Mishkan ha-Echad – Golden Dawn Blog by Frater Yechidah: The Provenance of John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror

December 23, 2015 by Hālau ʻĀha Hūi Lanakila in Enochian Magic, Newsletter, Rituals | Leave a comment

It is widely believed today that the Obsidian Mirror on display in the British Museum was used by Dee and Kelley, a matter that is largely taken for granted, thanks to it being in the same display cabinet as other items linked with Dee, and its attribution to the Elizabethan magician by museum staff.

This Mirror is of Aztec origin, leading some to suggest a possible Aztec link to the Enochian workings. Yet this is all based on the assumption that this device was, in fact, Dee’s, whereas there is no real evidence that this is actually the case.

This assumption is primarily based on a claim by Horace Walpole, who received this item in 1771. The note pasted to the accompanying case, believed to be written in Walpole’s handwriting and initialled by him, reads: “The Black Stone into which Dr Dee used to call his Spirits.” It was not acquired by the British Museum until 1966, where it continues to be labelled as Dee’s “Magical Mirror” or “Magical Speculum,” based solely on Walpole’s unverified claim.

Some even believe this was the object that mysteriously appeared by the window during one of Dee and Kelley’s workings, but this has no basis. The stone that Dee found was described by Kelley as being “as big as an egg: most bright, clear and glorious,” while Dee said it was “roundish, and less than the palm of my hand.”[1] Given that the Mirror in the British Museum has a height of 22cm (including the small handle) and a diameter of 18.4cm, this clearly cannot be the same object that fit in Dee’s hand. Indeed, it is almost as large as the Sigillum Dei Aemeth itself. While Dee later described the stone as being half an inch in thickness, which the Mirror roughly is, the other dimensions simply do not match. I would also argue that Dee’s description of the object he found being “roundish,” and the numerous references to it being a “stone” (and not a “glass”) suggest it was spherical, not to mention Kelley’s description of it being “bright” and “clear”—in other words, a classic crystal ball, not a black mirror.

Of course, Dee had several objects in his possession for skrying, so it could be argued that the Obsidian Mirror was one of these. However, I have yet to find a single reference to this object in any of Dee’s diaries, whereas there are numerous mentions of his various shewstones. One would think that if this Mirror was “used to call his Spirits,” there would be mention of it somewhere, particularly given Dee’s meticulous record-keeping, not to mention its origin in the New World.

The authenticity of this object has also been challenged by several scholars, including Christopher Whitby, who wrote about it at length, stating finally “the evidence connecting the mirror with Dee is very circumstantial.”[2]

Indeed, even the provenance of the crystal ball on display in the British Museum is questionable, and it was not originally associated with Dee by museum staff. It is only one of several devices that have been attributed to Dee over the years.

For example, there is another crystal ball in the Science Museum in South Kensington, which Nicholas Culpeper claimed was given to him by Dee’s son Arthur. Culpeper apparently used this stone, which is of a purplish hue and is contained within a metal frame upon a small chain, until 1651, when he said he encountered within it a lewd and depraved entity. It is difficult to say if this object was genuinely possessed by Dee.

There is also a convex Claude glass in a circular case in the Science Museum that is attributed to Dee and his spirit workings, but this is more likely to be the one that Dee used to display optical illusions to people,[3] including Queen Elizabeth I, if indeed it is Dee’s at all.

We see, therefore, that many people have claimed to have received one of Dee’s magical devices over the years. Indeed, Francis Barrett noted in 1801 that there were as many as seven people purporting to have one of these illustrious heirlooms:

“Although Dee’s manuscripts, and his Magic Chrystal, are to be seen at the Museum, there are six or seven individuals in London who assert they have the stone in their possession; thereby wishing to deceive the credulous, and to tempt them to a purchase at an enormous price.”[4]

Given Dee’s popularity (or notoriety), it is not surprising why people would make such claims, but it does considerably muddy the water in terms of scholarship, not to mention leading to unsupported (though evidently very popular) beliefs like that of Dee’s alleged Obsidian Mirror.

