Zooming down the motorway at a hundred miles per hour – swerving suddenly off and down a country lane – tyres throwing up cascades of water as we rocketed through the huge puddles caused by the near flooding conditions. A few more twists and turns in the Moon-less darkness which storm and cloud had further conspired to obscure, then coming to a SCREECHING HALT… outside Glastonbury Town Hall.
I got out and checked the time on my iPhone – 10.30pm. We had made the mad dash from London to the Vale of Avalon in three and a half hours, although negotiating the rush-hour traffic out of the centre of the capital had devoured one hour of that. Our purpose: to attend the annual solstice Convocation of “The Brotherhood of the Essenes.”
Now you may be wondering why we attempted such a precisely timed excursion across fair Albion instead of taking a more leisurely pace. Indeed, this is what a lot of our friends did and made good use of the time saved at the pub across the road from the Town Hall. No – what actually happened is that we actually had a lodge meeting earlier in the day in London which we could not easily get out of. Therefore, instead of knocking the G-Town trip on the head, yours truly had the crazy idea that if we jumped in our cars immediately the meeting in London ended, we could get to the Convocation just in time. As it happened we succeeded: we got there with half an hour to spare.
“But what,” I hallucinate that I hear you ask, “is ‘The Brotherhood of the Essenes,’ and why are they so important?”
The Essenes are an esoteric organisation that has been going since 1920 – at least in their present incarnation. They usually meet only privately except once a year – on June 21st, when they hold their annual convocation which is open to the public. For this they hire Glastonbury town hall. They have a number of strange doctrines, some of which are recognisable as coming from the Qabalah, Astrology, and Solomonic Magick, but some are downright bizarre (even for someone like me). Usually the Essenes are a secretive bunch, but we had managed to prize a lot of their secret teachings out of one of their members by the time-honoured method of taking him down the pub and getting him drunk.*
When I went in the venue a decent sized crowd (at least a hundred or so) had already taken their places. Amongst the more soberly dressed attendees I saw a fair few strangely arrayed in bright colours – not members of the Essenes, you understand, but Glastonbury residents! In the main body of the hall chairs were set out as for a public meeting. On the stage, there were half a dozen chairs (for the senior officers of the Brotherhood) as well as a throne, with two pet-cushions to either side of it. Above the throne was a crucifix, whilst on either side of the crucifix were – strangely enough, was the portrait of a dog.
I later got the inside info on the dogs – apparently they belonged to Jesus! Or more accurately, they were His companions, so I suppose that in addition to the 12 human apostles, the Dogs were two Apostles to the Animal Kingdom which were not mentioned in the Bible. During the ceremony, whenever an Essene got up to speak, he would first bow to the throne + pet cushions, so I presume that the former was the place of the God-form of Jesus, whilst the cushions were those of the two canines. “Dog-forms,” if you will!
On the stroke of 11pm, a black robed gentleman struck a large gong (which I want for my wizard’s tower) to mark the beginning of the meeting. The whole company of the Brotherhood of the Essenes themselves processed in, in their impressive regalia. From what I gathered, they arranged the convocation in three parts. The first part consisted of some prayers and hymns, but mainly of a series of talks about the nature of the Order, its current work, its history, and the structure of the second part of the meeting. This turned out to be a powerful rite of Angel Magick. The third part essentially consisted of taking refreshments and winding down, although this itself had an important spiritual role, according to them.
Here then are my impressions of the first half of the ceremony.
1. The Essenes are at heart a Christian organisation. They incorporate many Christian prayers and hymns into their ceremonies, most notably the Lord’s Prayer and the “Nunc Dimittis.” They also believe that the Second Coming will take place in this the Age of Aquarius.
2. They are also a thorougly Anglo-centric organisation. They believe that Jesus Himself came to Glastonbury two thousand years ago, in addition to Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail. Hence why the current meeting was being held there.
3. Consequently they like singing William Blake’s “Jerusalem.” A LOT.
4. The Essenes seem to place a lot of importance on certain teachings which have been received clairvoyantly or mediumistically, and hence on influential teachers who have appeared within their ranks.
5. Most significantly, however, and this was the theme most especially emphasised throughout the first half of the convocation, they are into the Spirituality of the Animal Kingdom IN A BIG WAY. This obviously links in with their fascination with the Godly-Dogs.
Their attitude may be briefly summed up in this way: the idea that man is somehow superior to animals is a purely anthropocentric conceit, but it is not how God sees things. Instead, God has a Plan for the Universe: and He has ordained that Animals have a role to play in that Plan. Hence it is highly important for man to respect the spiritual nature of the animal kingdom, to teach humility if nothing else.
What this means in practice is that the Essenes are all Vegetarians, and actively support charities concerned with animal welfare, and ending animal cruelty. Moreover one of the speakers urged those present to get involved politically trying to get the ways of both the UK and countries abroad (e.g. China) changed for the better.
The second part of the ceremony started at precisely 1am British Summmer Time, or Midnight GMT. All of the attendees formed a ring around the circumference of the hall – although we were told not to actually touch one another – while the principle officers placed themselves in the centre aisle. The Supreme Magus then led an actual magical ceremony which consisted of invoking the names of a series of Angels. From memory I recognised some of these from various Solomonic grimoires. I must admit that as an observer I subjectively felt this long invocation to be very powerful. It had been previously explained to me that the object of this particular ceremony was to thank the Angels for their work for the previous year and to welcome the ones who would aid humanity in the coming one.
At the climax of the invocation, the Supreme Magus announced “Now is the time,” whereupon, in the three minutes of silence which followed, as we had been coached to do so beforehand each attendee mentally made their own petition to the Angels for what they wanted to achieve, in the following form:
Prospering power almighty,
Prosper all my ways.
