, the choking ofsprings, the loss of trees capable of attracting therain, all contribute to drought, death and famine.There are some who believe that the terrible faminesin Africa are merely a prelude to a world-wideprocess of desertization that will mark the decadesto come. Within the framework of karmic geologicaleffects, man seems to be intent upon creating thesedeserts far in excess of what Nature would haveprovided. An overwhelming greed, matched by aloss of an intuitive sense of cyclic balance, seems tobe driving the human race in its wasteful attack uponthe life forms of this planet. In contrast to this, wise

men would husband the rain forests, the savannahs,the timberlands and the valleys with care, taking onlywhat they needed to live a simple, introspective life.They would respect and work with the balanceNature revealed and they would realize that thedeserts of our globe represented laya points, not tobe created through ignorance, but natural places ofwithdrawal and rest where the maya of the world ispeeled away to reveal a realm of potentialbeginnings and endings.

Moses begged Pharoah to let Aaron and him gointo the desert in order to “sacrifice unto the Lord ourGod”. They, like others of old, associated the burningdrought of the desert with spirituality and asceticism.It was the natural place to make sacrifices. Thebiblical prophets and the Muslims to comeconsidered their “desert religion” to be pure andundefiled as compared to the fertility rites whichformed the exoteric basis of the religions of agrarianpeople living in lusher climes. The starkness andcleanliness of the desert represents not onlyabstraction and revelation but direct exposure toGod without the ameliorating buffer of His seasonallyaspected manifestations. Thus monotheism (in theJudaeo-Christian and Islamic sense) is born of thedesert and casts man down onto a barren soil wherehe truly experiences himself as separated from hisMaker and consumed with longing to meet Him faceto face. The extremes of heat and cold, barren skyand barren earth heighten this sense of separation

and longing. The sun coming up without warning andthe absence of twilight in the evening accentuate anatmosphere of extremes and instantaneousness.The setting itself suggests revelation, even a flashflood of sudden enlightenment. It also suggests theunyielding, uncompromising spirit of fanaticism, anelement often apparent in monotheistic traditions.

And thou did’st shine, thou desert moon uponAll this, and cast a wide and tender light,Which softened down the hoar austerityOf rugged desolation, and fill’d up,As ‘twere anew, the gaps of centuries;Leaving that beautiful which still was so,And making that which was not, till the placeBecame religion, and the heart ran o’erWith silent worship of the great of old –The dead but sceptered sovereigns, who still ruleOur spirits from their urns.

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Like the Essenes of the Dead Sea or the Sufis whohave wandered in barren places unseen except bythe all-seeing Eye of Spirit, others from timeimmemorial have sought the desert in order tocommune with God. When John the Baptist wasborn it was prophesied that he would perform themercy promised to the fathers, that he would “gobefore the face of the Lord to prepare his ways”. Andso John grew, waxing strong in spirit and remained“in the deserts” until he came forth unto Israel toteach. He, like prophets before him, pursued thetime-honoured way of withdrawing into the place ofmeditation and preparation before coming forth to

share the fruits of his spiritual awakening with theworld. For prophets the desert was the lay a place ofincubation, of inner growth and realization. It wasalso the place of trial and temptation. If man hopedto confront the god within himself there, he could alsoexpect to confront the devil. The Gospel Accordingto Matthew describes how Jesus was led by thespirit out onto the desert to be tempted by the devil.After fasting for forty days and nights the tempterrose up and challenged Jesus to prove himself theSon of God by performing lower magic and toaccept the rulership of the whole world in exchangefor his worship. Like John before him, Jesus beganto teach in the world after his instruction and initiationamong the Essenes and his trials in the desert werecompleted. First the desert, then the Sermon on theMount.

The desert holds within its hot sand surviving seedsthat burst into bloom with the slightest rain. Like arevelation, this quick flush of vegetation waxes anddries away. Those who know how to cross the desertknow where to find its hidden nourishment. Alone,out there beneath the naked elements, they arewitness to the flashing bloom, the process of birth,growth and decay, quickened to such a degree thatit is possible to grasp the illusory nature of time andsee the end in the beginning, the beginning in theend. One who travels thus can sense the dormantprogeny of past civilizations buried for a time butalive and exerting a hidden force upon the world.

What once was the Holy Isle is now a desert andrightly so. For in the element of earth there is nogreater likeness to the sea than the waving sands ofthe desert, and both bear Manu’s seed from onecycle of worldly efflorescence to the next. Amongthose who spend their lives on the desert, fewindeed conquer the fearful abyss of loneliness andcome to fathom the antique mystery presented in itsvast starkness. When their eyes, like those of oldCarl, become permanently focussed upon a timelesscondition, they become as initiates in a desertbrotherhood, linking them with the wise men andprophets of old. Old creaking mine the work of menWho hoped to find your treasure.And sun-bleached bones the mark of themWho failed to take your measure.I see within your wind-blown face,your dried arroyo basin,The dreams that men have dared to dreamAnd leave their spirit’s trace in.

Hermes, July 1986

THE LAKE

Thou art to know that what thou beholdest yonder as a widelake is, in truth, a plain like unto this, all bedight with flowers.And likewise thou art to know that in the midst of that plainthere standeth a castle of white marble and of ultramarineilluminated with gold. But, lest mortal eyes should beholdour dwelling place, my sisters and I have caused it to be thatthis appearance as of a lake should extend all over thecastle so that it is entirely hidden from sight.

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights

Being mortally wounded, the noble Sir Pellias sankwith pain and much lamentation to the very thresholdof death. Gone to the world was he inconsciousness, but before his spirit had passedover, he was approached by a pale lady all dressedin emerald green, with dark hair swaying aroundeyes as deep as the lake from whence she hadcome. She gave to him an elixir vitae which, whenhe drank it, made his body feel as light as air. Hisimmortal soul dilated with pure joy and he rose fromhis couch with the desire to remain with hisbenefactress, who assured him, “It shall be as thoudost ask, for it was to that end that I have sufferedthee nearly to die and have brought thee back untolife again.”

In his renewed state Sir Pellias had become half-fey and half-human, having partly entered intoanother world. Readily accepting this, he proclaimed

to the lady, “Thou hast given life unto me again. Nowdo I give that life unto thee forever.” Thus it was that,after having followed a pale silver light in the forestwhich led to the plain of the fairy lake, Sir Gawaincame upon him. There at its mist-bound shore SirPellias stood with the Lady of the Lake, and as heapproached, the fearful Gawain trembled to see theface of his former adversary. It shone with a strangelight and its expression was that of no ordinary man,but was fixed instead with a kindly though eerilyremote smile. “Touch me not,” Sir Pellias said, “for Iam not as I was aforetime, being not all human butpart fey.” Whereupon he turned and disappearedinto the lake, leaving the younger knight to marveland recall that to just such a place had King Arthurcome years before. Seeking the magical swordwhich rose from its swirling waters, the king hadbeen warned by the same emerald-clad lady that nomortal man could cross the lake “saving in one way.Otherwise, he shall perish therein.”

Shrouded in such enchanted mists, the lake hasever evoked a deep sense of awe in men. To theancient Egyptians its hieroglyph symbolized theoccult and mysterious. Even artificially constructedlakes, like that at the Temple of Amon at Karnak,were considered to represent the waters of Chaosover which the sun god proceeded in his eternalboat. For many people water has always suggesteda connection between the superficial and theprofound, a transparent, fluidic mass which conceals

and yet reveals the way to another world. The lakeembodies this in its fearful depths as well as on itsglittering surface. It is profoundly feminine, being thehumid spawning place of monsters and magicalfemale powers, and yet the image of self-contemplation, consciousness and revelation. Sittingbeside a lake, one is calmed and led inexorably intoa reflective state. But upon entering its waters, oneslips into a bottomless realm where cold draughtsrise up from unseen depths to curl like cloyingtendrils around one’s exposed and patheticallyvulnerable body. In this fearful guise, the lake is afatal abyss symbolizing and sometimes becomingthe means of transition between life and oblivion,form and formlessness, solidity and fluidity. Lying, asit often does, far below the pure air of mountainheights, the lake can represent a low spirituality, awatery quagmire filled with death-giving life. One isnot at all confident that such soggy depths couldenshrine the soul’s immortal castle or that one wouldwish to enter its fairy world. But Sir Pellias was agentle and pure knight, and the lady to whom hegave his life also provided the sword of Arthur’sspiritual victory. To enter into the domain of such aone would seem to represent more than merelybecoming bewitched or floating in some limboedhalf-life between worlds. Perhaps there are lakes ofclear vision as well as those that open into oblivion.

Certainly, there are many sorts of genii believed todwell in and govern lakes. People everywhere have

had traditions of “water masters”, maidens or “lakemothers”. And whilst tales of hapless youths drawn towatery graves by lacustrine nymphs can be found inmany parts of the world, equally widespread is thenotion that lakes are the source or resting place ofgods. Goddesses of Norse myth often return tosecret lakes, just as the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl issaid to have ended a cycle of his manifestation bysubmerging into a sacred lake. The Indians ofancient Peru believed that the divine Inca came tothem through the waters of Lake Titicaca, drivenforth by an aquatic serpent from their other world. Inconsidering this, one is reminded of the dragonpools of Chinese tradition or of the serpent SeshaAnanta, coiled in cyclic curves around the restingform of Vishnu-Narayana. One may think of LakeSuperior (which the Algonquian Indians called GitcheGumee) with its great thirteen-hundred-foot highThunder Cape held to be the recumbent form of theGreat Spirit, whose voice reverberated from itsheights during storms.

By the shore of Gitche Gumee,By the shining Big-Sea-Water,Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hiawatha embarked upon a great vision quest atthis lake and endured many trials and dangers toachieve his goal. Each in his own way, Arthur and SirPellias encountered the mystery of the lake: Arthur

reached the sword in a boat with swan’s wings, andSir Pellias rode into the lake on his horse. Inconsidering these examples one may imaginegliding across the astral wastes upon the wings ofKalahansa or directing back into dissolution the vitalenergy represented by the horse. Celtic lore taughtthat “those who want to return to the divine land mustnot dismount from their horses”, a warning similar tothe one related to the admonition againstprematurely abandoning the raft in Buddhisttradition. It is significant that, had Sir Pellias pursuedhis adventures in a Greek context, he would, as aknight, have been called (hippotis) from , or“horse”. Perhaps in becoming the knight of the Ladyof the Lake, he had become identified with that vitalforce which surges forth out of chaos from time totime and gives impelling energy to the great work ofthe world. But was the lake merely chaos or was itthe divine land? Are some lakes capable ofdivulging their watery secrets to those on thethreshold of greater understanding? In search of theanswer, some intrepid souls have travelled greatdistances and endured enormous hardships toreach a lake reputed to have sublime and trulymagical powers. Of all such sacred lakes in theworld, perhaps the most fabled and revered is LakeManasarova, whose name itself reveals somethingof the deeper reflective power attributed to it.

There are no mountains like the Himalaya, for in them areKailas and Manasarova.

Skanda Purana

Around the turn of the century the Japanese monkEkai Kawaguchi wandered the length of theHimalayas, having as one of his prime goals themost sacred of mountains and lakes. After months ofdifficult adventures, he sighted the holy Mount Kailasand soon after was looking down upon the clear,placid waters of Lake Manasarova, which appearedto him as a marvellously symmetrical mandala. In hisdiary he wrote that “the hunger and thirst, the perils ofdashing stream and freezing blizzard, the pain ofwrithing under heavy burdens, the anxiety ofwandering over trackless wilds, the exhaustion andthe lacerations, all the troubles, and sufferings I hadjust come through, seemed like dust, which waswashed away and purified by the spiritual waters ofthe lake; and thus I attained to the spiritual plane ofNon-Ego, together with this scenery showing Its-Own-Reality”.

According to the Puranas, Lake Manasarova was“formed in the mind of God”. The story goes that thesons of Brahmā had performed austerities at MountKailas for twelve years with very little rain or water. Intheir distress they requested Brahmā to create forthem a place to bathe while engaged in thesedevotions. In response, by a mental effort, Brahmāformed the holy lake of Manasa and the Rishisresumed their worship. The lake lying thus at the footof Lord Shiva’s abode, its sacred powers have beenextolled since the days of the Ramayana and the

Mahabharata.The poet Kalidasa wrote that “when the earth of

Manasarova touches anyone’s body or when anyonebathes therein, he shall go to the paradise ofBrahma, and he who drinks its waters shall go to theheaven of Shiva and shall be released from the sinsof a hundred births”. The pilgrim who succeeded inenduring the hardships of crossing the Himalayaswas expected to follow the religious precepts laiddown in the Puranas, namely that such a one shouldbathe there, pour libations to his ancestors, worshipMahadeva in the form of a royal swan, makeparikrama of (circumambulate) the holy lake whilegazing at Kailas, and bathe in all the neighbouringrivers.

Whilst only the Sutlej River now takes its actualsource from Lake Manasarova, the Indus, Ravi,Ganga and Brahmaputra have all been believed, atone time or another, to have originated there, andeven in modern times they arise in the general area,lending added sanctity to the lake itself. With theGurla Mandhata Range rising beyond, a small stonelamasery at its turquoise shore, the lake has inspiredeven the secular visitor with reverence. In 1864Thomas Webber described Manasarova as hebeheld it from atop the Sutlej and Brahmaputrawatershed as a “most brilliantly beautiful blue sea”,and Sven Hedin later noted that the lake and skyshared the same ethereal value. In the light of suchobservations it is wonderful to reflect upon the fact

that twenty million years ago the whole of the fifteen-hundred-mile Himalayan chain, including the greatplateau of Tibet, lay at the bottom of the sea. Greatlong, parallel folds were then thrust up as the landmass that would become the Indian subcontinentpushed northward into the underside of Central Asia.The depressions between them were filled withalluvial silt, and rifts or pockets became the basins oflakes like Koko Nor, Baikal or Manasarova, all highand very clear reflectors of equally clear anddepthless heavens.

Let them dream life just as the lake dreams the sky.

Miguel de Unamuno

Whatever the term used for it - the Latin lacus, theAfrican nyanza, the Mongol nor, the English ‘tarn’ orthe Celtic ‘lough’ – ssthe critical factor distinguishinga lake is that it is completely surrounded by land,with no direct communication with the sea. It hasbeen rather jocularly said that in their development,as with the serving of soup, two things werenecessary: the bowl and its contents. Nor are the twoinvariably found together. Several different sorts ofgeophysical factors have produced the world’slakes. Tectonic action resulting in vast inland seassuch as the Caspian and Aral can also producecrustal sags or rifts that become deep lakes like thatof Baikal or Victoria. Volcanic activity can result incrater lakes, whilst extreme continental folding mayyield pockets like that at Geneva. In the case ofTiticaca, the whole lake basin was thrust bodily

skyward by the upsurging Andes to its presentelevation of 12,507 feet. Fluvial and glacialmovement have, in places, carved out largedepressions, such as the Canadian or Scandinavianshields, where lakes abound, including some asenormous as the Slave and Great Lakes. Of all ofthese, the largest by far is the Caspian Sea at169,300 square miles, Lake Superior at 31,820square miles being second in size. Next to these,Lake Baikal’s 13,300 square miles seems small, butit is the size of Switzerland and five times deeperthan Lake Superior. Called by the Tibetan andMongol people Dalai Nor, or Holy Lake, it isbeautiful, clear and cold. Over a mile deep, thisappalling gulf is the most abysmal to be found on theland surface of the globe, and unlike most lakes,Baikal is tens of millions of years old, a vastaquarium (5,785 cubic miles of water) of archaicforms of life.