This is important in a practical sense, because there are many people attempting to recreate the process used by Dee and Kelley, employing a similar black mirror instead of the more traditional shewstone. While there is nothing stopping anyone from using any object they desire in their own personal spirit workings, it seems very unlikely that they would actually be emulating Dee in this regard.

Extracted from Enochian Magic in Practice by Frater Yechidah

Footnotes

1 Joseph H. Peterson, ed. John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery, p. 253.

2 Christopher Whitby, John Dee’s Actions With Spirits, p. 141.

3 See Dee’s The Mathematical Preface to Elements of Geometry of Euclid of Megara, where he describes this object.

4 Francis Barrett, The Magus, Book II, p. 196 (footnote).

Source: Mishkan ha-Echad – Golden Dawn Blog by Frater Yechidah: The Provenance of John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror

The Gnosis of The Eucharist

December 21, 2015 by Hālau ʻĀha Hūi Lanakila in Energywork, Gnosticism, House of RA, Lessons, Newsletter, Rituals | Leave a comment

Eucharist-Altar

The Gnosis of The Eucharist

by Stephan A. Hoeller

he Mass, or, as it is sometimes called, the divine liturgy or the Eucharist, is the most solemn of all the Christian sacraments. Through it we are led step by step to the purpose of our earthly lives — union with the divine — for at its climax the faithful are made one with God and each other by receiving the body and blood of Christ under the earthly forms of bread and wine.

Although these mystical aspects of the Mass have been known and proclaimed by all the branches of Christendom that have not abandoned the ancient sacramental system (including the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and, with some ambiguities, the Anglican), the rationalistic tendencies that have arisen since the Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church are robbing the Mass of much of its numinosity and psychospiritual utility.

Similarly, many in the occult, metaphysical, and New Age movements have little appreciation for the magic and mystery of the time-honored sacramental system of Christianity and within it for the supreme sacrament of the Mass. The older of these movements bear the imprint of nineteenth-century thinking, which was hyperintellectual, moralistic, and at times materialistic. The groups that have sprung up since the 1960’s are a bit more favorably disposed toward ritual than their predecessors, but their appreciation of the sacraments is still small. Much of alternative spirituality is thus in danger of losing touch with one of the most valuable aspects of the mystico-magical heritage of the West.

To be sure, there are valid objections to ritual. Its practice has often been accompanied by blind superstition. Still, it must be remembered that a lack of consciousness will regularly turn meaningful and transformative practices into superstitious ones. The fault is not with the ritual, but with the practitioner. Ritual, provided it uses authentic symbols, is no more or less than what H.P. Blavatsky called “concretized truth.” This may be covered up by superstition, but the hidden truth is always discernable beneath the covering. Gnostic studies of the sacraments are intended to free the kernel of truth from the accretions of unconsciousness and misunderstanding that have been permitted to obscure it.

In the following we shall deal with several separate approaches to the greatest of the Christian mysteries. Some of these may contradict each other, while others tend to complement one another, and still others will restate truths present in other approaches.

Source: The Gnosis of The Eucharist

Deconstruction Q

December 20, 2015 by Hālau ʻĀha Hūi Lanakila in Comparative Esotericism, Gnosticism, Kaballah, Lessons, Newsletter | Leave a comment

“The Other Gospel” was a Hebrew Sefer added to the Old Testament and delivered to the Churches by James, Peter, and John.

Source: Deconstruction Q

Question: Why would Flavius Josephus, a practicing Jew, get involved in writing the Gospels.

Paul was a Jew. They were all Jews. Saulus/Paulus was also known as the Gospel writer Matthew. Philo’s method (explained fully in the book) reveals that Josephus was one of Paul’s sons, and Luke was probably his grandson.