Fill my life with health and peace,
Lighten all my days.In the name of the Holy Holy Holy
TET – RA – GRAM – MA – TON
I petition and beseech that …
I ask this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
YOD – HEH – VAV – HEH
World without end,
Amen!
This was explained to me that all those petitioning would, as a result of the Invocation, receive Angelic helpers that would attach themselves to the individuals throughout the year. As was ominously emphasised: “If you ask for iron bars, you will get iron bars.”
So in conclusion, therefore, what we have is an organisation which holds some very strange beliefs. Personally I thought them no more implausible than most of what occultists are regularly asked to believe as part of their training, although it did freak out a lot of others I was with that night who were completely unable to shift their paradigms, even for one second. On the other hand, the Essenes have been able to make a successful magical order with their unusual beliefs – one which has lasted longer than any Golden Dawn organisation, for example! Moreover, the Ceremony of the Angelic Names and its purported effects are an excellent way to test whether the Essenes are actually onto something.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Aliens & Magick
The Vatican apparently is now interested in astrobiology, i.e. life among the stars. This has set many tongues wagging, with commentators pointing out that if life does exist on other planets, this would go against a literal interpretation of the Bible. I do not think this will be too much of a problem, as the Catholic Church has not let its magisterium be constrained by something so inconvenient as actually reading the source text up to now.
However – never mind about what happens with regards to Christianity when life on other planets is confirmed: more importantly, how will this affect the Qabalah?
The Tree of Life
I have heard some people argue that the Qabalah is in fact a universal principle, given that there have been instances on earth of Crop Circles in the form of the Tree of Life. (Strange how our alien brethren approve of the Kircher version of the Tree of Life, as opposed to, say, the Lurianic version!) Now the Sepher Yetzirah makes great mention of the fact that the Qabalah is based on the number ten, not nine, ten, not eleven. But… what kind of Qabalah would an alien with a different number of fingers to us humans have come up with?
Now some people, still pointing to the crop circles as proof, have tried to argue that the number ten is a universal principle which has nothing to do with the number of fingers that we have. However: the evidence is in Sepher Yetzirah that the magic number ten is indeed associated with our fingers, as Qabalistic attributions are given thereto: moreover, it attaches importance to being able to form letters of the Hebrew alphabet with ones fingers. This incidentally is how Leonard Nimoy devised the Vulcan Salute. It is actually the sign a Cohen makes as he is giving the valedictory blessing in a synagogue (it actually represents the letter Shin).
Most authorities are of the opinion that we use a decimal system as opposed to any other simply because we have ten fingers – because they are our first counting tools. I therefore say this. If aliens have a version of the Qabalah and the Tree of Life, it will be based not on Ten sephiroth, but on whatever number-base they happen to use – i.e. which is most likely to be the number of fingers they have, if indeed they have fingers.
Astrology
The most popular forms of Astrology present on Earth are by their very nature Geocentric. The constellations are the way that the stars appear from Earth, and the belt of the Zodiac is defined by the route which the Sun – our Sun – takes through the heavens.
However, if Aliens had their own version of Astrology, firstly it would not be Geocentric; secondly it would be based on a completely different Sun and set of planets; and thirdly there would be no correlation to our constellations whatsoever, as their own would appear to be completely different. The only feature of our astrology which might feature in their version would be the fact that our Sun might be visible from their own solar system. This is significant because the development of Astrology on our own planet has been governed by attaching importance to that which is most visible (the Sun, the Moon), and then defining the rest of the system in relation to that. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Alien Astrologers would only attach importance to the objects which are most noticeable from their own home planet(s), which could mean that if our Sun is in what is to them a relatively obscure part of their sky, it may not enter into their consideration at all.
This is somewhat by the by, though, as I predict that Earth Astrology is soon going to be refuted according to its own logic. This has nothing to do with astronomy purporting to have refuted it already. I shall explain: Earth Astrology relies on a given birth / event / etc having a time, date and place somewhere on the planet’s surface, because the key to the Horoscope is the Ascendant, the sign which is on the horizon at the time for which the chart is drawn.
However, the higher one is above the ground, the more fluid the concept of the horizon becomes, until when one has left the Earth altogether, it ceases to have any meaning. Thus – at some point in the future, there is going to be a human being born in outer space, and when that happens, it will be impossible to draw up a horoscope for that person. Therefore I say that at that point conventional astrology will have to be abolished, because there will be at least one person alive to whom it cannot apply.
There is such a thing as Heliocentric astrology, although because of the peculiarities of the heliocentric system it is not suitable for dealing with the kind of issues for which geocentric astrology is currently used. However, even Heliocentric astrology is going to be refuted when the first human being is born outside our solar system. Which brings me back to Alien Astrology – if aliens do exist in other solar systems, then we cannot apply our astrology to them.
The Age of Aquarius
Finally, I shall just like to briefly mention this: the whole idea of cosmic ages is another geocentric notion which is going to go the same way as geocentric astrology. Now, as noted above, I predict that astrology is going to be refuted when at least one human being is born in outer space. Reason suggests that this is going to be sometime in the next hundred or two hundred years. The Age of Aquarius is due to begin in the next hundred or two hundred years – at approximately the same time that the whole concept of the Age of Aquarius will be refuted according to the logic of Astrology. Irony of ironies! Were I a superstitious man I would be inclined to say that the birth of the first human in space will be the actual event that signifies the Age of Aquarius. In any case the challenge of the next great aeon will be to move away from a human-centric, ego-centric, notion of mysticism and to evolve a more cosmological outlook.
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Tagged as age of aquarius, aliens, astrobiology, astrology, athanasius kircher, catholic church, christian, isaac luria, Qabalah, tree of life, vatican