Now Mercury is Direct, time for a new beginning!
Precognition
Spoilers, Sweetie!
This blog post argues a point of view which will upset a whole load of Doctor Who fans! But before I get to the controversial bit –
“Alex, do you believe it is possible to prophesy the future?” a gentleman asked – about five minutes after I guessed that he would. 😉 This got me thinking: although I keep talking about astrology, tarot and what-not, what evidence do I really have to say that predicting the future is in fact possible?
The fact is that on rare occasions I have had precognitive dreams which have been accurate in a general sense. However I would have to qualify this assertion with two important points. An example I most remember was I wanted to know how a meeting with a certain person would turn out. I therefore, whilst having a lucid dream, willed myself to travel forward in time to the meeting and spatially to where it was due to take place. The demeanour and behaviour of the person as I experienced it in my dream turned out to be an accurate indication of what later transpired at the actual meeting – however, the precise detail of the words spoken was not.
On another occasion, I once dreamed vividly, a propos of nothing, of Yorkshire Pudding. That evening I visited my parents’ house for dinner, when they served up Toad In The Hole – which, of course, is made with Yorkshire Pudding. A friend to whom I told this anecdote said that he would have been freaked out if it had occurred to him, but I was made of sterner stuff, and not to be put off by a load of sausages!
The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind, by Rupert Sheldrake
Hence: my first qualification is that the only instances of precognition which I have had have been accurate to generalities, but not to specifics. This is why I am not currently a Lottery millionaire. I would love to know whether it is possible to get specifics – for what should be obvious reasons! On a more serious note, this also serves to confirm why precognition is so bad at predicting disasters. In his book The Sense Of Being Stared At
Likewise, in my own attempts at astrology and current events in North Korea, whilst I accurately predicted violence against those involved in communication and the media, I was not able to predict exactly who the regimes first victims would be. However, it does not take the world’s greatest psychic to say: if you are involved in any way with the media, or with communication or entertainment, and you happen to be in North Korea – you should get out now if you have not already done so.
The second qualification I would have to make is that as far as my precognitive dreams were concerned, they were about events in which I was personally involved. I do not know if it is possible to be completely objective about these things, which is why something like astrology has appeal.
I have a theory why the Future can never be predicted with 100% accuracy, and it has nothing to do with the fact that all systems of divination are a load of cobblers. It is this:
THE FUTURE DOES NOT EXIST.
What’s more,
THE PAST DOES NOT EXIST EITHER.
THE ONLY THING THAT DOES EXIST IS A CONSTANTLY CHANGING PRESENT.
Think about: we talk about the Past and the Future as if they are places, but the single observable fact about Time is that it is never measured at any point other than the Present. The only sense in which the Past and Future can exist is as a memory (in the case of the former) and a potentiality (in the case of the latter) – but in both instances, the Memory and the Potentiality themselves exist only in the Present.
Thus, Divination, precognition, etc, does not work by foretelling the future, but by accessing implicate parts of the Present. By identifying Present-Causes – some of which may be considerably more esoteric than others – we can speculate what the Effects will be when the Present transforms into the moment that the Effect occurs.
To say that the Future is fixed would be like saying that an event has happened in a place where it has not happened.
Likewise, when in Golden Dawn magick one travels through time and space and across dimensions to the Hall of Judgement in the Egyptian After-life, this is not to be thought of as something which once existed thousands of years ago, but which exists NOW, in a magical region of the Present.
By positing that neither the Future nor the Past exist per se, one is able to neatly explain every time travel paradox put forward by scientists. Why have we not seen tourists from the future who have travelled back in Time? Given that the future has not occurred, there is no place from which to travel back! Likewise the Grandfather paradox is actually a fallacy, because it is not possible to travel back to somewhere that has ceased to exist.
Now, you may begin to see the problem with Doctor Who! Whilst the postulate that “neither the past nor future exist as places to one which can travel” would neatly explain the observed facts of time-measurement, it would totally rip the guts out of any science-fiction based upon time-travel. Unless of course it were predicated upon some fantastic method of transforming the Present.