Very few lakes have mirrored the passing cloudsfor so many millions of years. Most date back to theglacial age or are more recent still, whilst themajority are dying; many thousands are alreadydead. Symbolically associating lakes with the mirrorof the mind, one could see their relative duration asrepresenting cycles of consciousness: some great,the majority smaller. Each does this in a unique way,for every lake has, as it were, a dramatic personalityof its own. Some are sublime, others simply alluring,whilst still others fill the sensitive observer with

foreboding and even at times a distinct impressionof evil. Few things in Nature have the capacity toembody such qualities so forcefully. On the physicalplane alone, each breathes air which circulatesthrough its entire volume, causing highly distinctivepulsations, oscillations and tides. Over time, eachlake models its own outline out of the surroundingbasin, creating a subtle boundary giving shape to aminiature world. A wide variation in colours reflectstheir individual characters. Ranging from an almostcolourless hue to yellow, pink, red, green, black,turquoise and deep blue, the several hundredthousand lakes of the world display a kaleidoscopeof nutritive and reflective potential. Some, like theshallow green lakes of Kashmir, contain feeblecurrents in which grassy weeds unfurl in long,sinuous arabesques. Those of the Tibetan plateautake far less nutritive substance from their cold andawesomely barren environment and are often clearand deep blue. Among the tens of thousands oflakes in North America and Europe, these and everyother sort of condition can be found mirrored withinthe individually unique microcosm of each limno-system.

Being individual entities, every lake respondsslightly differently to the external environment.Because of this, a lake can be considered a climaticrecording instrument. Depth, fetch, basin shape andexposure to the wind are internal factors, whilst airtemperature, humidity and stability of air and wind

are external. All of these variables come into play inthe continual transfer of radiant energy within thesystem. Changes in the lake’s heat content aredetermined by the algebraic sum of these radiationprocesses, evaporation and conduction into theatmosphere affecting the temperature of the lake inlayers from the surface to its deepest depth. Exceptin cases where there is an extreme angle ofincidence, water is easily penetrated by the shorterwavelengths of solar radiation to a considerabledepth, depending on its clarity. In return, only the verytop layer of the lake emits long-wave radiation intothe atmosphere. Being nearly opaque, any cloudsabove the lake are strongly absorbent of this long-wave radiation, which, as it increases with thewater’s temperature, augments the back-radiationfrom the clouds to the lake.

Evaporation from the lake’s surface is the majormeans of heat loss, its rate depending upon thevapour pressure gradient across the skin of theair/water boundary. When water is colder than air, itcools the air, stabilizes it and reduces the windaction on the surface. One can more readily graspthe nature of how the limno-system works byobserving its seasonable mode of exchangethroughout an annual cycle. In a deep, temperatelake, spring witnesses the disappearance of ice,and the water, at about four degrees centigrade, isisothermal from surface to bottom. Incomingradiation from the sun mixes evenly at first, until

surface temperature increases to a point wherethere is sufficient buoyancy to resist vertical mixing.As summer approaches, most of the heat is storedin the epilimnion layer, from whence evaporation andheat transference with the atmosphere take place,whilst below it the cooler water of the hypolimnionstabilizes. With autumn, the last evaporation beginsto exceed radiation input, the lake cools and thethermocline separating the epilimnion from thehypolimnion begins to descend. Winds arise andmix the two layers, so that the lake tends torebecome isothermal but with a higher temperaturethan in the spring. Cooling continues, withevaporation and increased unstable conditions ofcool air overlying relatively warm water until, at aboutfour degrees centigrade, the lake approaches anisothermal state. A winter drop to freezingtemperatures produces a protective ice sheet whichthen shields the water from the wind and minimizesfurther loss of heat energy. The sedimentary basinreturns to the water some of the heat it has absorbedduring the summer and, together with a very limitedsolar radiation, gradually warms the water. With thebreaking of the ice and the coming of spring, thewhole cycle begins again.

In a balanced lacustrine ecosystem, a nearequilibrium between production and destruction oforganic matter as well as production andconsumption of oxygen is maintained. Compared toa terrestrial ecosystem, that of a lake has a small

biomass and a more complicated food web. It ismore sensitive to change, and pollution of any kindresults in a reduction in the diversity of trophic levelsand a narrowing of the food chain, accompanied byunpredictable increases of bacterial and animalgrowth. In every lake solar energy is extracted by thephytoplankton and used to support a biologicalcommunity. In this sense above all, it is a little world.But it is also a mirror of its environment, its system ofenergy flowing through interlocking cycles beingprofoundly affected by chemical and physicalperturbations. Every stressful change increases theratio of biotic energy flux to biomass. Natureresponds by simplifying its ecostructure, byimpairing negative feedback mechanisms and byaccelerating nutrient cycles. Thus, a randomness ofthe system increases as its organization decreases.

Proliferation and changes in the composition ofphytoplankton (despite corresponding increases inzooplankton density) cause a significant part of it tosettle into the deeper water layers, whereuncounterbalanced oxygen consumption andultimate anaerobiosis drastically alter the fauna atthe water-sediment interface, triggering an overallimbalance. In contrast to this, a natural lakecomprising a non-perturbed ecosystem exposed tosolar radiation can maintain a macroscopicallyconstant composition, in which steady state anoptimum in metabolic efficiency is attained.

It is upon the serene and placid surface of the unruffled

It is upon the serene and placid surface of the unruffledmind that visions gathered from the invisible find arepresentation in the visible world.

Mahatma K. H.

Man has always possessed what may be called alimnetic drive. Some, whilst suggesting that this wasprompted by something deeper than economicneeds or a desire for recreation, have tried toexplain it in terms of aesthetic attractions. But theeffect of a lake on the human mind and soul is muchgreater than can be described by that feeble word.The desire to have a body of water nearby hasprompted wonderful works, resulting in such beautifulman-made lakes as those in Rajasthan, in some ofwhich float fairy-tale palaces to rival that describedby the Lady of the Lake. If one sits at eveningbeneath an arabesque cupola suspended over thedarkening flow, one’s mind melts and becomesmerged with the lake, reflecting the scattered rays ofthe setting sun. The soul’s knowledge of therelationship between man and all of Nature isreleased, and a great peace surpassing the grasp ofintellect settles within one’s heart. The higher andclearer the lake, the greater its power to do this. Asone stands at dawn on the edge of Panggong TsoLake in the glacial rift area of Ladakh, a light breezestirs the surface into little lapis lazuli waves, whosecrests become gilded with the rising sun. Thereflections of Karakoram peaks are drawn out in thelarger swirls as inverted triangles of granite andsnow. Across the water the opposite shoreline is

lifted up by a mirage until, reaching the edge ofsome dry and ancient beach, it seems the ghost oflakes long gone. The breathing of this lake is freshand pure, its cold layers bearing little vegetation todie and choke its basin. It is a mirror into which themind is readily drawn to receive a broader picture ofreality. In its water the past lies alongside the presentand the above is mirrored below. Atomic particlesfloat freely to shape images known only in otherworlds, and long-forgotten memories surface to floatfor a moment beside embryos of ideation in theirprenatal state.

In such lakes people like the Navaho observed thesacred whirling arms of the swastika, made up ofeight powerful Yei figures who instructed them in themysteries of healing. Generations of Tibetan seershave meditated at the edges of many such holylakes. In 1935, after the death of the Thirteenth DalaiLama, the Regent Reting Rinpoche went to LhamoLhatso lake to seek a sign that would enable him tolocate the birthplace of the new fourteenthincarnation. Lying at an elevation of seventeenthousand feet, its oval-shaped basin is surroundedby massive peaks, around which the weatherconstantly shifts from sun to rain to hail to snow.Years before, the whereabouts of the ThirteenthDalai Lama had been discovered there by means ofa dramatic vision seen in the centre of its waters fora week by several hundred people, but on thisoccasion the Regent and his party split up, each to

seek his own vision from different vantage pointsaround the lake. As it happened, Reting Rinpochealone witnessed the remarkable display of Tibetanletters indicating the place, the names and thepictures of a monastery with a turquoise-tiled housenearby.

Not every man can stand beside a lake andreceive a vision, any more than can every lake throwone up. There must be certain perfections inherent inthe mind of the seer, matched by the purity andreceptive power of the lake, for this to occur. Boththe mind and the lake must be as mirrors of the Selfof all in order to reflect the loftiest and most universalvisions. In the writings of Robert Crosbie severalcharacteristics of the mind suggest the means bywhich human beings may perceive visions incommunion with lakes. He noted that the mind, intaking the shape of the object it focusses upon,absorbs the characteristics of that thing. Being like amirror, if the mind is covered with dust it will absorband reflect a very distorted and dim shadow of whatit sees. As spirit, with all its powers, still must act inaccordance with the ideas present in the mind, themanifested progeny of human thought are oftenwarped and crippled in their expression. The lake isalso like a mirror opening to the pure spiritual energyof the sun. If it is cool and clear, in a state of optimummetabolic balance, it is capable of reflecting theessential and primordial action of spirit in matter.For the water of the microcosmic lake is analogous

to the cosmic Hyle, the first primordial matter, freshlypenetrated by the electric spark of Fohat. In itsabsolutely latent state this primordial matter isreferred to as “the cold Virgin”, a cool radiancewhich is colourless, formless and tasteless. Butwhen awakened by Fohat it becomes the prolific“slime”, the Hyle whose first born are the Akashic,the Ethereal, the Watery and the Fiery: the primalnatures of the first Dhyan Chohans which, in thesensual world, are reflected as fire, air, water andearth.

Lakes of enormous depth unburdened by a vastorganic load, such as Lake Baikal, are closer innature to being a pure reflection in the world of thecool fire of the highest Akashic progeny of proto-matter. Those teeming with nutrients lendthemselves to the cycle of death more rapidly andgive dramatic expression in the world to the originalprolific slime. Polluted lakes become breedinggrounds of distortion and contamination. All thefabled monstrous births of the earliest Rounds inevolution are recapitulated in miniature within theirfetid basins. They become sink-holes of ignoranceand disharmony, reflecting only the darkness ofdeath which teems in its activity beneath theirsurface. If such lakes have genii, they must beharbingers of pollution much to be feared, whilst thealluring lakes from whence the ethereal maid arisesto tempt the passerby must surely be thosedreaming pools which abound with living things and

bask in petalled mist beneath the floating sky.Visions they may have to offer and magic swords aswell, but they are tricky in their nature, dealing lifeand death with the same draught. Like the astralrealm it mirrors, such a lake contains both evil andgood. Only the seer of wisdom can discriminateaccurately which is which. For good reason did SirGawain feel fear as he approached the fairy lake. Hemust have intuitively known that he was unpreparedto discern the true nature of its potential power.

Oh, what can ail thee, Knight at armsAlone and palely loitering;The sedge is wither’d from the lake,And no birds sing.

John Keats

The lake by itself does not envision, nor would itsgenius ever appear, were it not for the presence ofthinking man. But it is a reservoir capable ofmirroring intelligence beyond what man can usuallypluck from his own limited consciousness. It canreflect what man knows outside the limits of his finiteawareness and cast up a vision which transcendsthe bonds of time and space and personal desires. Itcan mirror a deeper understanding of things storedin the higher astral yet unknown to worldly minds, andthese sometimes may be imaged in the form of ahuman-like being who gestures and speaks andreveals what is known. Like the clear, unpollutedlake, the mind must become utterly pure in order toreflect the highest Akashic intelligence and perceiveits presence in the world around. The human mind,

which is continually affected by its environment, caneasily become polluted, for it lies like a passivebasin receiving the trickled effects of all that occursaround it. It needs depth and breadth and thesubsequent ability to affect the climate around it tosome degree. The mind that fully recognizes theradiant source of its existence is more receptive toits warming spiritual rays and freely and more fullyparticipates in the transfer of radiant energy thatoperates within and through it to the other vestures.With purified concentration, channels reaching fromthe brain open to the astral body and from thence tothe inner man, enabling that which is temporary tobecome a conscious part of the eternal. That thistakes place within man is true, but one can see howthe lake, in some cases, can play a connecting rolein the process of opening the channels through theastral realm.

The mind, like the lake, has its own limno-systemiccycle. If it is deep and temperate, it emerges out of awinter’s quietude full of cool, balanced thoughtswhich temper evenly the ways in which oneperceives whatever develops. Governed by such amind, one’s actions would express a proportionalityborn of deep and dispassionate meditation betweenthe highest and lowest levels of one’s being. Later inthe season, when the mind becomes moreabsorbed in the cares of the world, it tends to lose itsisothermal condition and becomes increasinglystirred up and heated at its surface. A resistance to

vertical mixing sets in, and it becomes more andmore difficult to maintain the conscious connectionbetween the deepest and the more surface levels.One is in danger of losing contact with the cool,undisturbed centre of one’s being. With the autumn,the air over the lake becomes cooler than the waterwhich destabilizes it, causing winds to arise. Just sodoes one disrupt the atmosphere and the affairs ofothers with an overheated mind. In Nature this is partof a repeating cycle with long-term beneficenteffects, but in man such conditions are not meant tobe expressed unchecked. Instead, the mind is to betaken in hand and guided wisely through itsanalogous cycles of involvement and withdrawalfrom the world. The external winds of change mayclear the air and mix the layers of the mind’s warmand cool waters just as it does with the lake in theautumn season, but the mixture in the mind must beconsciously monitored so that only the purestreflections of solar truth are allowed to percolatethroughout the whole.

A balanced use of the mind is very much like that ofa lake’s balanced ecosystem. The mind absorbs therays of spiritual Teaching, causing a production ofthoughts, longings, hopes, creative urges andpotentials which must be put into a constructive anddisinterested practice that is quite analogous to thedestruction of organic matter and consumption ofoxygen that must go on in the lake to counterbalancetheir production. If the right use of these Teachings is

not enacted, a condition will evolve similar to that ofthe lake which is overburdened with organic growthto the point where the dying particles begin to clogits bottom, creating a growing anaerobic layer thatwill eventually pollute the entire system. When themind opens itself to the pure spiritual energy ofdivine Teaching and is not directed by the higher willto instruct the thoughts and emotions, the senseorgans and deeds, the surrounding environment willbecome polluted. One’s relations with others, one’sinteraction with all sorts of objects and elements aswell as the subtle matter of one’s own aura, willbecome clogged with distorted and unnaturalthoughts and desires, the monstrous progeny ofimbalance which will, in turn, pollute the mind thatspawned them. For the conscious mind to work inharmony with a vast, universally interactingintelligence, it must establish within itself aharmonious equilibrium between the divine solarradiation that it takes in, the resultant growth itenjoys, and the digestion and transmutation of thisthrough daily thought and action.

To achieve this calm and sublime balance is tobecome like the sacred Manasarova lying placidand pure at the foot of Lord Shiva’s abode. Allaround, the peaks of Masters arise. Like a vastrange of Adepts, they loom o’er this faithful mirrorand, one by one, are reflected in its open and clearwater. Pilgrims struggling over the high and rockypasses draw up, tired and worn, to its shore and

rejoice in their hearts to see the reflections of suchGreat Ones shimmering there. Coolly and with adepth of patient meditation unfathomed, such adeeply pure and azure mind reflects the heavenlyabode of its Lord, who rests as the Mahayogin onthe peak of Mount Kailas. Centuries may pass andstill this mind never ceases its worship, neverceases to mirror the universal meditation of its Lord,until a genius grows within it which is a purereflection of his Divine Will. Weary pilgrims whobrave all trials and persist long enough to reach thelofty fastness of this sacred and pure mind maycome one day. As they approach the shores of itsshimmering waters, a rich reward will greet them.For the Lady of that holy lake of mind will be seenthere and her words and signs will transmit to themthe arcane Teaching of her Lord on high, whose fieryinstructions clothe themselves in her substance andwhose word garbs itself in her speech. This Lady isworth following, not into the water of oblivion or to acastle of never-ending dreams, but to the altar ofreflective worship that lies cool and pure at the feetof Mahadeva. O Sambhu of jasmine eyes,Thy wild locks streaming,Thou art the pinnacle of my World.I lap in recumbent wavesAt thy blessed feet.O Mahadev of Crescent Brow,

Thy bright form gleaming,Thou art all radiance unfurled.I mirror thy exalted gazeAt thy blessed feet.

Hermes, March 1985

THE FISH

Now hear, O Brahmins, the ancient tale of Matsya the Fish,which is holy, purifying and life-bestowing, as it was sung bythe mace-bearer, Vishnu.

Matsya Purana Long ago there was a good and patient king

named Manu who practised abundant tapas withwhat may truly be called global results. Turning hisaffairs of state over to his son, he diligently pursuedhis austerities until he attained supreme yoga. Aftermillennia Brahmā noticed him and was pleased. Heasked him to choose a boon as his prize,whereupon the king bowed low and requested theultimate reward which would make him “the protectorof all standing and moving creatures when thedissolution comes”. “So be it!” boomed thegrandfather of the gods, and a shower of flowers fellto earth from his hidden abode.

