The Hermetic Garden

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Updated April 17 2008

INTRODUCTION I / II / III / IV / V

It is extremely difficult to translate some spiritual perceptions into concepts. Light should be expanded to all sentient beings in order that the individual that so expands it be redeemed of his shadow and his karmic debris. It is through the projection of expanded Light to all (and to all individually, as paradoxical as that may seem) that the personal transmutation of the expander can take place. This expanded Light becomes in the expander the Christ-experience of the Light of Tipheret, which is the reflection of the Supernal Light of Kether, and it is from this point on that Divine Mercy starts healing the ills and debris of the expander's soul, after this total experience of Light, and of the dissolution and compassion and Universal forgiveness that it implies. It is time to formulate new structured systems designed to facilitate the access to this experience, for each historical period needs methods congenial to itself. Even so, the point to keep is that we must first give in order to be healed, and not the other way round. It is an error and an excuse to claim that we must first be healed in order to give, an error that greatly delays one's progress on the Path.

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The great secret arcana protect themselves by their own extreme simplicity, and they are exposed to whoever is humble enough to see them. True prayer is a perfect theurgical operation. Contact with the Light and Its Masters takes place in this simple manner. And they come, and It comes. This is the prayer of the Occultist, and in this case it "moves mountains" indeed. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3).

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And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me (Matt 10:38). The Mystery of the Crucifixion is not suffering but Glory. There is no guilt, only Realization, realizing how things are, how the Divine is in us and in the World, the complete Immanence of the One True Will. The form dies, unveiling the One Spirit that sustains all, which is the Substance and the Essence of all.

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At the same time that the Canadian Manly P. Hall was writing his encyclopedic opus, another North-American was being contacted by the Master Ragoczy, namely Paul Foster Case. Case was the writer that probably understood best the true nature of the Rosicrucian Order described in the Fama (1610) and in the Confessio (1615). He left us many valuable writings dealing with the Tarot, the Qabalah, Spiritual Alchemy, the Esoteric use of Colour and Sound, Esoteric Astrology, Qabalistic principles related to Polarity, the Magical Language, and other subjects. Together with Crowley and Dion Fortune, Case forms the most important Occult triad of the 20th century, as the three belonged to the same magical generation heir to MacGregor Mathers' Golden Dawn. Of these three, Case was undoubtedly the most profound Cabalist and the true spiritual heir to Éliphas Lévi.

In this sense, it is important to stress that the only "Orders" that in fact exist are internal and invisible, and the way to them is personal and non-transferable, independent of any earthly organization. It is like true nobility, which has nothing to do with blood but with the soul and the spirit. Initiatic work consists of learning an appropriate language designed to act as a bridge. Thus is contact established with the Masters of the Inner School. The Hierophant, Arcanum V, is Pontifex.

Paul Foster Case 1884-1954

READING SUGGESTIONS

•Paul Foster Case, The Tarot, A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages (1947). Richmond, Macoy, 1975.
•Paul Foster Case, The Book of Tokens: Tarot Meditations (1934). Los Angeles, BOTA, 1972.
•Paul Foster Case, The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order (1937). York Beach, Weiser, 1985.

ADVANCED READING SUGGESTIONS

•Kevin Townley, The Cube of Space: Container of Creation. Boulder, Archive Press, 1993. The most original modern contribution to Qabalistic studies that follow Case's line of research.
•Kevin Townley, Meditations on the Cube of Space. Santa Maria, Archer Books, 2003. The practical complement of this author's research. Highly recommended.

LINK

•Paul Foster Case Resource Page Biographical and Bibliographical material on Case

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Theurgy. There is Esoteric work of the highest quality being made in France today, work that deserves to be translated and made public to a wider audience as soon as possible. We mean by this the work of Alexandre Moryason, who was already known for his excellent translations and footnotes of the books of the Czech Occultist Franz Bardon (1909-1958).

Moryason has written and published the first volume of La Lumière sur le Royaume, where he divulges Theurgical techniques of very great value. Like Bardon, Moryason expounds a complete system of Occult practice destined to those who do not wish to belong to Occult Orders, a symptom of both the spiritual urgency of our times and also of the independent spirit of our gradually dawning Aquarian Era.