Filed under Supernatural
Allegseu neun Daehan Minguk eul salang
The Republic of Korea, aka South Korea
My regular readers will probably be aware that I have said enough rude things about Kim Jong Un to merit a swift appointment with an angry firing squad should I ever be in the neighbourhood of North Korea (e.g. see here and here). My regard for South Korea, is altogether more pleasant, the musical output of PSY notwithstanding. In the New York Times on Sunday I read that Korean executives often consult spiritual advisers before making major business decisions, and the belief in divination and shamanism is fairly mainstream.
Really, one should not be surprised about acceptance of such matters in South Korea. I mean, just look at their flag! The central motif is clearly inspired by the Tai Chi (i.e. the symbol of Yin & Yang), whilst surrounding it are four of the eight traditional Trigrams of the I Ching, to wit:
Top left – CHIEN – east – Awareness here means living in tune with the spirit of the time, the East. The image is the night heaven. The motivation is creativity. The purpose of the I Ching is to merge with cosmic creativity.
Top right – KAN – south – Soul. The soul is between heaven and earth, spirit and body. It is always in danger of stagnation, based on the six primary relations of the family: Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Daughter, Son. The Soul, like the river, has to flow from the source in the mountain to the sea, then be transformed, die, into clouds, and finally be reincarnated again as rain in the mountains. The motivation is danger and the abyss.
Bottom right – KUN – west – Earth. The image is the vastness of our planet. The motivation is the receptive, to receive the germ and let it grow.
Bottom left – LI – north – Thinking. Thinking links up sense data with words, following the wishes or motivations and impulses. Thinking has a beginning and end, visualized in the image of burning wood. You should not think beyond the solution of the problem. The motivation is to attain clarity, unattached to the thought. Thinking, like dialogue, is not an end in itself.
Or, as another source has it, “Heaven, Water, Fire, Earth.” By comparison with “neo” Feng Shui, we may say that South Korea has chosen to invoke good luck in regard to patrons and benefactors (Chien), careers (Kan), Love and marriage (Kun), and recognition and fame (Li).
It is interesting to consider that conspiracy theorists strive to find occult symbolism hidden in the insignia of the USA, when by contrast it is open plain to see elsewhere in the world! Anyway, South Korean businessmen, please take note: if you are keen to expand your operations into the west and need a local astrologer and tarot reader for European office, I’m just saying that I’m available and my rates are very reasonable. 🙂
Filed under Comment, Supernatural
The Age of Miracles
11 million adults in the UK are potentially interested in the Tarot!
© Alex Sumner 2013
News today that Britons still believe in miracles, angels and ‘spiritual forces’. From a sample of 2000 people, the following numbers were crunched:
% of the population who think spiritual forces have no influence on earth: 25%
% of Christians who think such spiritual forces can influence people’s thoughts or the human or natural world: 62%
% of non-religious people who think the same: 35%
% of people who said they or someone they knew had experienced a miracle: 16% – including 8% non-religious people.
(Source…)
More interestingly though (from my point of view), the full report also says:
Nearly a quarter (23%) of people say they have had their tarot cards read, whilst 17% have had their star sign read, and 12% have had a reflexology session.
- Smaller numbers had experienced more esoteric spiritual experiences, such as having a reiki session (8%), having their aura read (6%), or healing with crystals (5%).
- Women are considerably more likely than men to undergo these experiences (51% vs. 26%).
- Interestingly, while 39% of the overall population admits to having undergone at least one of these experiences, so do 38% of the non-religious(compared to 40% of the religious). When it comes to these more obviously non-religious spiritual activities, there appears to be no difference according to whether someone is religious or not.
The United Kingdom is a nation of 63 million – including 49 million adults. Hence assuming that the sample reflects the nation as a whole, that means that 11 million adults have had or are likely to have their Tarot cards read. To those 11 million people I say: I can be contacted via this website and my rates are very reasonable. 😉
Filed under Comment, Religion, Supernatural
Freemasonry: The Terrifying Truth!
