The Mountain of Myrrh Read online

  COMMENTARY (C. VIII)

  The Card of Strength is of profound import to the mystical work; “in one of its most exalted aspects, [it] is connected with the Divine Mystery of Union”.[2]

  “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesach that I dwell in the tents of Kedar” [Psalms 120:5]

  NOTE

  This chapter should be considered a retrospective upon After the Angel, particularly journal entry April 8th, 2004.

  - IX -

  CAPUT IX

  FOUR STATIONS OF PROPHECY

  O prophet, speak in the woods

  At dawn, when the light is young.

  Speak to the trees

  And seek wisdom in the glade of the forgotten.

  O prophet, speak by the water’s edge

  At sunset, when the air is still.

  Speak to the empty sky

  And stand in the silence of the Angels.

  O prophet, speak in the cities

  At midnight, when they dance in dream.

  Speak to the people,

  And touch the hands of the hungry.

  O prophet, speak in the wilderness

  At noon, when there is no shadow.

  Speak to no-one,

  And say nothing.[3]

  COMMENTARY (C. IX)

  The Hermit corresponds to Mercury through Virgo and thus the mercurial nature of prophecy and divination. All divination is an act of recognition; “concealed within Mercury is a light which pervades all parts of the Universe equally”.[4]

  Thus, the Hermit is the Way.

  On the Tree of Life, his card illustrates the state where “there is perfect Identity, not merely Equivalence, of the Extremes, the Manifestation, and the Method”.[5]

  - X -

  CAPUT X

  ROTA ROSA

  The Great Wheel Turns upon the Heart of the Rose.

  The Rose Burns upon the Axle of the Wheel.

  It sheds petals like blood in great streaming torrents, rivulets of damask carving out the granite of the Aeons.

  We are bound to this Wheel, palms held open to the sky.

  And the Aeons thunder by, churning the centuries, discarded to the infernal wastes.

  What is there to understand?

  We are bound to this Wheel.

  The Sphinx is bornless as much as Oedipus is homeless; yet the answer is the same - the two sisters are day and night and we are the riddle of Time.

  COMMENTARY (C. X)

  The Wheel illustrates the covalency of symbolism in the Latin numerology of X, the cross. Albeit from utterly different hierarchies, the cross is associated with the circle in this manner.

  The Adept must learn to burn the rose upon the great cross of this wheel, which is Time.

  - XI -

  CAPUT XI

  SALT MONEY

  If we would work, we would work.

  If we would rest, we would rest.

  The two truths are but one truth; it is as above as it is below.

  One machine to consume salt.

  One machine to refine salt.

  One machine to carry salt.

  One machine to dispose of salt.

  The Wages of Sin are paid in Salt, time and time again.

  If we could work, we would work.

  If we could only rest, we would rest.

  We would make our Way Home,

  To the Temple of the Truth.

  COMMENTARY (C. XI)

  The number 11, replete with association in numerology, is the atomic number of Sodium, which, with an equal amount of Chlorine, is Salt. The word ‘salary’ derives from the practice of providing partial payment in the form of salt wafers, salarium, to Centurions who guarded the Via Salarium, Salt Roads, which led to Rome.

  Money is a ticket of time, our only asset.

  NOTE

  11 is the number of Magick. It is appropriate to our enigma that it is also the number about which is switched the number 8 in the development of Tarot decks. It is thus to one, the number of La Force, and to another, the number of La Justice.

  - XII -

  CAPUT XII

  THE GARDENS OF ADONIS

  Lo! From Athens to Argos, lamentations!

  Sing a dirge, O Nymphs, to the god slain by a boar!

  Ill omen, indeed. The dog-star rises to tremble over the thin dust of Alexandria!

  I have seen the ships that set sail to make war, carrying the burnished swords.

  I see shattered shards of pottery, in which wither the rootless stems of fennel.

  Cast them into the Ocean, into the Springs.

  Return him to his Mother, in the shade of Myrrh.

  Woe for the sake of Woe.

  There is no Beauty beyond the Broken.

  COMMENTARY (C. XII)

  The Adonia festival is described by Aristophanes and Plutarch, albeit placing it on different times of the year, amongst other Greek authors such as Plato.

  There is an unbidden sacrifice in life, as the bidden sacrifice of spirit.

  NOTE

  In addition to the Adonia described here, one of the major rites of the Order of Everlasting Day is a version of the Thesmorphia. This latter rite is conducted after a procession through the late night so it can commence in a cave at dawn. The rite then moves to a mountain peak by noon, a ceremony at a stone circle for sunset and reaches a conclusion in a temple at midnight. Other rituals include the Haloa, or ‘Threshing Floor’ and the Skira, or ceremony of the ‘Celestial Canopy’ all of which will be published in later volumes of The Magister.