READING SUGGESTIONS

•Alexandre Moryason, La Lumière sur le Royaume, ou pratique de la magie sacrée au quotidien. 2nd Edition. Courbevoie, Édition A. Moryason, 1992.
•Mikhaël d'Estissac, De l'usage des Herbes, Poudres et Encens en Magie. Paris, Grancher, 2002. An excellent practical addendum to Moryason's book, probably written by one of his own disciples.
•Emmanuel Orlandi di Casamozza, Manuel Pratique de Voyance, par la boule de cristal & tous supports. Courbevoie, Édition A. Moryason, 1995. Excellent.

LINKS

•Site of Moryason's Publishing House, with many interesting items.
•A Bardon Companion Rawn Clark's excellent material for those wishing to practice Franz Bardon's system.
•Frabato Archives of an excellent discussion group (in French).

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Each personality the Higher Self dons at each incarnation is only instrumental, an interface with the tridimensional external world. And they are all different among themselves. The development of Conscience implies a progressively clearer realization of this fact, and so we start to customize our personalities, to modify them according to our purposes and to disidentify ourselves from them. They become an Object, and cease to be mixed with the True Subject.

So-called "original" personalities, the ones structured from birth to pre-adult age, are rudimentary machines, as they solved the great majority of challenges met in an ad hoc, casuistical, reactional way, consequently weaving throughout the years a generally inconsistent crazy quilt. The sooner we disidentify ourselves from them, the better. We will then be able to change them as we change clothes, and to observe them as objects of study.

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Notes on the Pater Noster and the Salve Regina

The present text consists of a partial transcription of channelled Christian Cabalistic teachings. They are published here for their intrinsic value.

First Sitting
[...] Evolution happens naturally. Fear not. There is only Love. Pure, Cosmic Love. [...]

Second Sitting
[...] Be careful when transcribing. The Pater Noster is ideal. Study it. [...] The Pater Noster contains deep mysteries. [...] Arcana. [...] Now [you] will study the true Alchemy. Esoteric, Spiritual, Corporeal. [...]

Third Sitting

1 Pater noster, qui es in caelis:
2 sanctificetur nomen tuum;
3 adveniat regnum tuum;
4 fiat voluntas tua,
5 sicut in caelo, et in terra.
6 Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie;
7 et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
8 sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris;
9 et ne nos inducas in tentationem;
10 sed líbera nos a malo.
11 quia tuum est regnum, et potestas, et gloria in saecula.
12 Amen.

[...] Today we shall examine the Qabalah of the Pater Noster. Do not doubt. Shin. The first line is the representation of the Supernal, Infinite Glory of the Father. Shamaïm, Heavens. Shin. The Purifying Fire - Asher [sic, see Note]. The Hé is the first aspect of the Logos. From there proceeds, flows forth the Cosmic Son. And from the final Hé [flows] the Holy Spirit, from the Shin who is the Son. The 3rd line is the Vav. The bringing forth, that's right, of Heaven down to Earth, Spirit to Matter. See how Beautiful it is? The Pater Noster is a Cabalistic Compendium. So is the Salve Regina. We shall study it one day. It is the Vision of the Divine Shekhinah. And of Binah, too. [...]

[Note: Asher, and not Aish, Hebrew for Fire. Asher is Aleph-Shin-Resh, or The Fool/Judgement/The Sun, and Air/Fire/Sun in the Sepher Yetzirah's attribution]

Fourth Sitting
[...] Let us continue. The 4th line deals with Geburah, the Force and Divine Glory and Power. This is a Power not to be afraid of, Power of the One Will, the only real will there is. Refer to the Bhagavad-Gita. The Cosmic or Rosicrucian School extends itself through all Religions and regions of the Earth, to each place it adapts itself conveniently. Evil is an illusion. Fear it not. Yes, everything conspires towards the Good, towards the Evolution of the Worlds and of souls. The 5th line, yes, complements the 4th, for Divine Justice is absolute in both the Microcosmos and the Macrocosmos. Understand that this is metaphorical, for meditation. [...]