Darkness Visible: A Revelation & Interpretation of Freemasonry, by Walton Hannah
This is an actual letter written by a Freemason to his son. Date uncertain, but it could not have been before 1952, as I found it tucked up in a copy of Darkness Visible
Forget the Morgan Scandal! Forget the Taxil Hoax! Forget even that post going round the internet about the bloke who turned up to his 33rd degree initiation without his chequebook! This, my friends, gives the real deal on what Masonry is all about 😉
Dear Peter,
Thanks for your letter. Book enclosed as requested. Do not lend it out and let me have it back in reasonable time. Your Mum called for it recently but got bogged down and packed it in. Bit heavy going. It is something which does crop up from time to time – usually when I am going to bed. The theme is “There is nothing in life for us.” This accrues from her contacts with a few ladies whose hubbies belong to the “pinny brigade” and they huddle together and your Mum feels out of it and wonders what it is all about. She should have a good idea for we did go for quite a time to a Friday night dance run by these people and she got bored stiff in those days with the gossip and small talk. They do however cling together.
I should that that 50% of the men who do join are pushed into it in the first place by wives who hear glowing accounts of “ladies evenings” where each lady receives a nice little gift and they vie with each other in the way of new frocks etc etc.
An authentic depiction of a ritual
It is something which doth count quite a lot and even in high places and your interest suggest that you may have come up against it. It has influence in all sorts of ways and I have no doubt that Birtell owes a lot to it – he is Secy for one Lodge. Rex Rigby owes his job to it and so do quite a few in the Town Hall and such places. In Scotland and – your Mum says – in Australia it is a working man’s cup of tea and reasonably cheap – like the Buffalos and Oddfellows but in England it can be quite expensive. A new lodge was formed a year or two ago and I understand it cost £50 to get in. It can be quite expensive if you intend to go “through the chairs” but many think it worth while for the sake of business. Quite a number of the younger end have joined here in the past year or two. They have been brought in by fathers to help fill up certain lodges which had got a bit thin. Usually they keep a body hanging fire for some time. Uncle Eric joined some two or three years ago. May have helped him keep his job – don’t know.Like any other organisation – there are those who join for what they can put into it and others for what they can get out of it and if one strikes a lodge where the latter outnumber the former it can be rough going. The Catenians and the Knights are the opposite number but they do not wield the same influences in big business. If Religion did not stand your way my advice would be – get in – as my Pop advised me many years ago – I could have made much more lolly.
We still have the frost. Bright sun to-day but freezing all the time. There is very little snow around here and we have been very fortunate when we see the telly.
We had a letter from David today – seems to be in good order and quite content with his lot.
He has probably other fish to fry than ringing you – he gets around you know.
Love,
Dad.
Notes
- The whole letter was typed, except the final two lines which are hand written.
- Sic – “Secretary.”
- The allusion here is to the Catenians and the Knights of Saint Columba, two organisations for Roman Catholic professional men. Of these I have heard it said that “The Knights are Catholics playing at being gentlemen, and the Catenians are gentlemen playing at being Catholics!” NB: the man who said this was a Knight of Saint Columba, and was fairly merry after several pints at the time!
The implication would seem to be this letter was written by a Catholic father to his son. who is not so much concerned with the spiritual and theological ramifications of joining an organisation supposedly at variance with Holy Mother Church, as he is for missing out on a load of wonga.
Filed under Uncategorized
Good Luck Rituals Actually Work!
Four Leaf Clover
News today that scientists have investigated various rituals to avert bad luck, and found that some of them actually work. There are, however, certain provisos, to wit:
- The study assumes that “bad luck” is created by people believing they will have bad luck – thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy; and
- Only certain types of ritual work.
Specifically, if you make a “banishing” gesture (i.e. in the broadest sense of the word), one feels that one is banishing the bad luck, but not if your gesture consists of holding onto something or pulling it towards you. Hence:
| Effective | Ineffective |
| Touching wood, by pushing it way from you. | Touching wood by just tapping it. |
| Throwing salt over your left shoulder. | Limp-wristedly dropping salt over your shoulder so it goes down your back and looks like dandruff. |
| Holding on to a rabbit’s foot. NB: needless to say it didn’t do the Rabbit any good either! |
Etc etc etc.
This is important for magicians because firstly, it is yet another acknowledgement by conventional science that we have been right all along: secondly, it reminds us of the importance of incorporating dramatic gesture into ritual in order to reinforce its effectiveness.
The Real Story Behind the Golem
I said “Golem.”
A Golem is said to be an artificial helper, given life through various magical enchantments so that it acts like a sort of automaton. There are several accounts in the form of hearsay evidence that such beings were created in real-life, although it now appears that the most famous one – the Golem of Prague – was almost certainly a literary invention of the early 19th century.