Sometime later the king was making sacred waterofferings to the gods near his hermitage, when therefell into his hands along with the water a tiny fish,which pleaded to him for protection. Moved bycompassion, Manu placed it in a small jar safe fromthe predations of ponds, rivers and lakes. But theremarkable fish rapidly outgrew the jar and all thesubsequent containers that the concerned king couldprovide for it. Placed in a pond, he soon languished

in its insufficient basin, and rivers and lakes likewiseproved to be successively inadequate. Finally, Manuplaced the enormously grown creature into theocean itself, where its continued growth filled himwith astonishment and reverential awe as herealized that it could only be a manifestation of LordVishnu. With this recognition, the Lord rapidly beganto instruct Manu, telling him how he had fought withthe demon Hayagriva, who had stolen the Vedasfrom the sleeping Brahmā. He taught the king theirprinciples and the knowledge which should guide thehuman race during the present cycle of four yugas.He spoke of a coming flood which would inundatethe whole world and instructed him to put allcreatures and the seven Rishis of time’s cycles intoa boat constructed by the gods. Thus, he said, at theend of the dissolution of the world you shall bemaster of the creatures on earth, their all-knowingking at the beginning of the Krita Age.

In the Satapatha Brahmana the great fish savesManu by drawing the ark until it rests upon MountNaubandhava (Meru in the later Puranas), where hereveals himself to be Brahmā. In the later Puranicversions it is Lord Vishnu manifested in his MatsyaAvatar who drew the boarded and ready ship acrossthe flood by a serpent-rope attached to his horn,transferring safely to a new cycle the essential seedsand wisdom of the old. One may be cautioned not totake the Puranas too literally and to keep in mindthat periods spoken of there refer to both minor

cycles and mahakalpas. It has been suggested invarious traditions that one of the keys tounderstanding the symbolism of the fish is to befound in the study of cycles, a subject ardentlypursued by anyone wishing to unravel the mystery ofthe Matsya and subsequent Avatars of Vishnu. TheSecret Doctrine points out that the last mahakalpawas the Padma, while the present one is the Varaha.In the series of Vishnu’s manifestations, the MatsyaAvatar occurred before that of the Varaha, indicatingthat the allegories belong to kalpas as well as minorcycles that have taken place since the reappearanceof our chain of worlds. This is borne out by the factthat the Matsya Avatar is connected withVaivasvata’s deluge which took place on our earthduring this Round. It therefore refers to a geologicperiod which reflects pre-cosmic events occurring ona far vaster scale.

The symbolic relation of cycles to the fish in generalhas been associated by some with its bobbin shape.Like the spindle of the weavers of necessity in Greekmyth, the fish is thought to spin out the cycle of lifeafter the pattern of the lunar zodiac. By others itsshape has been likened to a bird whom they saydrifted through the watery netherworld andperiodically emerged in a cycle of regeneration andresurrection. The Chaldean symbol for this was afish with a swallow’s head. The ocean it swamthrough was the abyss of non-being which surroundsthe world of form, the great magna mater that the

Greeks called chaos. The fish penetrates throughthese waters during its life migrations and returns toits place of beginning, where it lays vast shoals ofoviparous progeny destined to persist through thenext generational cycle.

Its form continues though engulfed in a sea ofdissolution, represented in human beings by thepsychic nature. Within the aquatic gloom of this greatomnipresent liquidity, the fish penetrates and assertsits fertile presence before being swallowed up byoblivion. Thus persisting, a fish is at the beginning ofa cycle and at its end. In the annals of Quauhtitlan ofancient Mexico, each epoch was said to begin withthe god Quetzalcoatl (the scaly, plumed serpent) ascreator and end with a flood and the transformationof all creatures into fishes. The feminine matrix of lifeitself is sometimes referred to as the fiery Fish-Mother, who scatters her spawn in space (the oceanof chaos) where Motion (the great paternal breath)heats and quickens it until the grains form the curdsof the manifesting universe.

FISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,Each secret fishy hope or fear.Fish say, they have their stream and pond;But is there anything beyond?This life cannot be all, they swear,For how unpleasant, if it were!One may not doubt that, somehow, goodShall come of water and of mud;And, sure, the reverent eye must seeA purpose in liquidity.

A purpose in liquidity.We darkly know, by faith we cry,The future is not wholly dry.Mud unto mud! – Death eddies near –Not here the appointed end, not here!But somewhere, beyond space and time,Is wetter water, slimier slime!And there (they trust) there swimmeth oneWho swam ere rivers were begun,Immense, of fishy form and mind,Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;And under that Almighty Fin,The littlest fish may enter in.Oh! never fly conceals a hook,Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,But more than mundane weeds are there,And mud, celestially fair.Fat caterpillars drift around,And paradisal grubs are found;Unfading moths, immortal flies,And the worm that never dies.And in that Heaven of all their wish,There shall be no more land, say fish.

Rupert Brooke

The “one who swam ere rivers were begun” loomswithin the mythical waters of many cultures. Somehave conceived of the cosmic fish as the wholephysical universe, the symbol of the progress of theworld across the sea of the unformed essences ofworlds dissolved or not yet manifest. Others, like theAltaic-speaking people, believed that when Ulgencreated the disc of the earth upon the primordialwaters, he supported it with three great fishes whocould be raised or lowered by a rope attached totheir gills. Held in the hand of the BodhisattvaManjushri, a slight pulling could produce

earthquakes and floods, an idea which crops up inEastern European and Semitic lore as well. TheKirghiz notion that a bull supporting the world on hishorns stands on a great fish in the world ocean issimilar and suggests an interesting sequence offorms reminiscent of the Minoan bull that came fromthe sea. The zodiac itself holds four such pillars: theBull, the Scorpion, the Lion and the Southern Fish,each residing at the corners of its great spirallingwheel. But it is the Fish that represents the point oftransformation and cyclic change, the pillar of formwhich finds its base in a prior period of primordialbecoming.

Among the coastal Chincha people living west ofthe Andes, each province worshipped a special kindof fish which they believed to have been amanifestation of the First of all Fish, who dwells inthe sky. This great fish, much like that of the Hindutradition, warns of an impending flood and instructshis devotees to build an ark which will carry themsafely through the deluge. Given the widespreadoccurrence of this theme, it is interesting to note thatthe idea of a cultural hero being swallowed by agreat fish is equally ubiquitous and reveals anotherfacet of Piscean symbolism having to do with therole of saviour from dissolution and death and alsothe embodiment of those fearful possibilities. LikeJonah and others of the Semitic legends, manyAmerican Indian heroes had to enter into the jaws ofthe abyss, the great fish which ruled the powers of

the deep (like the giant sturgeon which swallowedHiawatha), from whose maw the hero re-emerged ina triumph of light over dark and watery chaos. Thereis a subtle cross-over between the warning, savingfish who preserves form, and the swallowing fishwhich appears to be one with the waters of chaos. Itis like both the double-edged symbolism and theactual effects connected with the moon, with whichthe fish is so intimately associated. The cyclicwaxing and waning to which both are related aredangerous, but they are part of a necessary processof growth through death and resurrection.

In the arcane symbolism of the ancient MiddleEast, a fish swimming downward representedspiritual involution, whilst one swimming upwardsignified the process of spiritual evolution. Depictedtogether, they were like the yin and yang figure ofTaoism or the two fishes, nose to tail, of the Hindus,associated with the sacred yoni. The Akkadiansbelieved that Tiamat, the tumultuous sea, the chaoticmother of space and the incipient watery flow, waskilled by the hero Marduk, who clove her body “like afish in two parts” and fashioned from one half theheavens, from the other the earth. He organized theworld thus so that the fish above was reflected in thefish below, the one curved to enter into the world, theother poised to evolve its way out of it. The SecretDoctrine teaches that the fish, along with laterreptiles, birds and amphibians, is the result of astralfossils of the Third Round which were stored in the

earth’s aura until they manifested in the Laurentianrocks of this Round, Those who preceded physicalman were bisexual, becoming heterosexual only withman’s separation and fall from a more etherealstate. This idea is clearly suggested by the twofishes curving up and down, circling around oneanother in a continual process of involution andevolution. But the fish does not merely remain as adistinct, separate link with past phases of existence,for it regularly appears in the foetal development ofall vertebrates, including that of humans, where thefoetus exhibits early on a fish-like shape as well asfull-blown gill clefts. Thus, human foetal growthepitomizes not only characteristics of the FourthRoot Race but of the Third as well.

In this Round and on this earth as we know it, theearliest fishes began to develop between theCambrian and Ordovician periods, leading to aPiscean explosion in Devonian times, four hundredmillion years ago. Jaws, destined to become afearful symbol of destruction among later seafaringmen, evolved during this time among the ancientcartilaginous fish, of which the modern shark is aliving example. Bony fishes came to dominate only inthe last one hundred and eighty million years,introducing the oviparous mode of reproduction soprevalent among fish today. While fish appearingafter physical man were no longer bisexual, it is notthe case that they became clearly and consistentlyheterosexual, for there is a fairly high rate of

hermaphroditism among certain species (such asthe bass), and changes in sex within the lifetime ofan individual fish have been observed. From thestandpoint of arcane symbolism it would seem thatfish, though extremely long lived as a phylum, havenot only evolved in a fluidic environment, but arethemselves genetically fluidic, shifting gender andassuming remarkably varying forms. Fishes todaymake up a huge and complex group, comparablewithin their own ranks to all the variations within otherclasses of vertebrates put together.

Generally described, fishes are all those vertebrateanimals which live in water and, by means of gills,breathe air dissolved in it; whose heart consists of asingle ventricle and atrium; whose limbs, if present,are modified into fins; and whose skin is eithernaked or covered with osseous plates, bucklers orscales. They are immensely older than theTetrapoda, being ancestral to all land vertebrates,but they do not exhibit any evidence of racialsenescence. Instead, they greatly surpass all landvertebrates in number of species and new ones areconstantly being discovered. This is undoubtedlybecause fishes live in a fantastic variety of habitatswithin bodies of water that are truly analogous to theendlessly transformational potential of the greatastral sea out of which the manifest universecyclically emerges. Within rivers, lakes and oceans,extreme variations of light and darkness, heat andcold, pressure, salinity, calmness and turbulence can

be found. Seventy-five percent of the surface of ourglobe is water, and the diversity of size and shape ofits Piscean inhabitants is even greater than that ofinsects. There are, at the very least, twenty thousandspecies with hundreds of thousands of subspeciesflourishing around the world and at least a few ofthem can be found in almost all permanent bodies ofwater. Some types in Southeast Asia even thrive inpuddles, hopping overland to another watery homewhen their own little abode dries up. Big ones, littleones, there always seems to be one of their kindpresent even in the most amazingly small pond. Letthe rains come and the fish seem to sprout upeverywhere.

Calico Jam,The little Fish swam,Over the syllabub sea.

Edward Lear

Throughout their long history the lives of fish havebeen dominated by the incompressibility of water. Ithas imposed upon them the general shape of thebasic vertebrate: a hollow cylinder open at both endswith a vertebral column, a food canal and nerve cordrunning the length, the latter enlarged at the front endto form the brain. This aquadynamic shape, themethod of locomotion and means of breathing,feeding and reproducing, are all adaptive responsesto the fluidity, buoyancy, more constant temperature,penetrability and incompressibility of water. To movein it requires that it be displaced, shoved aside, so

to speak, by a streamlined form which can wigglethrough it in a serpentine motion. Along the taperingflanks of such a form, the water flows back, closingat the tail and pushing the fish forward. Thus, thefish’s shape most easily penetrates the watery world,being able not only to cut through it but to use it as ameans of further propulsion. Nonetheless, within theparameters of this general form, the thousands ofspecies of fish illustrate the most dramatic variationsof shape and size. The sea serpents of Aristotle andPliny are not very fantastic-seeming when comparedwith oar or ribbon fish, whose heads look like thoseof horses, with red manes flowing in rhythm to theirundulating motion. One grown to the stupendouslength of fifty-six feet was cast up on the shore atOrkney in 1808!

I never lost a little fish - yes I amfree to say

It always was the biggest fish I caughtthat got away.

Eugene Field

With whale sharks at sixty feet and basking sharksat forty, monsters of the deep seem real enough.Even the halibut can attain eight feet and a weight offour hundred pounds or more, while the sleeker,fifteen-foot freshwater Arapaima gigas of theAmazon can reach an equal weight. Alongside theone-half-inch goby of Luzon, such giants wouldappear to belong to another dimension of existencerather than to the same family. An enormous pike

was captured in a lake at Wurttemberg in 1497which had a copper ring fixed in its gill, telling that ithad been put into the lake by Frederick II in 1230.Besides being two hundred and sixty-seven yearsold, it was said to have been nineteen feet long andweighed five hundred and fifty pounds! Whether onefinds this fishy or not, the report certainly indicatesthat fabulous tales of Piscean splendour haveflourished for a very long time. There is something,perhaps, about drawing up on a line a prize from thehidden deep that is thrilling to human beings: aconquest and discovery of a very different order fromwhat is experienced by hunters of land animals orbirds of the air. One is not quite sure what is downthere, or if a giant or minnow will nibble one’s bait.The uncertainty, however, has not deterredfishermen who take thirty-eight million tons of fishfrom the world’s seas every year.

The disinterested desire to understand fish andtheir watery kingdom for their own sake hasengaged only a small percentage of mankind. Themajority who undertake this study do so in order tobetter exploit them for food and other products. Withsuch a pressing motivation we have learnt a greatdeal about the vast migrations of albacore who travelfrom Southern California to Japan and back, andsardines who journey from San Diego to BritishColumbia over a period of six months. We know allabout the wonderful cycle of the salmon, who swimupstream to their birthplace in order to spawn and

die, and we catch them en route by the multitude.Sportsmen learn of thousand-pound black marlinfifteen feet long for the thrill of it, while fishermencomb the waves for eighteen-hundred-pound bluefintuna for the fill of it. But some are simply mad formackerel, balmy for barracuda or soft on sharks fortheir own sake. Their painstaking investigationshave revealed wonderful details about Piscean life.From them we have learnt something of the sixthsense possessed by all fish which enables them toremain delicately in tune with all movements aroundthem and with currents in the water. Along a visiblelateral line on the fish’s sides, a highly sensitizednerve canal monitors flow and is responsible for thelightning-like dart of a coral fish into a tiny crevice itcannot possibly see with its eyes. It is alsoresponsible for vast shoals of fish being able to holdtheir formation in perfectly aligned schools. Thestudies of ichthyological enthusiasts have alsorevealed much about the remarkable relationshipsexisting between parent fish and their offspring, offish to each other in the food chain, in schools orpods and in cleaner-client associations. Thebitterling emits its eggs through a tube into a mussel,where they are fertilized by the lurking male as themussel feeds. The stickleback simply constructs anest and drives the female into it to deposit eggs.Most mother fish nonchalantly swim off, leaving thecare of the shoal of eggs to the father. The maleTilapia of Indonesia fasts for a fortnight whileincubating the eggs in his mouth. He, like most other

Piscean pops, then carries on with the job of rearingthe small fry until they are able to get along on theirown.

Some fry may belong to one of the several speciesthat act as groomers of larger fish and grow up toenter into a cleaner-client relationship with them. Allfish, especially large fish, acquire wounds, sores,growths and other potentially infectious problems.Cleaner-fish rid their bodies of unwanted bacterialgrowths and many clients obligingly take on adeeper colour so as to show up the sore spots andhelp them on with the job. There is a small wrassewho “goes into a customer’s mouth, works over theteeth and proceeds right down to the gullet until itsclient signifies, by snapping its jaws a few times, thatit is satisfied.” One cleaner off the California coastwas observed to handle three hundred clients in amatter of six hours! There was a veritable line ofimpatient swimmers backed up and waiting theirturn, some slyly sneaking around for a secondscrubbing.

And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.