Fifth Sitting
[...] Let us continue. The 6th line deals with the Harmony of the Worlds, with the Divine Magnificence of Chesed. As opposed to the Justice of Geburah of the previous lines. The mystery resides here in the letters of the Greek original. Thelema. Will. Basileia. Kingdom. Greek Gematria will reveal here the complete meaning. Lust is a gross error. God's gifts are intrinsically pure. Do not defile them. Chesed = Karma. The retribution of all our actions. Apeiron, Anaximander, precisely. This is Karma, action in the world. Contemplate this Love that Unites All in the Absolute, gathering and redeeming Karma, all the actions, good and bad. They [the actions] all come from and return to the Absolute, [the] Unique Agent. The 7th [and 8th] line is a contradiction, in a way. Study it. It is not we who pardon but Him, the All. It was included [this contradiction] for the education of less evolved souls, fettered by the illusion of separateness. [...]

Sixth Sitting
[...] To continue. The 7th and 8th lines [actually lines 9 and 10] deal respectively with Yesod and Malkuth. The temptation of a simulacrum of Divine Tiphareth in Yesod, the carnal grossness of earthly Malkuth. The final verse [the 11th verse] deals with the Cabalistic Cross of the Elements as it is known in Rosicrucian Occult Tradition. The end, "So be it" [Amen], is the manifested intention of bringing Spirit to Matter, the Kingdom of the Heavens to Earth, as you have already seen. Yes, it is like [Paul Foster] Case's Pattern on the Trestleboard, a descent of Kether to Malkuth, in order that the former be in the latter "but after another manner". Do not lose yourself in cerebrations, all this is simple. Truth is simple. A Love that forms the Worlds (and, in the contemporary human case, a Love that reforms). The Pater Noster is a Magico-Cabalistic statement of sacred intentions, of the Microcosmos' voluntary conformity with the Macrocosmos. Tomorrow we shall see something of the Salve Regina, try to learn its text before that. [...]

Seventh Sitting

1 Salve Regina,
2 Mater misericordiae,
3 vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra salve.
4 Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae;
5 Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle.
6 Eia ergo, advocata nostra
7 illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
8 Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exilium ostende.
9 O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
10 Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix.
11 Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.
12 Amen.

[...] Isis = Our Lady [Virgin Mary]. This you already know. She is in truth the Shekhinah, Mezla, the feminine Energy of the Absolute/God that passes through all the Emanated Worlds, through all the Sephirot. She passes chiefly through the Ray of Creation (Flaming Sword), but also through the Paths, all of them, in a descending sense. When we ask for Her Force and Support, as in this prayer [the Salve Regina], we are asking for this, this descent of the Force, this revivification of the worlds. She is the great protector of created beings, specially of Man, for She is, just like Mercury/Hermes, the Mediator between Heaven and Earth, God and Man, Kether and Malkuth. She is very good to us. She is Urania and also Natural, Isis Celestial and Terrestrial, natural: related to the Supernal Triad (and even to the three Veils beyond that) and to Netzach the Green and Rose-coloured, and to Yesod and Malkuth. Your intuition was right when you were charmed by the Ritual of Aset, for it is [...] this benevolent descent of the Divine Power.

The second aspect of the Prayer is indeed the one you sensed, She [the Virgin] is the protective covering for the Christ Energy of Tiphareth. She prepares the organism and the heart for this momentous encounter with the Christ. A terrible experience for the unprepared. She sweetens the masculine energy of the "Son", of this Solar Horus. Do not forget, He (Christ) expelled the peddlers of the Temple by the whip. You would not enjoy... [going through such an experience]. [...]

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Tantra. Notwithstanding the great quantity of books on the subject, full of techniques, the basic truth about the possibility of Mystical Ascesis through Sex is quite simple: the first requirement is to find the other half of the primordial Monad referred by Plato in the Symposium. Only that, or all that, for it is the task of an entire life. After that, it is Love itself that will gradually desidentify both the Ego and the Other, abolishing separateness, so to ecstatically and statically (as in carezza) melt the couple in God. Such is the secret of the Divine Shekhinah. Such is the mystical essence of Hallaj's verses, of Rumi's ecstasy. There is no technique, but a meeting (again).