  - XIII -

  CAPUT XIII

  VIA EXHAUSTIO

  If you try to take away from someone’s home, they will see you full of only yourself.

  If you try to take away from someone’s self-importance, they will see you only as a loser.

  If you try to take away from someone’s self-imposed sorrow, they will see you only as fanciful.

  If you try to take away from someone’s imagination, they will see you as a child stealing their toy.

  If you try to take away from someone’s child-like expectation, they will see you as without joy.

  If you try to take away from someone’s grief, they will not accept that.

  If you try to invite the closed-minded, they will see you as a clique.

  If you try to join the celebration, they will see you wanting something.

  If you try to be open, all blessing.

  COMMENTARY (C. XIII)

  In this chapter we see the manner in which the Minor Arcana of the Tarot provide a schema of complex redaction. Only the Ace is a pure essence and incapable of reduction or division; each of the numbers is subject to separation, by one.

  The textual map here given commences at the Ten and demonstrates reduction by another to Nine. The subsequent lines reduce the Number by One.

  In this way we see the attempt of each Sephiroth towards recognition and completion. Here in the World of Briah corresponding to the Suit of Cups.

  One might repeat this exercise with the other three Suits.

  NOTE

  The Way of the Order is not a Via Salutis, a Way of Salvation, but rather a Via Exhaustio, a Way of Exhaustion. When we are fatigued of falsity, the truth abides.

  - XIV -

  CAPUT XIV

  THE IDOL OF AGATHOCLES

  The Elephant is ensnared by the Snake.

  Both Die and from their Waste comes Something New and Strange.

  The Wayfarer makes his way to Sicily and worships there a golden idol of Jove.

  Realising it is made from the melts of a chamber pot, he is angered.

  Yet Agathocles was a Potter afore he was a Tyrant, something New and Strange.

  Democritus, visiting Egypt, discovered both Chameleon and Crocodile.

  These, as was the Wisdom of the Priests, something New and Strange.

  Scaevola assassinated the Secretary mistaken for the King.

  Sometimes we must dissolve something less regal, something New and Strange.

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sp; Delos is neither the Centre of the World nor West.

  Two Eagles, a God, a Remora, something New and Strange.

  Androcles Heals the Lion. The Lion is showered with flowers in many a Taberna.

  “This is the lion, a man's friend; this is the man, a lion's doctor"[6]

  Something New and Strange.

  COMMENTARY (C. XIV)

  The number 14 is that of the card Temperance in the Tarot, entitled ‘Art’ in the Thoth Tarot, and being illustrated by the ‘art’ of Alchemy.

  This chapter is a description of selected secrets of Alchemy, following the illustrations of the Viatorium (1618) by Michael Maier. The sequence of six illustrated plates is also known as the Wayfarer’s Guide.

  It is a commonly known fact that the great secret of Alchemy is that the Philosopher’s Stone is a description of Time and all alchemy is an illustration of our relationship to Temporality.

  Sexual Symbolism found within Alchemy is thus illustrative of the Embodiment of our Temporal and Carnal Nature.

  - XIV(A) -

  CAPUT XIV (A)

  THE CRUCIBLE

  Mem

  Eight bulrushes beneath the five-rayed star; the light upon the earth gives not up her constant calcination.

  Seed, rain, bud and flower float in the warming waters.

  Tzaddi

  A Winged Globe of four bright wings, ceaselessly rotating. The Natural Intelligence experiencing the four elements.

  We come to recognise our attachments to both matter and spirit.

  Resh

  The Sun upon the Collecting Intelligence. The Circle of Light which is the Sacred Name. The Planets and the Zodiac.

  All is to Awaken. The circles align to make zero.

  Peh

  A Spear drips with thirteen beads of blood. Above, the Hexagram. Below, three find themselves crucified upon a dark hill.

  All done in the Square and done upon the Cross is done again after the Sacrifice.

  COMMENTARY (C. XIV (A))

  This Chapter is an alternative version of Chapter XIV, much as there are alternative versions of the Temperance Tarot card in the Golden Dawn, Crowley and Waite - on this at least there was agreement.

  MTzRPh (crucible).

  The images are those of the Tarot of the Secret Dawn, an Initiatory Set of 22 Tarot Keys scryed by Frater Ex Oriente Lux, Neville Meakin c. 1909. He was an influential yet lesser-known occultist and member of the Order of the Morning Star, well regarded by A. E. Waite.

  The descriptions of these images were discovered by Derek Bain in the archives of the Golden Dawn, re-created in 2015 by artist Janine Hall, and published as the Tarot of the Secret Dawn with companion guide.

  The deck provides a profound account of initiatory work and the 22 images are utilised as a contemplative gateway by members of the Order of Everlasting Day.