Job 12: 8

Fascinating as these relations may be, one mightpause to wonder how they bear upon the symbolismassociated with the fish. How do the migration,reproduction and social patterns of fishes relate tothe mystery of the Matsya Avatar, to cycles or theidea found in Buddhism, for instance, wherein

Buddha is called a Fisher of Men? In the GospelAccording to Matthew (4:19), Jesus said to his new-found disciples, “Follow me, and I will make youfishers of men.” Is the Fisher of Men the sameSaviour as the great fish who towed the ark? Is theresomething about the relationship between all fishesin their cycles of generation that points to the natureof this Piscean Saviour, this man-fish, as some havecalled him? Or is it her? For the carp is the emblemof Kwan-Yin, who vowed never to seek salvationbefore all that lives had achieved their deliverance.So closely is her compassion associated with thisbeautiful fish in Japan that the word for love is ahomophone of the word for carp.

Similar to the Buddhists and Christians, the ancientGreeks referred to Orpheus as a Fisher of Men. Hisdisciples, like those of Buddha and Christ, were littlefishes swimming in the waters of life, to be saved byone big fish. The anagram for Christ in primitiveChristianity, (Ichthys), was the Greek for“fish”, which, when spelt out, stood for the epithet “

” (Jesus Christ,Son of God, Saviour). Here the fish takes on a solarsymbolism associated with the soul rising from thewaters of chaotic matter in the Piscean form, whichthe Chaldeans called the Intelligent One, Ea, thefather of Marduk, the purveyor of Soul upon thewaters. The sign of thus relates to all worldreformers. It is the sign of Jonas marking the rebirthof the sun in Pisces, the rising out of the waters of

Oannes, Ea, Quetzalcoatl and other man-fish for theenlightenment of the world. They are like Thjodvitnir’sfish (the sun) which swims in the River Thund (thesky) that surrounds Odin’s Valhalla. Periodically theyemerge from their astral realm of rest to quicken thereflected fire of spirit which lies hidden in the world ofform.

Ea was the man-fish who rose out of the PersianGulf. The Babylonians called the astrological phasefrom Capricorn to Pisces the Field of Ea andbelieved that it was in this sign that man wasinstructed in that which would make him truly human.The earlier Sumerians had associated this idea withthe god Enki of Eridu, the lord of the manifest lowerworld identified with the sea. When officiating at hisritual worship, priests clothed in fish garments werebelieved to have the power of purification andprotection attributed to the god. (Their fishheaddress became the mitre of Christian bishops.)Enki became Ea of the Akkadian texts, whom Greekwriters knew as in Damascius and (Cannes) in Berossus. According to the Greekrecord, men had lived in a lawless and bestialmanner before the flood when Cannes appearedfrom the sea. He had the body of a fish and his feetwere like those of a man subjoined to the tail. Underthe fish’s head he had another, a human head, fromthe mouth of which he spoke as he passed amongmen, teaching them letters, science, arts, geometryand agriculture. It is said that he instructed humanity

by day but retired to the sea by night. Altogether,Cannes made four appearances as a man-fish atintervals of enormous duration (exceeding thirtythousand years) in different reigns of the pre-Diluviankings.

In the Arthurian romance the Fisher King plays asimilar role, and on the path to the Grail the richfisherman caught a fish that satisfied the hunger ofall. Here the man-fish, fisherman and fish overlapand the conception unites what may initially haveappeared as three separate ideas. Seen as onecomplex symbol, the notion of fishing for men can beaddressed in psychological terms, where the bait iscast by the fisherman into the watery depths of his orher innermost nature in order to catch (save) the soul(little fish to be saved by one great fish) which onereally is. The fully conscious Adept is one with thatawakened soul, being fisher, fish and subsequentFisher of Men. Adept-Saviours are essentially solarin nature, bringing to the material darkness of theworld the light of self-realization. But they descendinto the world cyclically, through the cycles of comingand going associated with the tides, the moon andthe reproductive generations in the watery astralrealm. Through the sacrifice of the Logoic light, thepregnant astral realms are penetrated and theimpulse of spiritual awakening reaches the heart ofeven the hardest stone. Through soma, connectingthe highest spirit (cosmically and in man) with theastral nature, consciousness can soar above the

physical and participate in the bliss of heaven.

Enlil saw the eclipse of The hero Sin in Heaven, and The Lord hailed his messenger Nusku. Tidings of my son Sin who in Heaven

has been woefully darkened, Repeat to Ea in the Deep …

The Akkadian Utukke Limnuti

Fish, Sin and soma together make the symbol ofthe Immortal Being. Sin is the moon, which isfearfully eclipsed in the incantation and whoseinfluence is necessary for the life and growth whichcan lead either to enlightenment or to ignorance, eviland the wages of sin. The fish of spiritual involution,swimming downward into the water, curves like thelunar crescent of the waxing moon. It descends intothe astral sea of matter, its bright scales dancingsparks of light throughout the darkness. It swimswithin the soup of life, eats, is eaten, cleans, iscleansed, spawns, dies and lives again. Just so, thesoul descends into matter time and time again. Butthe time comes when the fish begins to undulateupward, curving like the crescent of the waningmoon, splashing forth upon the surface like theRishi’s ark that carried the spawn of spiritual life. Itsupward course was powered by the reflected light ofhighest Spirit, the soma-power coursing through thewhole of Nature, making it one with the fish ofspiritual evolution, the heaven-bound soul. It is fromsuch rich occult symbolism that people have evolved

their notions of sacred meals wherein fish and somaor wine play such key roles.

The man-fish penetrates with the undulating motionof the Logos into the invisible (to most) astral oceanthat anticipates the realm of physical form. There heswims at rest and from there he emerges into thematerial world. He allows himself to become subjectto the waxing and waning cycles of the world whileretaining the powers of transmutation and endlessadaptation so typical of the watery world. In hisperiods of rest, he can take on ideas and shapesour world has never seen. He is the arcanehermaphrodite, who can manifest in totallyunexpected ways. He swims and emerges, living asa compassionate link joining the spiritual with theastral and physical realms. Disciples struggling aslittle fishes go through Piscean cycles over and overagain. Their sixth sense begins to awaken in themnot merely an instantaneous knowledge of a route toescape physical death, but an awareness of theradical unity existing within, between the self which“catches” the soul and the universal Soul symbolizedby the cosmic fish, who tells of the flood and drawsthe essence of life and wisdom safely through to thenext cycle. The tiny sliver of lunar light almosteclipsed between periods of manifestation is theumbilical thread of reflected spirit which never dies.In the darkest depths of the sea its silver curveglistens as it rhythmically undulates along. Whenstruggling disciples learn to follow this path

unerringly, like the little fry their parent, they will haveconquered the astral realm and learnt to use it as ameans of further propulsion. They will have come torealize the sacrificial nature of the immortal soul’spath within their own heart and they will aspire tobecome Fishers of Men, to rise up out of the depthsand become part of that sacred school which swimsin the wake of the Avatar. Suffer little fishesFloundered out at sea,Sharks and deadly wishesHave made a meal of thee.Strike your finny courseUp Ganga’s sacred aisleAnd come onto the sourceThat gave Meenakshi’s smile.

Hermes, November 1986

THE DOLPHIN As I first in the dark sea springIn dolphin form onto the swift ship, soPray to me as Delphinius; whilst this altarShall ever be the Delphi altar, seen from afar.

Hymn to Apollo, Homer

From one end of the Mediterranean to the other,the haunting story of a boy on a dolphin has coursedand eddied, repeatedly to surface and be told onceagain. Always it is tinged with sadness. There is anecho of a poignant longing for love and trust and amerging with pure joyful power. They say that duringthe reign of Augustus a dolphin living near Naples fellin love with a poor schoolboy. Each day the ladwould call to his friend and the dolphin would carryhim across the bay to school. There came a daywhen the boy was mortally stricken with disease andcould come no more. The dolphin returned daily totheir meeting place, like a mourner at the graveside,until he too weakened, ceased to frolic around thebay and finally died. From his death sprang morethan sadness, for it was caused by marvellousaffection which is the more memorable sentiment.Perhaps for this reason the story was oftenrepeated, based on events recorded by many a

sober classical observer. At Naupactus,Amphilochus, Hippo, and down the Helladic seas tothe Nile Delta, the beautiful friendship of a youth anda dolphin has been celebrated in poetry and song.Sweet-sad lyrics tell of the boy from Iasus calledHermias, who rode a dolphin on the open seas.Struck by a sudden storm, the boy died whilstclinging to its back, and the dolphin carried him upon the shore, where he expired by the side of hisdead friend. People came and marvelled. Theywondered at the bond that could inspire suchsacrifice, which humans know is rare to find amongstthemselves. The Greeks have a song expressingthis wonder which asks, “What is this that they calllove, what is this? Is it laughter, joy or pain? I don’tknow what it is, but I love.”

Mariners of the Mediterranean echo descriptions ofthe exuberant dolphin offered by sailors all over theworld. They tell of how the dolphins play constantlyaround the bow of their ships, sometimes for hourson end. They rise very close alongside to breathe,making a half-snorting sigh, only to dive and tumbleonce again. They will glide six feet under the surface,using the large waves pushed up by the Meltemiwinds as a sea toboggan. Or they will surf-ride downthe Aegean with their noses protruding through thecrests of the water. Being the swiftest of marineanimals, they are all the more capable of helpingthose in need, and since very ancient times thedolphin has been seen as a guide and even a

saviour of men. The dolphin is quick to help but doesso with discrimination, and when its form is linkedwith that of an anchor, a symbol of arrested speed isindicated. The dolphin moves quickly but wisely. Ithastens slowly. In the great expanses of wateraround this globe, dolphins have located men introuble and saved their lives. One such was said tohave saved Telemachus when he fell into the sea,causing Odysseus to choose a smiling dolphin as ashield design. The shield of Aeneas bore two silverdolphins for good fortune. Opposite each other, theyare like those rendered in mosaic at Antioch, wherethey flank the goddess Thalassa like rudders, guidesto lead on the prow of the ship across the unknowndangers of the abyss.

In the ancient world the dolphin was the guide tosouls in the underworld, the saviour of theshipwrecked. The earliest Christians believed thisand used the symbol of the dolphin with ship oranchor to indicate the idea of the church guided byChrist. Their identification of the dolphin with Christwent even further in that iconography which depictedthe crucifixion of a dolphin pierced by a trident. Butthe beauty of the pagan guide who loved and died,who saved the hero and foretold the storm - this isthe dolphin symbol that lives deep in the hearts ofpoets and those whose minds are unbounded bytime. The ancient longing that wells up behind eyeslooking through walls and surroundings, throughcenturies to the mysterious grottoes of a more vital

innocence, finds this dolphin. In his sonnet “ToHomer”, the words of Keats reach back to lightlytouch upon that archaic reality:

Standing aloof in quiet ignorance,Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,As one who sits ashore and longs perchanceTo visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.

Aphrodite was commonly associated with thedolphin throughout the Mediterranean world. As theNabataean goddess Atargatis, she was theharbinger of good fortune and safe passage in thesea and in the after-life. Like her counterpartAphrodisias, her long hair coiled around twodolphins who gracefully sprang from her head. Anattribute of Isis is the dolphin, and Thetis wasdepicted riding naked upon one’s back. This modeof divine transport was not unknown to “the Womanof the Sea”, for in Tunis there is a lovely Aphroditewho, with her long sky-veil billowing out behind her,is tranquilly seated on a flying dolphin. As apictographic seal, the dolphin appeared in Cretethree thousand five hundred years before theChristian era, and the Minoan kings decorated theirthrone rooms with their ultramarine grace. Thisassociation with power was echoed by the medievalcounts of Daufine, who used a dolphin design ontheir armour and gave their name (Daufin) to the heirapparent of the throne of France. The good fortuneassociated with dolphins passed through countlesstransactions within the Hellenic world in the form ofcoins stamped with their plunging shape. More than

forty Greek cities issued such coins, whilsteverywhere vases, metal work, engravings andstucco floors were fashioned to display this mostauspicious motif. From as far off as Russia andEgypt, statues of Eros riding a dolphin have beenfound, and the soil of ancient Carthage has yielded amysterious figure holding a caduceus whilst standingupon a dolphin.

The dolphin guides and it carries. Perhaps themost famous classical incident in which a dolphinapparently saved a man was recorded byHerodotus. He tells of the tyrant Periander who keptcourt at Corinth around 600 B.C. In its porticoesArion of Methymna played his lyre and gained fameas a musician and composer. At one point Ariontravelled to Sicily and made great profit from histalents before returning home to Corinth. The sailorscarrying him intended to take his wealth and throwhim overboard. Although he begged them to take hismoney and spare his life, they refused and permittedhim only to sit in his full costume upon the prow whilstsinging the Orthian before he died. It is believed thatthe sweetness of his voice was responsible forattracting the dolphin. Whatever the cause, his capehad not yet sunk beneath the brine before he wascarried up in a surge of awesome force andpropelled at great speed to Cape Taenarum. Fromthere he made his way back to Corinth to await thesailors who thought he was dead.

Two dolphins facing in opposite directions

symbolize the dual cosmic streams of involution andevolution. This seems to be borne out by the strongsolar and lunar characteristics which coexist in thesymbolism connected with the dolphin. Closelyassociated with Apollo, the dolphin was believed toguide souls to their enlightenment. The Greek worddelphis (dolphin) is related to delphys, which means“womb” and stands for the feminine principle. Thiswas reflected in the relationship between the dolphinand many of the Mediterranean goddesses, and yetthe dolphin was also an attribute of Poseidon andintimately associated with Dionysus. There is abeautiful cup from the early classical perioddesigned by Exekias, who painted the godly figureof Dionysus resting upon a ship which itself lookslike a dolphin. Growing around its mast is a tree withfruit and leaves hanging over the sail, and around theship dolphins swim. This masterpiece depicts theattempted abduction of the god by sailors who wereturned into dolphins for their pains, which no doubtbears a deeper symbolic meaning. It is said that theGreek myths explaining the origin of the dolphin areall related to Dionysus, and the cycle of death andrebirth has been likened to the diving and leapingdolphin coursing its way across the watery abyss.

Apollo is also a dolphin deity. Is he not calledApollo Delphinius? Legend has it that when Apollohad completed his temple near Mount Parnassus, heneeded suitable priests. Spying some Cretans in aship bound for Pylos, the great sun god leapt into the

sea in the form of a dolphin and thence into thehollow of their vessel. Too large to throw overboard,the dolphin lay there, and the sailors were driven byforces beyond their control into the Gulf of Corinthand finally that of Krisa. There, as a beautiful youth,Apollo revealed himself to them and appointed themholy servants of his temple. He bade them worshiphim under the title Delphinius (Dolphin-Hke), and thesite of the shrine, formerly called Pytho, took on theimmortal name of Delphi. As the deity guides the sunacross the heavenly ocean in his golden vehicle, thedolphin leads the ship of men across the blue inwatery form, and at Delphi the two meet. From theilluminated marble of Apollo’s temple, the dawnreaches down and touches the slumbering depths ofthe sea cleft by the arc of a dolphin’s curve. Soclose, they are the complement of each other, oneabove, one below.

Dolphins have large brains.Possibly they will somedayBe able to teach us whatBrains are for.

Ashley Montague

Similar to the abducting sailors who were turnedinto dolphins was the plight of Pharaoh’s forces asthey pursued the Israelites into the Red Sea. Theidea of a man-fish, so revered in many religioustraditions, is marvellously demonstrated in thedolphin. Whether people have thought that he wasonce a man or that man was once a dolphin, there isno more intelligent mammal in the ocean, and, some

would argue, on land as well. Most dolphins inhabitthe seas, but some, like the Ganges dolphin, live inrivers sometimes many miles from the sea. TheBrahmaputra, Indus and Ganges join the Amazon,Nile, Yangtze Kiang and other great rivers in hostingthis graceful sojourner. The common dolphin(Delphinus delphis) can reach a length of nine feetin the open seas and is distinguished from thebottle-nosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and thebeakless porpoise by its well defined narrow beak.The dolphins painted by Exekias on the Dionysiancup are a good example of this type, whilst sculptorsof the Roman and medieval periods tended to favourthe bottle-nosed dolphin, which grows to a length oftwelve feet or more. Such awesome size seemsmore within familiar human proportions when onelearns that dolphins have a ten-month gestationperiod, give birth as a normal mammal, and suckletheir young for an eighteen-month period. Of coursethis proportion reaches beyond the human rangewhen one notices that the new-born is three feet longand weighs twenty-five pounds, yet the loving careand discipline shown by the dolphin mother to heroffspring is a model for human conduct. Dolphinshave a highly cooperative social network whereinthey help each other to fish and achieve safety, andthey will go to great lengths to protect a wounded orsick comrade. Since ancient times, in the Pacificand Mediterranean worlds, stories have persistedwhich describe how sometimes one or severaldolphins gave up their lives to remain with a stricken

fellow. When efforts are made to save healthyanimals stranded on a beach, they refuse to berescued and turn back to die with their injured friend.