But what of the others? By gathering the various bits of lore together, we can make the following generalisations:
“… even if they do say ‘Jehovah.’”
First of all, creating a Golem is not something anyone can do. Regarding the Golem of Chelm, alleged to have been created by Rabbi Eliyahu, one source stated:
“And I have heard, in a certain and explicit way, from several respectable persons that one man [living] close to our time, whose name is R. Eliyahu, the master of the name, who made a creature out of matter…”
In other words, Eliyahu was not just any rabbi but a Baal Shem Tov (“Master of the Holy Name”), i.e. someone who had been initiated into the Unwritten Qabalah – the true pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.
Coming from a Hermetic Qabalistic background, I wonder whereabouts the genuine Unwritten Qabalah figures in the process of initiation. I am led to the conclusion that, given that the Unwritten Qabalah – the true pronunciation of YHVH – is the highest secret of the Qabalah, it can be reserved to no other place than the highest grade of the system. Hence a true Baal Shem Tov is what we would consider an Ipsissimus.
Even if Eliyahu’s status as a Baal Shem is a coincidence, the creation of a Golem would nevertheless still require a high degree of mastery of the magical formulae implicate in the Tetragrammaton, as I shall explain infra.
Feet (and everything else, for that matter) of Clay
The Golem is said to be created from the dust of the Earth, or more specifically “clay,” just like Adam, the first man. Likewise, the Golem when destroyed returns to dust – either when de-activated by its creator, or when confronted by a Rabbi with superior Qabalistic skills. The Golem of Prague, for example, was said to have been created from the clay of the local river.
This, however, is a blind. In Hebrew, the word for “clay” is itself Adamah – from the root Adam meaning “man” (hence the name of the first man). Hence, to say that the Golem is created “from clay” is a Qabalistic cipher – the true material out of which it is formed comes from within Man himself.
Sepher Yetzirah
In a dreadful episode of the otherwise classic X Files, a Jewish character tries to explain to Mulder how the Sepher Yetzirah is a spell-book containing the secret to creating a Golem. What is ironic is that not only should the Jewish character have known better, but so should Mulder – who, according to the show’s canon, had previously been the author of a thesis entitled Serial Killers and the Occult.
What is in the Sepher Yetzirah though is a description of how the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet each relate to the human body. This is how the story about the Sepher Yetzirah containing the instructions to create a Golem arose. If (potential sorcerers reasoned) God formed the human body with the aid of the twenty-two letters, might it also not be possible to create an artificial body in much the same way? That is to say, by working Qabalistically with each of the letters, thus creating the Golem by means of a twenty-two-fold enchantment.
Here we begin to see the real (i.e. initiated) meaning of the Golem story. It is not simply a story about a magical automaton, but was a blind for a technique of Qabalistic Magic involving the twenty two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. Indeed, several eminent occultists have explored this theme in the past couple of hundred years.
Martinez De Pasqually
Martinez De Pasqually (1727 – 1774), founder of the Elus Cohens, prescribed a ritual for initiates of his order: every year, starting on Easter Sunday, they would over the course of twenty two successive days perform an invocation of each of the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. The details of the ritual were published by the late Robert Ambelain (1907 – 1997) in his book The Practical Kabbalah, which was then translated into English by a certain Piers Vaughan who published it on the internet. Unfortunately Ambelain’s French publishers took amiss at this and forced Vaughan to withdraw his translations – although not before a great many people, myself included, had safely downloaded them. 😉
Ambelain’s commentary on this ritual is however very superficial. As to the reason for actually performing the ritual at all, he says without elaboration that it is to obtain “kabbalistic super-powers.” It only takes a little more analysis, however, to see some of the deeper potentiality. The rite begins on Easter Sunday – the day of the Resurrection, and hence a day representing re-birth and new life. It focuses on the twenty-two letters, which as we know from the Sepher Yetzirah are attributed to the formation of (amongst other things) Man. Thus the whole ritual can be seen to be a personal rite of creating a new spiritual life for oneself. In this light the Golem thus formed is not a clay monster bought to life; it is a new, spiritually re-generated version of the Initiate himself.