The original plan between Gamaliel and Tiberius was to simply add a new story to Hebrew Scripture that would appeal to Israelites, Judeans, and Roman mythologists. Paul didn’t like what it revealed about the Nazarene’s deity, El Shaday, because her name reveals the unacceptable fact that she was “El with Breasts.” So he rejected it. However, he retained a version of the story of “Jesus,” but wrote out Mary Magdalene’s important role as the fulfillment of Micah 4:8 – 5:3. And he placed Jesus in Nazareth so no one would know he was to be associated with the NZR, Joseph, Rach-eL’s son, whose deity was El Shaday, also known as eL Ha eM, “El the Mother” and “El.”

Question: The Orthodox Church did not consider unifying the Gospels until Bishop Marcion rewrote the Gospel According to Luke to expel Jesus’ Jewish blood line.

It was not the “Orthodox Church” I’m reporting on. The Nazarean sect, based on NaZiR and NaZaR traditions beginning with Gen 49:25 in the OT, arrived in 6 CE, at the time of the Census, when “Bar-Jesus” and his twin brother “Judas” were born. I’ll say it again: the Nazarean sect was created to unify Israelites, Judeans, and Roman mythology. The plan was to add Sefer Marcei to the OT, and Jesus and Mary Magdalene were to fulfill the prophesies at Micah 4:8 through 5:3.

Paul refused to agree to having a “Goddess” returned to Judaism. So, he broke away and started his own religion ABOUT Jesus. I’m researching and reporting on what JESUS the Nazarene was actually about. He was a Nazarene, an Israelite. His deity was Father Light and El the Mother, El Shaday. When he wasn’t being “Jesus,” He was a Roman. The book reveals all the identities given to him in order to tell the whole story.

If you start with the premise that Christianity was invented before the Nazarenes were invented, you’ll continue down the path laid out by Paul and the Church Fathers. If you consider that Nazarenes can be traced to the Old Testament, which they can be, then you’ll be able to see what was really going on. Jesus and Mary Magdalene did not arrive in Jerusalem to do away with Hebrew Scripture, which is what Marcion’s Gospel does. Jesus and Mary Magdalene arrived to fulfill Hebrew Scripture, specifically Micah 4:8 – 5:3, and to return the “Goddess” to her position as “Daughter Jerusalem.”

PaxAmoLux!

Theosophy — “The Rebirth Of Humanity – 1” — Raghavan Iyer

December 20, 2015 by Hālau ʻĀha Hūi Lanakila in Newsletter, Theosophy | Leave a comment

THE REBIRTH OF HUMANITY – I

We are only in the Fourth Round, and it is in the Fifth that the full development of Manas, as a direct ray from the Universal MAHAT – a ray unimpeded by matter – will be finally reached. Nevertheless, as every sub-race and nation have their cycles and stages of developmental evolution repeated on a smaller scale, it must be the more so in the case of a Root-Race. Our race then has, as a Root-race, crossed the equatorial line and is cycling onward on the Spiritual side; but some of our sub-races still find themselves on the shadowy descending arc of their respective national cycles; while others again – the oldest – having crossed their crucial point, which alone decides whether a race, a nation, or a tribe will live or perish, are at the apex of spiritual development as sub-races.

The Secret Doctrine, ii 301
H. P. Blavatsky

Ranging from the minutest circles of daily life to the massive arcs of cosmic evolution, the spiralling progress of spiritual humanity has successive phases and synchronous aspects, marked by critical turns and decisive epochs. There are fateful times of birth and death, of transfiguration and rebirth, for individuals as well as civilizations. The majestic beating of the karmic heart of the cosmos resonates within the breast of every intrepid pilgrim-soul so that none is exempt from the challenge of the hour nor impervious to the clarion call of the Mahabharatan “war between the living and the dead”. Days and hours are marked by moments of going forth (pravritti) and going within (nivritti), whilst decades and centuries have their own coded rhythms of activity and rest. In a universe of inexorable law and ceaseless transformation, no two moments in the life of any being are exactly alike. Similarly, in the lifetimes of races the accumulated karma of the past converges with the archetypal logic of cycles to precipitate climacteric moments.