It has often been suggested that the irresistible wailof the sirens which Odysseus heard whilst he wassafely tied to the mast of his ship was really the songof dolphins. When they depicted the scene, theancient Greeks showed the sailors with their earsplugged, their master bound fast, and dolphinsleaping and gambolling around the boat. Perhapsthe plaintive sounds of the dolphin lure one backthrough the abyssal past to a primordial mode ofcommunication which flies in the face of separativeconsciousness. This could be seen as a threat to theindividuating hero who must seize reason as ameans of knowing and can no longer move as onewith the currents of life. But the irrational force ofDionysus claims the dolphin equally with theApollonian force of the rational, and the immenseauditory specialization represented in dolphins isaccompanied by a very high degree ofdiscriminative intelligence.

Whilst the eye, which is strongly related to humanpowers of discrimination, is well developed in thedolphin, its outstanding characteristic is a profoundaudio sensitivity to changes in signal amplitude orfrequency. The evolution of their hearing and sound-producing systems have involved new mechanismsas well as modifications of those possessed by theirterrestrial ancestor. The entire peripheral respiratory

system has been modified to facilitate soundproduction. Clicks and whistles are producedsimultaneously and in extremely close proximity witheach other and still have different beam patterns. Allof these can be understood either by the dolphinusing sound for echo location purposes (a minutelydetailed check of its environment), or by manydolphins who carry on complex communication whilstswimming in groups. In the Black Sea, dolphinscommune in whistles, each one having a unique toneand contributing to an underwater chorus ofenormous variety. The bottle-nosed dolphin isexceptionally adept at learning and rememberingsounds heard. They can also recognize variants ofduration and frequency as derivative forms. It is thisinclination that has inspired many to feel that thedolphin might well be capable of learning animposed language. But as one observer has pointedout, why should a language be imposed upon thisremarkable animal? Is it not perhaps more fruitfulthat we attempt to learn the meaning of its own? It isamusing to think that the intelligent “tricks” whichmen have taught dolphins to perform might beindulged in by them in a spirit of cheerfulcompassion.

Pliny the Elder told of how dolphins helpedfishermen in classical times, mentioning that it wascalled “fishing for share”. To this day, the practicecontinues in rivers and in the open sea. Fishermenof the Sporades catch garfish in the darkest nights of

October with flares which initially attract them,whereupon the dolphins drive the fish into the net. Inthe Tapajoz and Irrawaddy rivers, dolphins push fishinto the net, the latter being particularly revered byBurmese fishermen, each riverside village having itsguardian dolphin. The dolphins of the Tapajoz canbe called by Brazilian Indians with a humming tuneand a knocking on the side of their canoe. Off thecoast of New Zealand and Queensland, mullet werecaught in a similar way. The Aborigines of Australiasay that they used to call the individual dolphins byname and that they would respond to a peculiarsplashing in the water made with their spears.Coming to them from beyond the waves, the dolphinwould drive the mullet into nets thrown out over rockyinlets.

Man tends to think of intelligence in terms ofmanipulating things. Dolphins cannot do this, but intheir response to the needs and desires of man theyreveal an intelligence of such subtlety that people areeither awed or made sceptical. One way to clear theair is with a bit of humour, a method freely used byAesop, who wrote of the dolphin that rescued amonkey after a ship went down. ApproachingPiraeus, the dolphin asked the monkey if he were anAthenian. “Oh yes,” the monkey replied, “and fromone of the best families.” “Then you know Piraeus?”asked the dolphin.

Whereupon the monkey replied, “Very well indeed,he’s one of my best friends.” The dolphin was

outraged with so gross a deceit and promptly took adeep dive, leaving the clever-by-half monkey to hisfate. Many would argue that moral outrage was notwithin the scope of the dolphin and that, thoughclever-seeming, its acts towards man are merely theresult of playfulness and curiosity. There persist,however, well documented cases of people whohave been saved by dolphins at sea, including that ofone woman who had fallen overboard at night in theCaribbean and was “nudged” by a dolphin awayfrom strong currents and towards the shore. Duringthe Second World War, many stories about dolphinrescues circulated in the Pacific. In one incident, sixAmerican airmen had been shot down and wereafloat in a small rubber raft. A dolphin appeared andpushed them steadily through the open sea until theyreached land. Unfortunately, they quickly discoveredthe island to be occupied by the Japanese, apolitical distinction beyond the discrimination of thealtruistic dolphin.

The dolphin cannot display its intelligence bymanipulating things, but with echo location he gainsfar more knowledge of his environment than one mayimagine. The intelligence of a dolphin is lonely,almost disembodied. He floats in a watery worldwithout the stimulus of agile, exploring fingers thatcan alter and formulate the surroundings. Yet in thatfloating world he has developed an intelligence of avery high order. Once a land mammal long agesago, the dolphin returned to the sea where his large

and highly convoluted brain slowly evolved. To quotethe poetic words of Loren Eiseley, “It is as thoughboth man and dolphin were each part of some greateye which yearned to look both outward on eternityand inward to the sea’s heart.”

There is indeed a special and profoundly movingkinship between mankind and the dolphin, as thoughthey represent two specialized aspects of one self.Herman Melville expressed something of this whenhe wrote:

Their appearance is generally hailed with delight by themariner. Full of fine spirits, they invariably come from thebreezy billows to windward. They are the lads that alwayslive before the wind. They are accounted a lucky omen. If youcan withstand three cheers at beholding these vivaciousfish, then heaven help ye.

Always men have worked the sea with the dolphinas friend. Because he is an intelligent and altruisticpartner, men have fished with him for the share. It isextremely difficult to understand how any fishingindustry could, out of a greed which calls itselfnecessity, enter into an aggressive anddehumanizing competition with this old friend. In thesecond century Oppian, a Greek of Cilicia, warned:

The hunting of dolphins is immoral and that man can nomore draw nigh the gods as a welcome sacrificer nor touchtheir altars with clean hands but pollutes those who sharethe same roof with him, whoso willingly devises destructionfor dolphins. For equally with human slaughter the godsabhor the deathly doom of the monarchs of the deep; for likethoughts with men have the attendants of the god of thebooming sea; wherefore also they practise love of theiroffspring and are very friendly to one another.

Poseidon of the booming sea holds a dolphin in hisright hand as his vehicle and yet it is one with him,esoterically. Some say that Poseidon became adolphin in order to win his consort Amphitrite, whilstothers have believed that the dolphin acted asmessenger. For this favour Poseidon placed himamongst the immortals in heaven, where asDelphinus he lies east of Aquila on the edge of theMilky Way, occupying that portion of the sky thatAratus called the Water. This act of bringing thereluctant Amphitrite and Poseidon together is nodoubt linked up with the frequent association of Eros(or Cupid) with the dolphin, and an importantconsequence of this was the birth of their son, Triton.

Above the waist Triton was a man, whilst below hehad the form of a dolphin, a combination that linkshim with the idea of Cannes the man-fish as well asthe Hindu notion of Vishnu-Matsya. These wereTeachers of wisdom to mortals, and in the aspect ofMatsya there lies a powerful example of the fish-dolphin acting as guide. Triton too assisted thetransfer of human life from one age to the next at thetime of the Great Deluge. Exercising control over thewaters, he also acted to preserve the solar spark ofwisdom culled out of a vast period of evolution. Withthe power of sound he allayed the rising waters. Withhis conch shell he blew a note that filled the deeparound the world.

Thus the dolphin is instrumental in bringing aboutthe birth of the man-fish, the saviour, and in a very

real sense is itself a saviour. In the Hindu traditionthe dolphin is identified with the tenth sign of thezodiac, which is Capricorn or Makara, the vahan ofVaruna-Poseidon. The stars making up thisconstellation were merged by ancient seers in orderto signify the meeting of water and air upon earth.This is the occult meaning of the man-fish/goat-fishassociated with the mirror of mind. In this way,Makara can be seen as the vahan of the UniversalEncompasser (Varuna-Poseidon), who fell into timeand generation. The man-fish is linked to the Fall, butout of the chaos of the sea, it is said, the dragons willmanifest their fruits. Clearly then, the dolphinexemplifies, as a symbol and as a living creature, agreat primitive sacrifice. In this way it is linked to thefive pristine Yogis called the Kumaras and tospiritual microcosmic birth. The Secret Doctrinesuggests that these Kumaras are of the fifth order ofBrahmadevas and have the soul of the five elementsin them, with water and ether predominating.Because of this, their symbols were both aquaticand fiery. They are linked to the Prachetasas (thefive Ministers) who worship Narayana and whosemother is the Daughter of the Ocean (Savarna-Amphitrite). In this way, they symbolize both the lunardolphin vehicle and the manifest wisdom embodiedin the solar man-fish.

With this fusion, Apollo and Dionysus are broughttogether. Like two dolphins circling around eachother, each facing the opposite direction, like

revolving teardrops in a yin-yang pattern, the twogods alternately represent involution and evolution.Both are so closely associated with the dolphin thatthe characterization of either as exclusively rationalor irrational seems overdrawn. Rather, one mightperceive a necessary blending of Buddhi andManas suggested in their shared affiliation. Apollotakes on the guise of a dolphin to make priests ofmen. Dionysus rides upon a dolphin-ship andscatters those who were blind to the spiritual backinto the form of the Sacrificing Ones who entered thewater of the mother long ago. By this compassionateact the great god of the Mysteries afforded suchpersons a chance to experience a pure and selflessintelligence which is less involved in manipulating anenvironment than in intimately relating to it. Throughhearing and producing sound, they would respond tothe most minute aspects of a swirling, watery matrixin which a vast spectrum of tones endlesslyresounded. Perhaps then, as dolphins, they mightexperience and mirror the wisdom embodied in thevirgin Akasha which echoes throughout the heavenlyocean. As dolphins they will leap with the joy ofhearing these celestial sounds and attempt, even atthe risk of their lives, to share this with their humanbrethren. On the edge of the oceanWhere the waves become sky,The boy rides on the dolphin,

They leap, they dance, they fly!A sun splashing across the world.

Hermes, October 1981

THE WHALE There LeviathanHugest of living creatures, on the deepStretch’d like a promontory sleeps or swims.And seems a moving land, and at his gillsDraws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.

John Milton

Black clouds scudding in tendrilled bands beforean alabaster moon, phosphorescent tracksscintillating over the inky deep, and a great darkshape looms out of the waves to starboard bow. Agreat dark shape arches like a gliding island on thesea, only to disappear silently into a world unknownto those destined merely to skim its surface and preyupon the outward forms of its mystery. Long furrowscurl away from the iridescence of the leviathan’swake, ploughing to the edge of the visible world,carrying along the dreaming eye of the watcher onthe bow. If he is a mariner of imagination, whosesense of wonder has not been dissipated in thenoise of idle chatter, he may feel himself drawn inmind and soul along the troughs of that wake. Hemay shiver with the oncoming rush of the sea as,communing thus with the whale, he is enclosed by itscold darkness and sinks into its depths. Or he may

remain in consciousness at his watch and ponderthe true nature of this largest of all living creatures,who slips through the world’s oceans so effortlesslyand swims so deeply through its hidden places. In afloating kingdom of darkness where forms appearonly momentarily on the lip of chaos, the whale is athome, with a form so great as to suggest the swirlingformlessness in which it bathes, consumes andspews forth. It is a symbol of the deep itself, of theworld encompassed by chaos wherein life meets itsdissolution in death.

The idea of the whale as “the Encompasser”, asymbol of the world and the grave, is a complexnotion linking multiple meanings associated withdeath, initiation and rebirth as well as a more vagueconception of dread and evil. Watching the great,dark curve of its only partially revealed immensity, amariner or even a casual sojourner upon the deepmay indeed experience intimations of all theseconditions. This would not be surprising if oneconceded that somewhere in the depth of the humanpsyche lies an awareness of the regenerative powerof the ocean and its sidereal archetype, the “water”of cosmic space. The notion of an engulfing grave ismerely the other side of the same coin, symbolicallyrendering the belly of the whale as the place of deathand rebirth, whilst the emergence from its mouthsignifies initiation and resurrection. The biblical taleof Jonah, and the old story conveying how aswallowed hero built a fire in the belly of a whale in

order to cause it to spew him out, are examples ofthis. That the latter story is found in traditions aswidespread as the Indo-European and thePolynesian suggests a very old and complex patternof ideas shared in the collective consciousness ofthe human race.

In the Semitic tradition Jonah was the fifth of thelesser prophets of Israel, going back to around theeighth century B.C. In seeking to avoid the Lord’scommand that he tell the people of Nineveh that theircity was to be destroyed, Jonah sailed off on amerchant ship. A storm arose, threatening thevessel, and Jonah, thinking it a divine chastisementfor his disobedience, advised the crew to savethemselves by throwing him overboard. It was whenthey finally consented to do this that Jonah wasswallowed by the whale, in whose stomach heresided for three days before being vomited up ontoa beach. Instead of stressing the importance of thewhale in relation to the three days of initiation,Christian tradition has tended to focus almostentirely upon its monstrous and fearful aspects. Theidea of the abyss or of chaos being full of potentialregeneration gradually became replaced by a deep-seated dread of dissolution, loss of form and loss ofidentity. As the agent of chaos in this physicallizedsense, the whale came to be seen as a monster tobe struggled against, escaped from or vanquished.

From the depths of the sea came whales like islands, andthe hideous Leviathans rising up on the sand withcrocodiles twenty cubits in length. Man is before the sea like

crocodiles twenty cubits in length. Man is before the sea likea child before a Leviathan’s lair.

Old Testament

In its guise of sea monster, huge ship or even thedevil whose jaws form the gates of hell, the leviathanpersisted in its character of container andencompasser. Its identification with the crocodileresulted from an awkwardness in the translation ofthe idea of Makara or the goat-fish into some sort ofrecognizable animal. Egyptian lore contributed tothis confusion with its reference to scaly features andother characteristics associated with dragons, butthe central identity of the leviathan lies in thecombined attributes of a land-going but aquaticcreature, a mammal of the sea who symbolicallyspans the terrestrial and watery astral realms. Thusthe sea gods Poseidon and Neptune had as theirvehicle a giant dolphin, a member of the samecetacean family as the whale. In the ancient Vedictradition the god of the waters was Varuna, the Lordof the Laws of Nature, who established the heavensand the earths which dwell within him. His name,coming from the Sanskrit root var, means “to cover”or “encompass”, and his vahan is identified withMakara, the goat-fish, or a counterpart to thecetacean vehicle of the Mediterranean and oceanicworlds. Varuna himself, however, is much more thana counterpart to the Graeco-Roman marine gods, forhe is the oldest of Vedic deities and reigns over theWaters of Space or Akasha. In his role of ruler andcontainer of worlds, Varuna is well represented in

the symbolism of the whale, who, like the deity,encompasses the terrestrial and celestial, death andregeneration, within its vast form. While the whale(like the dolphin) can be associated with thegeneration of gods who overbrood the world’soceans, it also possesses an essential nature whichis directly expressive of a loftier deity, Varuna.

He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think thedeep to be hoary.

Job 41:32

In the Hellenic tradition the true counterpart toVaruna is Ouranos who, like the older Vedic god,was degraded and caused to fall into generation.For Varuna, this fall involved an impartation of themysteries to the sage Vasishtha, a positive-seemingresult. But Varuna-Ouranos strove to confine his“children” by Aditi-Gaia as they were born so as toforestall generation. Aditi, however, is rightly calledthe Devamatri, from whose cosmic matrix all thesuns and planets of our system were made manifest.Hesiod’s Theogony tells us how Ouranos (Varuna)personifies all the creative powers in and of chaos,which eventually enabled the ancestral spirits of thehuman race to evolve primordial men fromthemselves. This potential power was precipitatedinto the realm of expression by Kronos, whomutilated his father, cutting away a part of him fromthe whole and thus initiating generation in time. Insuffering this, Ouranos was rendered apparentlyimpotent in time and relegated to a cosmic rulership

whose effects are difficult to trace in the sequentialrealm of the manifest world. In the Vedic tradition theattributes ascribed to Varuna impart to his charactera moral elevation and sanctity far surpassing thatattributed to any other Vedic deity. Nonetheless, hetoo suffered a progressive displacement in theminds of later races and was relegated to a relativelyimpotent and rather vague upper strata of Hindutheogony, much like the Greek Ouranos whosename simply means “sky”.