Franz Bardon
The Key to the True Kabbalah, by Franz Bardon.
Bardon (1909 – 1958), described a system of associating letters, their magical or spiritual properties, and the parts of the body in his book The Key to the True Kabbalah. Bardon uses the German alphabet, rather than the Hebrew one, although there seems to be a phonetic correlation between the German letters and their equivalents from the Graa version of the Sepher Yetzirah.
Viewed in the light of what I have discussed regarding the Golem, one can argue that Bardon’s system is not merely to enable the magician to perform various thaumaturgic feats through a sophisticated method of letter pronunciation – but ultimately to re-create or transform the magician himself.
The Rainbow Body
Bardon’s method is notable in that colour-association is used for each letter. Thus if one were to take this to its logical conclusion, if one were to visualise oneself with all parts coloured according to the respective letter, one would end up with a veritable “rainbow body.” A method of how this might be visualised using more Golden Dawn attributions is described in an article I wrote for the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition in 2005 entitled “Healing In The Hermetic Tradition.”
By coincidence – though not necessarily by much – the term “Rainbow Body” refers, in Tibetan, to the ultimate attainment in the Dzogchen Tradition. By taking the esoteric practices known as Thodgal to their ultimate conclusion, it is said to be possible to self-liberate into a non-material Body of Light – which event is also said to be accompanied by the appearance of rainbow-like phenomena, even to an observer. Thus, the Rainbow Body is effectively a vehicle for attaining immortality.
Filed under Supernatural
Public Challenge to David Griffin
First written some eighteen months ago when the Chrysi Augi ((literally: “Golden Dawn” in Greek) were first elected to the Greek Parliament. Now it seems that others in the GD community (e.g. here and here are waking up to the potential for damage that the Greek extreme right-wing party hold over the (magical) Golden Dawn community.
Stop all your verbal attacks against Chic, Tabby, Nick Farrell, Pat Zalewski, the SRIA and all the rest, and use your supposed EU trademarks to stop the neo-nazis in Greece from bringing the “Golden Dawn” name into disrepute.
If you want to be remembered for doing something good for the Golden Dawn community, that is.
Filed under Comment
QOTD: “Hekas! Hekas! Este bebeloi!”
Yahdonhai (Hebrew letters); Taphthartharath (Sigil)
The Chief Magus rises, holding the Ibis wand by its black end, and proclaims: ” “HEKAS, HEKAS ESTE BEBELOI!” 3
3 WEH NOTE: This is the cry of the Dionysian mysteries. It was shouted to warn the uninitiated that the new candidates were about to run amuck. Rough translation: “Look out! Look out! Here come the Drunks!”
Source: THE RITUAL FOR THE EVOCATION UNTO VISIBLE APPEARANCE OF THE GREAT SPIRIT TAPHTHARTHARATH from The Equinox. (NB: “WEH” = Bill Heidrick).
Filed under Supernatural
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
There Is Power In A Union
It is not often that your humble blogmaster has anything good to say about Nazi-propaganda rag, the Daily Mail. However I note today that they have run a story which basically confirms what most people have suspected for a long time, that Telephone Psychics are a con.
Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who aspires to be a reputable tarot reader, the question naturally arises – how can one ever guarantee that any psychic who offers his or her services for money is not a con?
The only possible way, in my opinion, is to institute Professional Standards across the “industry.” In other walks of life, members of a Profession all belong to a Professional Body which has the roles of guaranteeing quality, and administering discipline to members who fall short of the body’s code of conduct. There are actual bodies who do provide certification for professional psychics, thus giving members of those bodies the veneer of respectability.
However, the problem as I see it is that in order to get rid of the scammers, these organisations ought to go further than just providing certification and adopt the role of a Militant Trade Union – e.g. by actively campaigning to block disreputable psychic organisations from trading, and turning current psychic companies into “Closed Shops” so that only Psychics who have been fully accredited can be employed by them.
There is a joke that you never see a poor Lawyer, but also there is another joke that no-one has ever seen a rich Psychic! Why? The lawyer is able to maintain his high fees because he belongs to a profession with a pro-active professional body, whilst the Psychic does not!
Comments Off on There Is Power In A Union
Filed under Comment
Tagged as Billy Bragg, Tarot