  - XV -

  CAPUT XV

  σκιά

  To those who have forsaken their angel is given one supreme task, for we all live and work in the divine plan.

  Unto them is the duty to prevent all others from awakening to themselves and this they do with fervour and zeal.

  It is true that every grade of initiation has opposition and those who take such work as their own.

  In this there is a divine grace for they serve to test and refine those who are upon the Way.

  We imagine evil and yet it is not hidden, it is the merely mundane.

  It is in the pretence of spirit and not its fire, it is in the show of soul and not its terror, it is in the distraction of god.

  Our task is to release ourselves and see at last the simple fact; what remains was always truer than they could know.

  COMMENTARY (C. XV)

  The title of this section is the Greek for ‘shadow’.

  - XVI -

  CAPUT XVI

  TONITROPHOBIA

  Withdrawing the Darkness, a Point of Light.

  A Moment to realise the Darkness and the Light.

  The Waters Part.

  Two Great Lights, Father and Mother of the Earth.

  All that Lives, Lives.

  A Man in the Moving Likeness of Eternity.

  A Woman in the Nature of Things.

  Naked to the Truth of the Matter.

  Awakened to Oneself.

  We Are Ground Lightning.

  COMMENTARY (C. XVI)

  In the stained-glass work of J. B. Trinick, initiate of the F.R.C. and artist of the Waite-Trinick Tarot, is found subtle reference to the Tree of Life and his studies with Waite. These were later to be partially revealed in his strange work, A Fire-Tried Stone, on which he briefly communicated with C. G. Jung.

  In this section I extend the note in Abiding in the Sanctuary upon the windows of Salmestone Grange, Kent.

  The title is the Latin for ‘fear of lightning’.

  - XVII -

  CAPUT XVII

  QUI SITIT BIBIT

  The Hours pass by the Gilded Gate where we hide from the Enemy.

  Evening comes as a bird bearing an olive leaf, fair plucked.

  An end to the ending of days, an opening to one everlasting.

  We drink from the Rose of Heaven.

  The Eternal Star.

  Our Heart Bursts.

  It pours upon the Rose of Earth.

  It pours forth upon the Sea of Stars.

  The Rose Blooms.

  We are Serpent and Dove, Sighing Upon the Cross.

  For Where you have been, there shall I always Be.

  COMMENTARY (C. XVII)

  The Rosicrucian Emblems of Daniel Cramer: The True Society of Jesus and the Rosy Cross (1617), translation of Fiona Tait (1991) published by Adam Mclean.

  Emblem 31

  HE WHO IS THIRSTY WILL DRINK

  "But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:14)

  QUI SITIT BIBET -- XXXI

  The mouth is wet with the rosy liquor,

  From which found the thirsty heart gushes out;

  Thence the rose bursts into bloom.

  NOTE

  The study of Alchemy is encouraged in the Order with particular regard to the stages and processes of initiation. The study of Tarot is seen as a foundation for engagement with enigmatic series such as the Rosicrucian Emblems or the Mutus Liber.

  - XVIII -

  CAPUT XVIII

  MUSRUM

  I read that Christopher Columbus often related a singular childhood memory, in which he was stopped, in a Genoan street, by a man who asked the way to Chicago.

  However, in that same book, upon that same page, it was erroneously reported - as a fact - that Columbus had been credited with the invention of Faraway Places.

  Perhaps the man found his way to Chicago, arriving there on 11th February, 1955.[7]

  The fear of dog or wolf is naught to the fear of Sponge Cats in the places of the dead.

  My favourite God is Anubis.

  I do not think that I am His favourite Worshipper.

  This Is My Enquiry.

  COMMENTARY (C. XVIII)

  Musrum by Eric Thacker and Anthony Earnshaw (1968).

  This chapter is a commentary on the nature of the unconscious.

  - XIX -

  CAPUT XIX

  STATIONEM SOLIS

  SPRING EQUINOX

  Aware of our estate, to falter and fail, condemned.

  We carry our burdens.

  THE FIRST FALL (vel zelus)

  And fall into sensation.

  SUMMER SOLSTICE

  To revisit the sins of those who sired us.

  To find help in the most unlikely of hands.

  To know mercy and the face of it.

  THE SECOND FALL (vel velanem)

  Only to fall in the revisiting of it.

  AUTUMN EQUINOX

  To reach out only to give our own burden.

  THE THIRD FALL (vel abyssus)

  And fall again.

  WINTER SOLSTICE

/>   To become naked.

  To become crucified.

  To die unto ourself.

  To be removed.

  And be released from our forgetfulness.

  COMMENTARY (C. XIX)

  The 19th card of the Tarot is the Sun.