The mysteries of Varuna-Ouranos are morecomplex than these simple ideas would indicate andcan be related in a powerfully suggestive manner tothe little-known planet which came to be called(almost by accident) Uranus. Before attempting toinvestigate such correspondences, it is of primaryimportance to examine more closely the animalwhose nature and symbolism link them all togetherand who, in its own right, remains for man largely amystery. For centuries the Greeks called the whaleby the name of (ketos), which bears referenceboth to a sea monster and to the abyss or chaos inwhich it swims. Aristotle accurately described it as aviviparous, lung-possessing mammal, which drilyrational observation did not dissuade centuries ofwriters from persisting in referring to the whale as afish. At the beginning of the Christian era Plinydescribed the Physeter (whirlpool) that rose up like acolumn higher than the sails of ships and spoutedwater to sink them. He also noted the balaenas who

came along the coast of Spain to breed. Centurieslater the Norwegian Kongespeiler in A.D. 1250depicted how sailors were afraid of the NorthAtlantic right whale, and a contemporary document,the Speculum Regale, described killer whales nearIceland which had teeth like dogs, peaceful baleenwhales and fierce sperm and narwhals. Early Nordicsailors would not mention their names at sea for fearof danger and deprived anyone who did of food,even though they recognized as friends the baleenwhales who drove the herring into the fishermen’snets.

The term “whale” bears no relation to the Greekketos, which is the source of the generic zoologicalname of Cetus. It conies instead from the Old Norsehvalr, which is an etymological relation of both“wheel” and “to wallow”. In the Old High German itbecame wal and in Old English hwael, referring moreto the circular motion of its arching and rollingprogress through the sea than to its monstrous size.Unknown to even the oldest of these latter-daynamers, the earliest cetaceans, which developedeventually into the toothed whales and dolphins, orOdontocetes, evolved nearly forty-five million yearsago during the Eocene epoch. Out of this lineemerged the Archaeocetes who, twenty-five millionyears ago, sported a ball and socket joint wherebythe femur articulated with the pelvis and may havepossessed tibia vestiges as well, pointing clearly toan earlier terrestrial development. This is borne out

in various ways by the characteristics of the modernwhale, the Odontocetes finding their nearestrelatives among mammalian carnivores, theMysticetes (baleen whales) finding theirs among theeven-toed ungulates such as the cow, the sheep andthe camel, whose blood protein structure they share.Interestingly, the foetuses of Mysticetes often haveteeth which disappear with the appearance of thebaleen. In the embryo stage the rudimentary hindlegs of all whales are initially apparent, as are thenostrils at the end of the nose which graduallymigrate to the top of the head. The embryonicflippers develop like normal mammal limbs with awrist and five fingers. The wrist disappears as thefoetus grows and the digits become encased in astiff but elastic integument, with the joint at theshoulder its only movable part.

Like carnivores on land, the Odontocetes huntlarger prey, one at a time, while the Mysticetes feedwholesale from shallow level pastures, using two orthree hundred flat plates set around the edge of theupper jaw and hanging from it like an enormous,hairy screen measuring, in some cases, thirteen feetin length. A great “field” of krill (plankton) will beplowed through by the baleen whale, who simplydrops its lower jaw, opening a screened cavecapable of trapping enormous masses of food at atime. To obtain even a crude idea of the size ofwhales, one might bear in mind that the blue whale,measuring one hundred feet in length, will weigh an

amount equivalent to four brontosauruses or thirtyelephants or two hundred cows - that is to say, onehundred and thirty tons. Such large whales aresimply the biggest by far of all the animals that haveever lived on this planet. An elephant weighing threeto six tons would balance in a scale with the tongueof some Cetis, while the humpback whale swimmingin warm Bermudan waters regularly gives a free rideto over a thousand pounds of barnacles and otherparasites clustered on its head and sides.Nineteenth-century sperm whales were recorded atup to ninety-three feet with jawbones twenty-threefeet long. The sight of such an aroused masschurning across the waves at a good twenty knotsmust have been terrifying indeed, especially when,because of being hunted so intensively, they weresometimes goaded into dramatically aggressivebehaviour.

When the baleen whale lowers its underjaw whileswimming through a shoal of krill, the pleated cropwhich covers half the length of its underbelly swellsout as several tons of water are taken in. When thecrop contracts, the solid food remains caught in thebaleen strainer while the floods of water are ejectedout of the whale’s mouth. The whale then swallowsthe krill whole, taking it into the first of threestomachs, where it will join several tons of foodtaken in during the months spent in twenty-four-hourgrazing near the Arctic or Antarctic seas. All whalesswallow their food whole, even the Odontocetes,

who use their teeth only to seize their prey. There isno chewing or biting - just a gulp. Whether vast seasof small shrimp-sized animals or a giant squid fortyfeet long taken by a sperm whale at the end of aterrible struggle thirty-five hundred feet beneath thesurface of the deep, all the whale’s food isswallowed whole. Offering remarkable evidence ofthis, and of the killer whale’s voracious appetite,were the contents found in the stomach of a twenty-four-foot killer, which included the adult carcasses ofthirteen porpoises and fourteen seals. Had theygone through the entire digestive cycle they wouldhave been pulverized by the powerful muscular wallof the first stomach (or second, in the case of theMysticetes) and passed on, finally, to the last, wherethe digestive juices do their work prior to elimination.A poignant example of swallowed evidence wasfound in the shape of a man who, in 1947, fell intothe sea only to be swallowed by a large spermwhale. Like Jonah, he was not chewed up, but he didnot manage to emerge alive after three days. Hischest was crushed and it was thought that he hadprobably died even as he was swallowed.

The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the mainpipe of the water works at London Bridge, and the waterroaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetusand velocity to the blood gushing from the whale’s heart.

Natural Theology, William Paley

Some years ago two bold men, breathing a mixtureof helium and oxygen in the hope of preventing

bends, descended one thousand feet in a diving bellnear an island off the California coast. Down theywent to the greatest depth ever attempted withoutprotective diving suits. When the bell was hoisted up,one man revived to tell what he knew of the story.The other was dying. The sperm whale, diving thirty-five hundred feet or more, experiences much greaterpressures but possesses (along with other whales) aremarkably complex circulatory system whichensures pressurization of all the vital parts. Thewhale’s retia mirabilia (“wondrous network”), theparts of the vascular system subdivided intoplexuses of vessels, are remarkable for theirprofusion. Typically, a whale comes to the surface ina quick succession of blowing and inhaling, withshallow dives in between before diving deeply. It canremain under water for up to a half hour (up to twohours in the case of the sperm whale). It is believedthat oxygen is stored in the myoglobin within themuscles (which function anaerobically during thedive), while the retia mirabilia act as a shuntensuring that the brain is adequately supplied duringthe whole period of submergence. If one couldimagine an immeasurably vast body encompassingthe world from its airy heights to its watery depths,having complete communication to and from allpoints, one would of necessity construct in the mindan analogous wondrous network capable ofregulating and diffusing the life-giving fluid on a scaleunparalleled in lesser forms. In the whale this is writsmall, and yet in so great and complex a design as

to powerfully suggest the larger idea and lendcredence to the feeling man has often had that thewhale is somehow connected with another world,that its behaviour and intelligence cannot beexplained in simple evolutionary terms.

The great sperm whales with their calls, thebaleens with their trills (the low frequencies enablingthe location of food, the high for communication), allmanifest a lively display of intelligence not yetunderstood by man. Recording around sixty toseventy-five feet below the surface off Bermuda, atechnician found that early in the evening there wereonly a few sounds, as the humpbacks seemed to beslowly tuning up. Then one began to “sing” and sooncreaking and mews and whoops filled the water allaround, a polyphonic choir of sounds. One nightseveral whales surfaced near the sound technician’ssmall boat. They watched him as he sat in the darkwith his lights and wires and dials. They came veryclose and began to make little squeaking noises,like mice. The technician became convinced theywere talking about him. Alternating voices certainlydo suggest some sort of talking, as does thediversity of modulation recorded during theseremarkable sessions. Sometimes there was a groupsounding like children reciting a lesson, but the littlemouse squeaks were heard again when the whalesdiscovered the main boat of the expedition and othersmall craft associated with it. Their curiosity broughtthem back continually, but when a little calf began

affectionately rubbing itself against the side of themain boat, its mother smartly pushed it away,spanking it with her flippers several times.

Unlike primates and even certain birds whosometimes use rudimentary tools to capture food,whales have not been thought to manipulate any sortof extension of their mouths or flippers to achievesuch ends. But huge finbacks visiting along theMexican coast surrounded a motorboat advancingslowly into a lagoon. They escorted it on both sidesuntil the water in front of them began to boil withshoals of tiny fish, and it became apparent that thefinbacks were using the sound of the boat’s engineto round them up! The men in the boat had arrivedthere not more than twenty minutes before and werethus almost immediately put to work by these eighty-five-foot managers. Possessing marvellous hearingwhich picks up a very great range of sounds,including ultrasonic vibrations measured up to onehundred and fifty-three kilocycles (as compared tothe human range, which falls between fifteen andtwenty kilocycles), the whale experiences andexpresses much of its intelligence through thissense. This would appear to be a developmentcompensating for its poor senses of smell and sight,though it does have an excellent sense of taste andenjoys touching and rubbing. More than one whale-lover has been delighted by the presentation at theside of their vessel of a friendly, if monstrous, nosewhich invited patting and stroking of its barnacle-

encrusted surface.Though near-sighted (except for killer whales who

have good vision), the whale’s eyes are beautifuland full of life. Because of their blind spot they arecareful of a diver in the water in front of them,becoming aware of him through the use of theirpowers of sonar. Those few divers who have actuallydared to swim around and alongside a whale in thesea have remarked about its eyes, saying that “thelook that a whale gives you is very different from thatof a shark. A shark only glances at you. It passeswith the appearance of not having seen you at all.But the whale’s look is quite open. He doesn’t lookat you out of the corner of his eye.” Though a manswimming around a whale would be like a fly buzzingaround a man, slightly annoying perhaps, still whalesare interested and watch divers. One diver offBermuda said that a particular humpback came tovisit him regularly while he was working on a certainjob. But when they wish, they can lose a diver in tenseconds by one swish of the tail or dive straightdown and vanish in a wink. No one yet understandsenough about the behaviour of whales, or thecomplexities of their powers of intelligence andcommunication, to be able to predict when or whythey will do such things. The more predictablepatterns have to do with conception, birth and growthcycles and the vast migrations made by pods orschools of various species each year. Californiagray whales follow a route of five thousand miles,

extending from the Bering Straits, where they feedon vast shoals of krill during the summer, to thelagoons along the Baja California peninsula, wherethey gather in the thousands to give birth or to matein alternating years. The nineteenth and twentiethcenturies witnessed the decimation of the greatschools of Greenland and Biscayan right whales inthe Atlantic and the extinction of the gray whaleswhich used to migrate on the western side of thePacific from Kamchatka to the South China Sea. Asa result of ruthless whaling methods, other specieshave been extinguished or endangered, but themigration trails continue to be followed by thesurvivors in marvellously regular lines, those in theNorthern Hemisphere travelling from the Arctic to theequator and back, those in the Southern following asimilar course in reverse.

There seem to be two basic populations of baleenwhales belonging to each hemisphere, with minimalmixing between them around the equatorial belt ofthe globe. Sperm whales and other Odontocetesseem to travel more ubiquitously from forty degreesNorth to forty degrees South, with occasionallyaggressive older sperm bulls roaming about on theirown for years. Mysticetes, like the gray whale, havelasting ties, the mother being assisted at birth by an“auntie” who helps mind the calf well into its maturity.The act of mating for these enormous animals, beingextremely difficult, also elicits assistance. Graysregularly move in pods of three (or multiples of

three), so that while one male attempts to couplewith his mate, a second lies across them in an effortto stabilize their buoyant, rolling bodies. Those whohave witnessed this strangely moving spectaclehave been deeply touched and sometimesentertained by frolicking dolphins who seem to takespecial joy in the occasion. Of no lesser joy, ofcourse, is the birth of a fifteen- to twenty-ton infantwho is flippered aloft by its mother for a first breathof air. One of the most remarkable instancesattesting to the strong emotional ties betweenmothers and offspring was recorded on film when ababy humpback was liberated from a cable in whichit had become badly entangled. A diver workeddiligently attempting to cut the cable which wascruelly wound in and through the bruised mouth of thecalf, while its mother waited a short distance off fromthe boat. Several hours of work were required, andeven after the last binding twist of cable was cut, theyoungster seemed unable to move. Desperately, thediver tugged at a loose piece that dangled from thecalf s firmly closed mouth. With its removal the infantbegan to swim and was joined immediately by itsmother, who rolled and flapped her long whiteflippers in the air. Together, mother and calf, theyrolled and cavorted and showed every expressionimaginable of relief and joy at their reunion.

Occupants of a motorboat off Baja Californiaobserved a gray whale twelve feet below, slowlymoving upward. Turning on her side, she looked at

them with what appeared to be a flicker of interest.She moved herself higher for a closer inspection andslipped her left flipper under the boat, raising it threefeet out of the water before suddenly removing herflipper and letting it fall back to the surface with asplash. In another instance men followed a spermwhale, zig-zagging around it in an inflatablemotorboat, hoping to confuse its sensitive hearingwith the noise. The giant seemed paralysed. It didnot dive or attempt to put on speed. Suddenly, therewas a monstrous movement in the water and thelaunch was observed, together with its occupantsand equipment, to be thrown up in the air like toys.The whale had simply grown tired of the noise andwith one casual twist of its tail had gotten rid of it. Hecould have easily crushed the boat with his tail ormouth but he gave a measured, though effective,response instead. Such well moderated and almostthoughtful responses seem not to have been foundsignificant by sailors of earlier centuries. Whalers ofmore modern times have kept alive the tales of periland aggression, particularly regarding the spermwhale which, as the most sought-after prize of theearly nineteenth century, took on many of the biblicalallusions to an evil monster who operated as adevilish scourge upon the seas. There were somenotorious sperm bulls known far and wide by nameslike Timor Tim or Don Miguel (off Chile), NewZealand Jack or the infamous Mocha Dick, whoseadventures were avidly followed for thirty-nine yearsand who served as a model for Herman Melville’s

great white whale. Old bulls who had been oftenharpooned or maddened by the chase wouldsometimes jump straight out of the water to lash outwith their tails or ram a large ship broadside withtheir massive heads. One sent the whaler Union tothe bottom in 1807, the Essex in 1821 and the AnnAlexander was sunk in a few minutes in 1851. In1902 the Kathleen was sunk in minutes and afishing launch with all aboard went down off Sydneyin 1963 as a result of an attack by a sperm bull.

This high and mighty God-like dignity inherent in the browis so immensely amplified, that gazing on it… you feel theDeity and the dread powers more forcefully than beholdingany other object in living nature.

Herman Melville

In 1957 a white (albino) sperm whale was killed offthe coast of Japan. But the modern day cachalotscannot compare to the ninety-foot giants of MochaDick’s time. Nor does man now tend to possess thevivid and deeply felt sense of the presence of goodand evil in the world as in earlier centuries. InMelville’s masterly tale, Captain Ahab represents anobsessive focal point for the eternal strugglebetween what man believes to be good and evilincarnate. To him, Moby Dick, the great white whale,represents the beast, the devil in the flesh whothreatens chaos, madness and annihilation. Ahabstruggles to preserve order but abandons himself toinhumanity and obsession in his monomaniacalpursuit of this formidable leviathan. In his last

glimmering of humaneness he looks to his mate,Starbuck, as to his soul and cries, “Oh Starbuck; letme look into a human eye …” To which Starbuckanswers, “Oh Noble Soul - after all, let us fly thesedeadly waters!” But Ahab responds, sinking againinto the fatalistic clutches of his obsession, “What isit that against all natural lovings and longings, I sokeep pushing …?” It was truth, but with malice in it,that he saw in the white whale. In the throes of aneternal anguish he saw all that demonizes andtorments and reduces conscious life into chaos inthe form of Moby Dick. And chaos it was that heentered, killed in his own attempt to kill the whale,borne down into the endless deep lashed to thebody of a ghostly, colourless, form-obliterating andform-dissolving monster. For Ahab, the godlikedignity and dread powers of the sperm whalebecame a titanic force which swept him out of theworld, beyond all recognizable signs of good andevil, to a shapeless, timeless realm where humanfears and longings are but unborn bubbles in alimitless sea.