At the present historical moment there is a rapid descent of Dharmakshetra into Kurukshetraand an awesome re-enactment, before the soul’s eye, of the titanic struggle between Kronos and Zeus. To serve the Mahatmas and their Avatar, and through them all of humanity, is the most meaningful and precious privilege open to any person. The readiness to serve is helped by the fusion of an altruistic motive with skill in timely action. These may be gestated through deep meditation on behalf of the good of all beings and an authentic renunciation of earthly concerns for the sake of the many who are lost. One must lay one’s heart open to the present plight of millions of souls who are wandering adrift and are much afflicted by the psychological terror prophesied in Tibet. Not even affording the visible reference of an external cataclysm, this psychological convulsion is needed for the transformation of the humanity of the past into the humanity of the future.

The ramifications of this crucial transition were anticipated and provided for by the Brotherhood of Bodhisattvas. The Avataric descent of the Seventh Impulsion into the moral chaos consequent upon two World Wars and the world weariness of the present epoch marks the culmination of a seven hundred-year cycle extending back to Tsong-Kha-Pa. Whilst this may be more than can be encompassed in the cribbed and cabined conceptions of mortals, it is scarcely an instant in the eyes of those who ever reside on the plane of Shamballa. Sages are fully aware that the voluntary descent of a spiritual Teacher into Myalba merely provides the outward illusion of passage through various phases of earthly life, using but a small portion of an essentially unmanifest Self. Impervious to containment by form, the true being of the Avatar abides in timeless duration, always honouring the One without a second, Tad ekam,that which as the central Spiritual Sun is the single source of all that lives and breathes throughout the seven kingdoms of nature, and of all that is lit up at any level of reflected intelligence from the tiniest atom to the mightiest star in this vast cosmos which extends far beyond the solar system and this earth. One with the unmanifest Logos, Dakshinamurti remains poised at the threshold of the realm of boundless Light, the mathematical circle dividing infinity from finitude, and reposes as achutya – unfallen. As H.P. Blavatsky declared:

The first lesson taught in Esoteric philosophy is that the incognizable Cause does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, but only exhibits periodically different aspects of itself to the perception of finite Minds.

The Secret Doctrine, ii 487

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna disclosed that he incarnates on earth periodically for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked and the establishment of righteousness. In Hindu iconography Narayana holds the conch shell, symbolizing his ability to rock the earth through sound, the potency of the Logos as Shabdabrahman, the Soundless Sound of the indestructible Akshara behind and beyond and within all the spaces of “the AUM throughout eternal ages”. This clarion call has gone out to heroic souls incarnated in the last half century for the solemn purpose of gathering together those spread out across the globe who readily recognize the immense danger to humanity from itself, the spiritual danger of self-destruction. It is a summons to halt the desecration of the sacred soil of the good earth upon which all human beings must find their common ground, regardless of race, sex, religion, creed, atheistic philosophy, indifferentism, or any set of beliefs and values. Regardless of whatsoever labels and idiosyncracies of form, all human beings are sharers of the Nur of Allah, the Light that lighteth up every soul that cometh into the world, that Light which is beyond Darkness itself. It is the One Light which has been known by diverse names amongst the many forgotten peoples of our globe over millions and millions of years, in civilizations long buried under deserts and mountains or slipped beneath the sea before existing continents emerged. Infinitely resplendent in eternal duration, it is the Light which was transmitted over eighteen million years ago when the Manas of humanity was lit up by divine beings of one lip, one race, one mind, one heart, seers of whom the Vedas speak.

The mysteries of Heaven and Earth, revealed to the Third Race by their celestial teachers in the days of their purity, became a great focus of light, the rays from which became necessarily weakened as they were diffused and shed upon an uncongenial, because too material soil.