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The Dark Side of the Force (Star Wars). The Force is the same one, it is the Field of the Real. The Bright Side of it is seeing things as they are, seeing Reality, the Pure Light of God and the World. The Dark Side is diabolos, slanderer/lier, a lie and the fact that we believe in it due to our ignorance. Given the immense field of our present ignorance about the world and ourselves, the possibility for the expansion of Evil/Darkness is vast.

What is therefore the duty of Illuminism? To enlighten more and more the Field of the Real in order to activate the Principle of Perfectibility that pertains to Man's presence in the World and that applies in our living together, in our Institutions and in all Human details and the Environment Man creates. Such is the task of the Warrior of Light.

Reality is an Irresistible Will-to-Good, a principle of growing freedom and happiness. Reality is essentially, truly, Pure and Luminous, Good, Beautiful and endowed with the Principle of Evolution/Perfectibility. Illuminism consists in the acknowledgement of this Occult fact.

The Ancient Religions always told of the Light, however this was not intended as a metaphor, it was literal. Truth, the Real, is also this Energy that manifests itself as Light. The Future of Humanity is indeed brilliant, if only we let it be, if only we work with God towards it.

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Conscience everywhere, through all the Worlds and Universes. It is the same God that manifests, personalizes itself as a Deva who pollinates with His Life a whole Universe, at the same time as exists the Conscience of a Solar System that lives and turns, at the same time as exists the myriad human beings with their good and bad parts, with their various half luminous and half dark personalities; all this is the same Being, the only Being there is, beyond the Monads or Divine Sparks that evolve through their numberless successive lives. We are neither cousins nor even brothers, we are That.

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John Dee
(1527-1608)

Handle With Care. One of the most fascinating branches of Western Occult Tradition is what is known as Enochian Magic. It came to us at the end of the 16th century through a long period of channeling activity conducted by two English Occultists, Dr John Dee (1527-1608) and his scryer the alchemist Edward Kelley (1555-1598). It is an advanced magical system ideally suited for those that already possess a solid esoteric background. It was widely used and modified (with questionable results) by later Occult Tradition. The study of its original documents is very interesting and rewarding, and is what we recommend here. As to its practice, let each one have the good sense to decide for himself.

SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

•Donald Tyson, Enochian Magic for Beginners. St Paul, Llewellyn, 1997. An excellent introduction to the subject.
•Geoffrey James, The Enochian Magick of Dr John Dee. St Paul, Llewellyn, 1998. Originally published in 1984, a most interesting literary reconstruction in grimoire form of the Enochian material.
•Joseph H. Peterson (Ed.), John Dee's Five Books of Mystery. York Beach, Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003. An excellent edition of the contents of Dee's Mysteriorum Libri Quinque manuscript, where the Heptarchical system is described.
•Meric Casaubon (Ed.), A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits (London, 1659). Kessinger Reprints. The posthumous publication of a good part of Dee's manuscripts concerning the Enochian system.
•Peter French, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus. London, RKP, 1972. A good academic biography on Dee.
•Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London, RKP, 1972. An interesting study that places Dee's mystical heritage in the European Rosicrucian context of the XVIIth century.

SITE

•Twilit Grotto Esoteric Archives compiled by J. Peterson. It has a generous section on Dee's mystical manuscripts.

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Aurum Solis. It was in the seventies that one began to hear about an Occult Order called the Aurum Solis, which was supposed to have been founded in London by the end of the 19th century, some years after the Golden Dawn. Its Grand Masters at the time, Leon and Vivian Barcynski, used the nom de plume of Osborne Phillips and Melita Denning and published several books on Occultism where they decided to share some of the Order's material. The fact that no one in the Occult Establishment had ever heard of the Order until then raised some doubts as to its foundation myth, but the concrete fact was that the published material was of excellent quality, and that was quite enough as to its respectability.

There is indeed a very interesting Florentine Renaissance aroma in the Aurum Solis, and it is quite possible that this Order was indeed founded in 1897 and that it is the Occult heir of an old Mediterranean Neoplatonic Tradition. Let each one judge for himself, and let each one taste its wise and refined flavour.