Varuna, King of hallowed might,Sustaineth erect the Tree’s stem in the baselessregion.Its rays, whose root is high above, streamdownward.

Deep may they sink within us and be hidden.King Varuna hath made a spacious pathway,A pathway for the Sun wherein to travel.

Where no way was he made him set hisfootstep,

And warned afar whate’er afflicts the Spirit.

Rig Veda XXIV: 7-8

Varuna the Encompasser, witness to men’sfalsehoods, upholder of heavens and earths, knowsthe secret pathways of ships and other leviathans.The Secret Doctrine speaks of Varuna-Ouranos asa Host which ruled over the Second Race beforeKronos-Saturn ruled over the Third and Zeus-Neptune over the Fourth. The Second Race overwhich Varuna-Ouranos reigned was the Sweat Born,produced by the Sons of Yoga unconsciously,through asexual budding. It is said to have beenendowed by the Preservers, called the Rakshasasor demons who devour. According to the BhagavataPurana, Brahmā once transformed himself into thebody of night, which the Rakshasas (actually Yogisand Initiates) wished to devour. Brahmā called out tothem, “Do not devour me, spare me.” The occultinterpretation of this lies in the identification of thebody of night with ignorance, but also with silenceand secrecy. The Yogis (representing spiritual man)are bound to dispel ignorance by devouring it, butthey are also bound to preserve the sacred andsilent Truth from profanation. In the whale one canreadily see an analogue to the Host or Rakshasas,who wish to devour every form but maintain the linesor pathways in both hemispheres “for the Sun [ofTruth or the Law] wherein to travel”. Each generationof whales maintains the same ancient course, as ifthey had (each particular species) a built-inmagnetic compass and were annually re-

establishing longitudinal lines of force around theglobe. One is reminded of the retia mirabilia, whichpressurizes and balances all parts of the whale’sbody as it dives through the ocean’s deep, like theearth swimming through the chaos of space.

The Second Race manifested the first primitivespark of intelligence. Endowed with incarnate gods(Asuras and Kumaras, who were loath to create), itremained ethereal. But duality intervened. Prakriti(Aditi or Gaia) conceived their great potency,causing their all-encompassing wholeness to bedestroyed by the resultant generation. In the Greekmyth the generative part of the father was cut awayby Kronos so that the host (Varuna-Ouranos) wasseparated from the progressively sexual modes ofcreation. This remoteness from physical procreationis poignantly reflected in the difficulty experienced bythe whale in mating. Indeed, such an awkward andexhaustive repetition of attempts is required toensure successful conception that one cannot helpbut consider the nature of the intelligence whichpersists in operating through the form of the whale. Istheir sojourn here on earth part of a great sacrificialprocess wherein the Host associated with lawspertaining to our deepest ancestral nature continuesto exert its influence? When thinking man took hisplace in the physical world over eighteen millionyears ago, these Cetacea were already evolved,already equipped with the bodily parts which wouldhave, had they remained upon land, brought them

into the mainstream of mammalian developmentleading to biological man. Instead, they adapted to(entered once again, perhaps) the realm of theocean, the astral sea surrounding our globe. There,hunted and cursed, scarred and covered with theweight of barnacles, they have assumed (like theplanet Uranus) a retrograde action in theevolutionary scheme of things and a horizontalposition in regard to their axis or spine.

The mysterious planet Uranus got its name throughwhat was almost a fluke (if the pun may bepermitted). Though its discoverer, William Herschel,deemed it fitting to name the planet after KingGeorge III, the name was not popular. Other nameswere proposed but it was Uranus which immediatelycaught on and for reasons scientific and, no doubt,occult became the name by which the world knows it.Whatever the forces working to bring about thisappellation might have been, Uranus possessesseveral remarkable characteristics of great interestwhen correlated with the symbolism associated withVaruna-Ouranos and the whale. It appears to marchto a different tune from the other planets of oursystem. Its axis is tipped over, lying almost in ahorizontal position relative to the axes of the otherplanets, whilst its north and south magnetic polesrepresent almost an exact inversion of the earth’snorth and south geographic poles.

Recently twentieth-century man was afforded aclose-up glimpse of the Blue Giant, with its

retrograde motion and its mysterious coal-blackrings. It is believed that the unusual motion andposition of Uranus, as well as the presence of itsmany retrograde satellites, are due to a terrific “war”or explosion which not only ripped away greatchunks of the planet but tipped it over and set it off inits peculiarly renegade pattern. This, of course, isstrongly reminiscent of the dismemberment ofOuranos by Kronos and is also echoed in thewhale’s adaptation to a swimming position in thesea.

Uranus, unlike Mercury, Venus, Jupiter or Saturn, isnot in direct astral and psychic communication withmankind on this globe. According to arcanetraditions, it is a guardian of another (unseen)septenary chain of globes within our system. It doesnot depend upon the physical sun like the otherplanets, receiving so little of its light and hearkeningto a different axis of influence. Like the whale onearth serving as the vehicle on the physical plane forthe Host known as Varuna-Ouranos, so too Uranusacts as a witness and vahan in our solar system foran unseen ancestral Host. Covered with a deepelectrically charged ocean which is heavily lacedwith sal ammoniac, it represents an environment notonly symbolic of the waters of chaos, but chemicallysuited to act as a solvent, a dissolving sublimatecapable of releasing the “soul” or quicksilver ofsubstances. As the medieval alchemists knew, salammoniac dissolves the existing order of things, not

to merely “devour” them or render them chaotic butto release a more refined and essential Truth.

So fire with water to compare,The ocean serves on high,Up-spouted by the whale in air,To express unwieldy joy.

William Cowper

Taking in gigantic draughts of the ocean and lettingthem out again, the whale plows its way along thesea lanes, participating on an unmatched scale inthe business of alchemizing lower forms of life. LikeJonah passing three days within its belly, the triplestomach of the whale processes its food andconverts it into a larger and more mysterious pattern.There is no way of knowing now how the complexecosystem of the entire globe would be affected ifwhales were to disappear from its oceans. Nor isthere any way we could anticipate how their absencewould affect the spiritual and magnetic climate of lifehere. Their intelligence would indeed seem to comefrom afar, and man will be able to understandsomething about it only when he begins to beprompted by deeper vibrations within his ownspiritual memory. In contemplating the life and historyand all the rich symbolism associated with the whale,one moves closer to releasing such memories. Thewhale embodies the powers of regenerationimmanent in the cosmic waters and floating unbornin the chaos of our minds. If we sense in itsexistence the wondrous network that binds us to the

intelligence of the One Law, the wholeness ofmanifest life, its sojourn in this world will not havebeen in vain. Into the jaws of that meditation, Jonah,motivated by the fearless desire to save his fellows,entered to spend the required period beforeresurrection. In the fabled belly of the beast the newspiritual life is born, not to those who, like Ahab,mistake the necessary dissolution for evil and take iton as a foe, but to the patient watcher on the bow,the silent one who is willing to devour every form thatignorance takes within himself, whilst everpreserving and witnessing the Divine Immutable Lawof Truth. A mariner on the bow one nightLooked up to see the stars,He glimpsed a line of golden lightBound earthward from afar.The Light dispersed upon the waves,It marked a phosphor trail,And where it led he strained his gazeTo see a breaching whale.

Hermes, May 1986

PARADISE High on a throne of royal state, which farOutshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,Or where the gorgeous East with richest handShowers on her Icings barbaric pearl and gold…As when a vulture, on Imaus bred,Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,… Flies toward the springsOf Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams …That spot to which I point is paradise,Adam’s abode; those lofty shades his bower.Now to th’ ascent of that steep savage hill…One gate there only was, and that looked east…Heaven on Earth; for blissful ParadiseOf God the garden was, by him in the eastOf Eden planted.

Paradise Lost, John Milton

East of the plains of California lettuce farmers or ofancient Eridu: where indeed is this Eden? And didthe dreamers of Sumeria look towards the rising orbwith the same longing as Steinbeck’s lost sons anddaughters? Did their fallen state echo with apoignant cry for innocence, passed down fivethousand years? Was paradise their hope, theirpiteous lack or their most embroidered fantasy? Or

was there then and equally now a place of unsulliedpurity wherein the waters of truth and love flowunfettered and the lion lies down with the lamb? Forgold and riches of the earth many a ship has sailedforth. But many too have launched their vessel toseek the Blessed Isle or sight the shores of Arcady.Some have risked all in pursuit of Shangri-La hiddenwithin pinnacled shrouds, whilst others have diedalong forgotten Gobi tracks, lost with the sands oftheir shifting vision, swallowed in the thirst of theirdreams. Has mankind always suffered suchlongings? Has it ever transferred its bliss to ajewelled garden hovering in the world just beyond itsreach?

One of the most intriguing passages to be found inliterary archives is that in which ChristopherColumbus announced to his royal patrons hissupposed discovery of the ascent to the gate of thelong lost Garden of Eden. He described an islandmountain from whose summit he believed the mightyrivers of Eden came rushing to the sea. Though hefelt certain that no one could ever reach this peakwithout the permission and assistance of God, hewas confident that it was indeed the terrestrialparadise and he wrote of the “Mouth of the Dragon”which would have to be braved in approaching it.Navigating just off the coast of Venezuela, Columbusthought that he had reached the fabled Land of Ind(the Indus) which did, indeed, lie east of Eden. Butwhile he mistakenly discovered a new world, Mogul

rulers of the fabled land itself were preparing to buildpleasure gardens patterned after that whichbloomed in the paradisaic poetry of Islam. Set withinthe confines of a walled square, the four rivers of theworld streaming within the carved sandstonechannels of such cantons of delight as Shalimar orNaseem Bagh, they would enable at least theconsorts of privilege to enjoy a daily blessing ofparadise on earth.

Golden Age memories abound in the secretcorners of the human unconscious. The idea ofparadise is universally stamped in the deepestconsciousness of the human race. Often conceivedas a walled garden, it has also been sought in a NewJerusalem or, as in the case of the Maori and Celticpeoples, in an Avalon under the sea. Many traditionshave persisted in identifying paradise as an islandfloating on the ocean or surrounded by a lake andrivers. Others have emphasized the mountain at itscentre. All point to a condition of primordialinnocence or hard-won perfection as prerequisite totheir entrance, the former suggestive of a GoldenAge state, the latter of a spiritual goal. In the centreof the gardens of paradise there is a tree of life, fromwhose roots spring the four rivers that extend out inthe direction of the four cardinal points. Commonly,this tree grows at the heart of a fountain or lake oftensituated at the top or base of a perfectly formedmountain. Such gardens are always enclosed orsurrounded by something which makes entry very

difficult. But within the enclosure all is at peace,animals and human beings speaking one languageand all living in harmonious accord. The wall may beinvisible and the gate unseen by all except one whohas the eyes to see it. Whether called the PromisedLand, El Dorado, the White Isle, the Green Isle,Shamballa, Arcadia, the Elysian Fields, Eden,Olympus or Jerusalem, they are all believed to besomehow accessible, somehow within the reach ofthe heroic few who strive mightily to find them.

The Greek term paradeisos was first used byXenophon, who borrowed it from the Persian wordpairidaeza, which modern scholars say simplymeans “around” (pairi) “mould” (diz), pinpointing thewall enclosing the garden. This lack-lustreetymological designation could be happily set aside,but for now it is more relevant to note the importanceof the idea to the ancient Persians and the fact thatthey, as well as the other peoples of Mesopotamiaand the mountainous plateau to the north, hadalways looked eastward for its location. The oldSemitic description spoke of the four rivers, namingthe Nile, the Euphrates, the Indus and the Phison orGanges, and spoke of Hawilah (India), the “gold-bearing land”. Within the heart of Asia itself peoplesuch as the Yakuts of Siberia described paradise asthe dwelling place of the first man, the place of thetree whose crown is the tethering post of God, Theybelieved that the first man approached the tree tolearn the purpose of his life. A female visible within

its trunk responded to his unspoken question andtold him that he was to become the father of thehuman race. Among the neighbouring Buriats it wassaid that a snake called Abyrga waited at the foot ofthe Zambu tree which rose out of the milk sea ofNarvo, from whence sprang the four rivers. Strikingparallels spring to mind between these ideas andthe story of the goddesses associated with theYggdrasil tree (under whose roots the serpentNidhogg abides), causing one to ponder theconnection between Siberian and Eddiemythologies. But the similarities persist as onetravels even further afield. One is driven again andagain to wonder where the idea may have found itsgenesis, or if it is simply a very complex butuniversally impressed archetype whose basicelements express themselves repeatedly accordingto geographical and cultural peculiarities.

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; andthere he put the man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow everytree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the treeof life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree ofknowledge of good and evil.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and fromthence it was parted, and became into four heads.

Genesis 2: 8-10 Paradise might never have been conceived by

anyone had it not been for the deep sense that it hassomehow been lost. The bliss and innocenceassociated with it continue to be seen only inchildren, who never question their state of being but

invariably grow up to suffer a sense of alienationfrom the wholeness of those happy days. Just as inthe Siberian Altaic myth which tells of how there wasno sun or moon before the first man ate theforbidden fruit of paradise, so too the child eats ofthe knowledge of good and evil and loses thecarefree bliss of ignorance. The Cheyennedescribed how this happened to Sweet Medicine,who lived in a paradise of naked innocence beforereaching understanding and becoming the father oftheir race. Once lost, there is nothing left to do but tostrive to regain it. All cultures are rich in heroic talesof how it may be regained, and even the labyrinthfollowed on behalf of scientific discoveries seems tobe only another instance of such striving. For has notmodern man pinned his hopes upon technology todeliver him the bliss and general sense of sharedabundance he so deeply craves? The pathways, bethey physical, intellectual or metaphysical, are allpursued out of the same longing. For one man theway may lead to wealth or power, which he believeswill buy him the bliss of paradise on earth; foranother the search may mean worldly summit aftersummit climbed, or turning within in order to seek outa Mount Analogue. A common theme is the difficultyand danger encountered in this striving. Apparently,paradise lost is not easily regained and many arethe dragons or serpents to be encountered in theeffort.

An Icelandic myth tells of the bridge to paradise

that crosses the Ganges in India and which, itrelates, is guarded by a terrible dragon. The heroEirek, deliberately wading into “the maw of thedragon” with his sword in hand, finds himself (aninstant later) liberated from the gloom of themonster’s interior and safely in paradise! Howpoignant it is that this theme, so similar to theAustralian belief that one must be swallowed by agreat serpent and spit up again in order to enter intothe timeless state of the gods, should be echoed soconfidently in Columbus’ reference to the Island ofParadise and the Mouth of the Dragon nearby. Onewonders if he looked upon the setting with the awedanticipation of one considering the possibilities of anactual quest culminating in initiation, or whether hewas merely playing with words and symbols, hopefulof lending greater significance to his discoveries. Intruth, the struggle between abdication from apersonal quest conveniently supplied by the doctrineof vicarious atonement, and a genuine desire tobelieve in paradise even here in the world, seemedto have been warring in his breast. Columbus, likeso many of his age, had already bitten the bitter crustof scepticism which would progressively sour insubsequent centuries, but he still retained theinnocence of true belief, the simplicity of a child letfree to explore the world.