The Secret Doctrine, ii 281

Truly God is one, but manifold are its names. As the Koran teaches, there are as many ways to God as there are children of the breaths of men. Tragically, as mankind became progressively enwrapped in the illusion of material existence, its eyes and ears dimmed, though the light within remained inviolate. Outside the circle of ever vigilant custodians of the Mysteries, the arcane teaching of the universal sound and light of the Logos was obscured, distorted and lost. Today those who call themselves Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists or Zoroastrians, men and women of every sect and nation throughout every continent of the globe, are bereft of the lost Word, Shabdabrahman. Although lost, it has yet been fervently sought by many more millions in our time than ever before in recorded history or even in earlier epochs of antiquity shrouded in myth and mist. The unseen tablets of nature, which are a vast reservoir of enigmatic glyphs and symbols and eternal verities, record the unknown strivings of innumerable human beings, groping in their gloom, sometimes with shame but often with nothing else to support them than the pathos of their search. It is a search to find one’s way back home, out of exile from the kingdom of God, the land of the midnight sun.

In order to gather together the afflicted, the Divine Cowherd summons all awakened souls, wherever and however disguised, through the sounding of the mighty conch. Independent of all modes of external communication, and relying upon the oldest mode of communication known to the Ancient of Days – controlled transference of benevolent thought and ineffable sound – the call is heard by scattered volunteers “in the fierce strife between the living and the dead”. As with Jacob’s ladder in his dream, heaven and earth are reunited, even if momentarily. In this manner, over the next eighteen years the world will move through the darkness, yet mysteriously, step by step, faltering and failing yet persisting, it will move towards that moment when Anno Domini has ceased to be, and a new era will dawn with a new name. There will then be no U.S.A. but a new Republic of Conscience which will take its place in the community of mankind which would have come of age and declared itself as one family.

This is a grand prospect for which there can be inherently no empirical or merely rational proof. Yet it may be tested by any intuitive individual who is courageous enough to pour his or her deepest unspoken feelings, unarticulated dreams and unexpressed inner agony into the alchemical crucible of spiritual striving on behalf of others. It is a tryst that such souls make with destiny, but also with the grandchildren of persons yet unborn. It is a tryst with the humanity of the future, and with the full promise of the Aquarian Age which dawned on the nineteenth of June, 1902, seventy-nine years ago, with mathematical precision. This has an exact relationship to that moment five thousand and eighty-three years ago, in 3102 B.C., when Krishna, having witnessed the outcome of the Mahabharatan war between the greedy Kauravas and the foolish Pandavas, was able to end his seeming life on earth and withdraw from the terrestrial scene. Thus standing apart from this universe, into which he never really enters, he creates therein his mayavi rupas through the mighty magic of prakriti, the seminal potency of mystic thought in the eternal life of self-ideation. Again and again, under different names, it is the same being behind every divine incarnation, whether past or future.

As Dakshinamurti, the Initiator of Initiates, he is seated immovable above Mount Kailas, in mystic meditation since over eighteen million years ago from the time when there was no Mount Kailas and no Himalayas as presently understood. Coming down through all the subsequent recorded and unrecorded eras, he carries forth in unbroken continuity the onward spiritual current which is the irresistible, unconquerable, ineluctable forward march of humanity. He is Shiva-Mahadeva, reborn as the four Kumaras in the successive races of humanity, and that still more mysterious and solitary Being alluded to in the secret Teachings.

The inner man of the first * * * only changes his body from time to time; he is ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning Devachan and remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind.

The Secret Doctrine, ii 281

Attuned to the rhythms of the cosmic ocean of Divine Thought, he is the still motionless centre in its depths around which revolve, like myriad mathematical points in spinning circles, the scattered hosts of humanity. Amidst the larger and larger circles of ripples upon ripples, waves upon waves, all souls are citizens of that universe which is much vaster than the disordered kingdom which, as earthlings, they may seem to inherit but to which they have no claim except as members of a single family.

Hermes, December 1981
Raghavan Iyer