In the misty dawn of June 18, 1767, the frigateHMS Dolphin under Captain Samuel Wallis founditself near the shore of what appeared to be a

dream. Beyond a shrouded turquoise lagoon, tierupon tier of lushly wooded peaks arose abovepillared coconut palms drooping and swaying inmyriad-fingered grace over stands of jewelledblossoms and black volcanic sand. Towards the shipcame hundreds of beautifully carved canoes “full oftall, brown, conspicuously handsome men”, whogazed at them with eager curiosity. The scurvied andunwashed sailors, months out from the dingydockside taverns of England, gaped and marvelledand wondered if they had discovered paradise. Inthe six weeks that they stayed in what wouldeventually become known to the world as Tahiti,many of them came to believe it. So simple andtrustingly generous were the islanders, so goodnatured and free of disease or want, the sailors wereoverwhelmed. Even the most cynical of them cameto think that they were far happier in their way of lifeand their idyllic surroundings than they or any otherEuropean had ever dreamt of being. This awarenesswas shared by every subsequent group ofEuropeans who visited the island. Sadly, it did notprevent them from conducting themselves in waysthat ensured the complete destruction of this happyway of life. But even as the natives were being brow-beaten with doctrines of private property and originalsin, the idea grew in England and on the Continentthat a paradise on earth had been found.

On the eve of his departure for Tahiti, Paul Gauguinpainted what he imagined he might find there: a

childlike Eve picking fruit from a tree in paradise. Hedescribed a later such subject, saying that “the riddlehiding in the depths of her childlike eyes is stillincommunicable to me…. She is Eve after the Fall,still able to go about unclothed without beingimmodest, still with as much animal beauty as on thefirst day, …. Naïvely she searches her memory forthe “why” of times past and present. Enigmaticallyshe looks at you.” By Gauguin’s time much of thecarefree ease of everyday life had been badlycurbed through the offices of French political andecclesiastical authority. A century earlier Louis deBougainville had rhapsodically recorded how he felt“transported into the garden of Eden…. Everywherewe found hospitality, ease, innocent joy and everyappearance of happiness.” Gauguin was fated toseek out the remnants of this under the censoriouseye of civilized opinion-makers who had decidedthat paradise should not be confused with themorally questionable happiness of savages. Despitethis prejudice, the idea of paradise in the Pacificlingered, and a steady trickle of artists, poets andwriters made their way there from European andAmerican spiritual ghettos to seek a draught fromthe fount of eternal and innocent perception theyhoped to find.

Mamua, when our laughter ends,And hearts and bodies, brown as whiteAre dust about the doors of friends,Or scent a-blowing down the night,Then oh! then, the wise agree,Comes our immortality.

Comes our immortality.Mamua, there waits a landHard for us to understand.Out of time, beyond the Sun,All are one in Paradise.

Rupert Brooke

Apart from the happy ease of life, visitors from thegrim world outside the South Seas also noticed achildlike quality about the native people. Whensailors were flogged as punishment for infractions ofrules aboard various ships, the Tahitians wept at thecruelty and begged the officers to desist. But evenmore at the heart of their simplicity was their inabilityto live beyond the moment. With little concern for thepast or the future, they continued to repeatexperiences in a changeless cycle shared by all andpassed down from generation to generation.Millennia before, they had set out upon the oceanfrom Southeast Asia. When they happened upon anisland which pleased them, they settled down to alife usually peaceful and always uneventful. Alonethrough the ages, they ceased to imagine a worldbeyond the neighbouring islands, and with theclimate barely changing through the seasons, theyscarcely took note of time. In a world overbrooded byan impersonal Deity with lesser gods and spiritscloser at hand, they had no concept of a devil or ahell and felt required only to show reverence to godsthrough kindness and unselfishness with each other.Possessing everything communally, they knew noenvy or avarice but worked and played together in away that made laughing banter out of both.

Thoughtful visitors watched and marvelled at theirlack of questioning, their lack of doubt andindecision, of introspection or self-consciouscreativity. Was this the innocence of paradise, thebliss of a Golden Age? If so, then how had the rest ofthe world to account for the development ofdiscriminating intellect and individuation that hadbeen accompanied by such heightened powers ofreasoning as well as increased mental suffering?Did the South Sea Islanders represent a humanideal or had they yet to go through the pain of self-conscious realization? By the time people seriouslyasked the question, their innocence and their way oflife was already a thing of the past.

I am as free as Nature first made man,Ere the base laws of servitude began,When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

John Dryden

In his inspired epic on the fall from paradise, Miltondescribed Lucifer’s arrival at the zenith of theoutermost shell of the globe where, directly beneaththe stairway leading to heaven, he saw an orificepermitting a passage to the seat of paradise on theway down through the starry orbs to earth. Milton’sHeaven of Heavens is quite different from paradise,“where redeemed souls may choose to dwell”, andboth seem to be either side of an orifice associatedwith the pole-star lined up with the North Pole of theearth. Many traditions have hinted at a linking pillaror column between the celestial and terrestrial

paradise, and some have envisioned the linking axisrunning from the celestial through the terrestrialparadise down through the globe to the realm ofHades associated with the South Pole. Miltonseems to have intuited such a connection when hedescribed how Satan could view the three gatesleading to heaven, earth and hell simultaneously. Allthis would strongly suggest a northerly location of anearthly paradise, and indeed there is no dearth ofsupport for such an idea.

The Chinese, in speaking of the inferior godssurrounding paradise, seem to have beendescribing the Pleiades that circle the pole-star,while in the Hindu tradition the sacred Ganga is saidto travel seven times around Meru in its descent fromthe abode of the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear. Interms of the Hindu varshas, Bharata describes thesubcontinent above which rises the Himavat and aseries of varshas culminating in that of Illavrita, whichrests at the top of the world. Here, according to thePuranas, Sumeru rises, its four faces of Brahmāmarking the cardinal points from whose “mouths”flow the four rivers. Sumeru, the “beautiful axis”, isopposite Kumeru, its “infernal” counterpart, easilysuggesting a polar location for those whom theGreeks called the Hyperboreans. In the lattertradition the idea of Hyperborea, the ultima Thule,fascinated early writers including Homer, whosedescription of Odysseus’ voyage includes a visit tothe (North Pole) as well as to

the underworld. Called the “navel” of the world, the literally means a “mountain rising”, and

though its emblem can be found at such sacredplaces as Delphi, the archetypal form was believedto rise at the umbilical point where the terrestrial andcelestial worlds are generationally connected.

A year of mortals is a day and a night of the gods, orregents of the universe seated around the North Pole.

Code of Manu

It is difficult to warm up to the notion that paradisecould rest in the icy North but strong arguments doseem to favour it. Where else on the globe could ayear of mortals be experienced as a day and anight? One of the most convincing ideas is thatwhich places the axes of these various worlds inalignment, whether one wishes to imagine an actualterrestrial paradise or one hovering midway betweenheaven and earth. In considering other locations onthe globe, one wonders if they are simply analoguesthat have lived vividly in people’s minds and evenshifted from time to time with migrations and newideas. Or are there truly sacred places in the world,perhaps closer to the equatorial belt than we wouldthink, where one might suddenly find oneself in thepresence of eternal bliss and innocence? In theSemitic tradition Eden is usually identified with thePlain of Eden in Babylonian times. Could it havebeen located at Eridu, a city of magical virtuescontaining a famous oracle tree? Was this the placethat inspired Enoch’s dream, or was that dream

drawn only from the Akashic realm where timelessbliss commands? All the myths of creation,paradise, the Fall and the Flood found in the Semitictradition are of Babylonian origin and can possiblybe traced back further through the Sumerians.

It is likely that the name of the Akkadian capital,Akkad, provided the inspiration for the Greek term“Arkadia” and acted as a channel through whichthese ideas flowed into the western Mediterranean.But this would merely be a relatively recenttransmission and many other linguistic and symbolicclues point to an older, more easterly, origin. Theearlier non-Semitic Sumerians might have broughtsuch ideas with them when they came intoMesopotamia from India around 4000 B.C. For it isamong them that the story of the god Yaw whoplanted a garden in Eden to the east seems to havefirst originated.

Paradise was in the Orient…higher than any other land upon earth ….

Shut off from the habitable worldby vast mountains that cannot be crossed….

Some say that Enoch and Eliasare still in that Paradise.

St. Thomas Aquinas

It is, perhaps, significant that in China andSoutheast Asia the Pure Land of paradise isassigned to the west. None of the Asian peoples ofthe Far East looked out over the Pacific in hopes ofglimpsing its sacred tree and mountain. Like anenclosing ring, the myths and lore of people

throughout Asia, Siberia, the Middle East, easternand northern Europe, all point to a locationsomewhere near the Himalayas or in Central Asia tothe north. If the evidence for a super-terrestrialparadise at the North Pole is strong, that for thelocation of a worldly paradise somewhere in theHimalayan region is overwhelming. A few scholarshave drawn some interesting connections betweennames like Sumeru and Sumer, pointing out that theancient Sumerians are believed to have come fromthe upper Indus River, whose name, Yav-Ya, simplymeans “River of God”. The cuneiform writing oncertain seals from the Harappan civilization as wellas from Sumer tell of Kanwe, a Brahmin priest-enchanter, and of the great mountain Meru.Harappan records were later substantiated byAlexander the Great and Aristotle, who both spokeof an Indus-Nile hydrographic system wherein theIndus and the Ganges swung variously throughLemuria and Arabia to feed into the Tigris and theEuphrates as well as the Nile. This, it could beargued, might account for the inclusion of theMesopotamian rivers in the four originating fromparadise. Other linguistic evidence traces the nameEden back to the Sanskrit Gau-Edin associated withthe vale of Kashmir. This is particularly fruitful, as aproliferation of closely related words seems to havespun off into Tibet (Gan-Edin), Egypt (Gin-Aden)and Persia (Gan-Hedon) through the Sumerian-Akkadians (Gu-Edin), The Greeks, picking up theterm Hedon from the Persians, gave the world the

idea of “hedonism”, coming from their word forpleasure, an interesting if rather double-edgedcultural transmission.

While Gan-Hedon refers to a “garden of pleasure”,pairidaeza is assumed merely to emphasize itssurrounding wall. There is, however, a much moresignificant possible origin for this latter term. Theancient Parthians, using the word “Parada” for“Bharata”, referred to Kashmir as the Land ofParada and called its kings by that name. In theIndian epics Kashmir was considered to be thehome of the wise Maga who carried their arcaneteachings to the four corners of the world. Accordingto Indo-Sumerian records, these were Tireworshippers, the Magi of the East who brought theirreligion to the Middle East long before the time ofZarathustra. Tradition claims that they travelled to fardistant lands and that their influence was responsiblefor the striking similarities in paradise myths as farflung as Scandinavia and Japan. In any event, thename for the Celtic Elysium, Mag-Mar, is certainlysuggestive of a reference to them if not to theiractual presence.

This land is cut off from the rest of the world, and is flowingwith golden rivers and lotus lakes, adorned with preciousjewels. … It is situated near Kailas and the source of thegreat rivers.

Mahabharata

This is the Land of Uttarakuru, the Land of theBlessed so beautifully described in the

Mahabharata. The great classical Sanskrit poetKalidasa wrote of it in the “Cloud Messenger”,sketching in limpid words a mount-encircled lakewherein clouds like heavenly wings in reflectionfloated. “Now on the mountain’s side”, he penned,“behold the city of the gods impend . … Thy goalbehold where Ganga’s winding rill skirts, like a costlytrain, the sacred hill.” Of Kailas the poet writes, andLake Manasasarova at its foot. Just as the Yambotree of life was said to grow to the south of MountMeru, so also the soma tree was said to grow in themiddle of the lake south of Mount Kailas in the trans-Himalayan chain. It is difficult to know whether theupper Indus associated with the possible home ofthe Sumerians refers to the Land of Parada(Kashmir) or to the Himalayan valleys southwest ofMount Kailas. That a mythical and religiousconnection exists between Kailas and Meru therecan be no doubt.

It is also clear that the four great holy rivers of theworld have been thought to have their source inManasasarova Lake. Given the barrenness of theHimalayan valleys leading towards Kailas, it wouldseem plausible that, in more recent millennia atleast, the Garden of Paradise was indeed identifiedwith Kashmir, while its mountain and lake was andstill is believed to be represented by holy Kailas andManasasarova.

Manasasarova is the holiest place in the world. In itscentre dwells a divinity in human form. In its bosom grows atree with a thousand branches and a double crown …

tree with a thousand branches and a double crown …overshadowing the whole world.

From the Bon tradition

The four rivers of paradise in the trans-Himalayantradition are the Indus, the Ganges, the Tsanpo(Brahmaputra) and the Sutlej. They flow from themouths of the four sacred animals: the lion, the cow,the horse and the elephant. In the Semitic schemethe Nile answers for the Indus, and the Tigris andEuphrates for the Tsanpo and Sutlej. The sacredanimals are once again represented, the Phison (orGanges) pouring forth from an angel’s instead of acow’s mouth, and the Nile being associated with thelion, as would seem consistent if the reports ofAlexander the Great and Aristotle are to be givenany weight. Of no small interest is the physical factthat the Indus and the Sutlej do indeed take theirsource at Kailas, while the Tsanpo makes itsbeginning but a short distance away. The Gangesflows with roaring freshness from Gomuck Cave (theCow’s Mouth) on the southern side of the Himalayas,removing its immediate source from the Kailasrange, but the glacier from which it gathers its forceis but a cloud itself, barely shifted from the mirror ofManasasarova’s waters. Thus in the mundane worldthe reflection of an ideal realm is impressed. It is notdifficult to understand why so many have risked lifeand limb and even sanity in order to seek out thesacred precinct in which this is believed to reside.The harrowing journeys over icy and desolatemountain passes, the close calls with bandits,

starvation, altitude sickness and madness - none ofthese things have deterred those whose eyes everseek for paradise. Over the next mountain pass,over the next range - surely it will be found there!

Neither by taking ship,Neither by any travel on foot,To the Hyperborean FieldShalt thou find the wondrous way.

Pindar

It is in the heavenly lake of the soul that the tree ofsoma grows. And the mountain within rises up aboveit between thine eyes, Lanoo. There on that mountainof paradise Shiva dwells. Locked in meditation hebears within his cosmic mind the timeless, pureinnocence of unsullied and eternal Truth. There,above the storms of longing, the obsessions withfinding paradise in the world, He resides in perfectcalm. O poor humanity, poor wayfarers who trudgethe roads and seaways waiting for the vision to burstsuddenly upon their senses. How many lives havebeen spent in this search and how little it hasgarnered. But do not doubt of paradise, for it surelyexists. Like Lucifer in Milton’s poem, man can mountto the gate of the celestial world and there view theentrances to heaven and paradise and hell. One mayfind this at the foot of Kailas or within one’s closet insecret, for that which exists in the realm of archetypalideation finds its reflection in the world. What iscritical and requires the highest powers ofdiscrimination is the ability to recognize the

noumenon mirrored in the reflection and to avoidbeing caught in the psychic rapture of the imageitself. A wise man avoids the paradise of thephysical senses because he knows it is short-livedindeed. He avoids also the paradise of the astralsenses with its sweetly dreaming devachan. Theparadise he seeks is the bliss of unwavering Truth,the pinnacled state of ever being consciously onewith that which is in harmony with every intelligentmonad in the cosmos. He is the tree in paradisewhose fruitful wisdom lies beyond good and evil andfrom whose watered roots flow forth the ripplingechoes of the Divine Word. To the gate of Paradise I would goWhere first I glimpsed its peak,Where first its light shone on my soulO Kailas of my dreams,I came to thee!And my heart discovered speech.

Hermes, March 1986

KRISHNA:“It is even a portion of myself which, havingassumed life in this world of conditionedexistence, draweth together the five senses andthe mind in order that it may obtain a body andmay leave it again. And those are carried by theSovereign Lord to and from whatever body heenters or quits, even as the breeze bears thefragrance from the flower. Presiding over theeye, the ear, the touch, the taste, and the powerof smelling, and also over the mind, heexperienceth the objects of sense. The deludeddo not see the spirit when it quitteth or remainsin the body, nor when, moved by the qualities, ithas experience in the world. But those who havethe eye of wisdom perceive it, and devoteeswho industriously strive to do so see it dwellingin their own hearts; whilst those who have notovercome themselves, who are devoid ofdiscrimination, see it not even though theystrive, thereafter. Know that the brilliance of thesun which illuminateth the whole world, and thelight which is in the moon and in the fire, are thesplendor of myself.

The Bhagavad-Gita, Ch. XV

978-0-9793205-1-40-9793205-1-8