Copyright © 2007 by William
R. Mistele. All rights reserved.
The Cosmic Letter J
Preface
In the following essay, much of what I am writing
is summary and review. Some of it
appears in other essays. It is the level
of integration that is different.
On the
mental level, for example, I attempt to correlate the ecstasies of the four
elements with the practice of magical equilibrium. This presentation is identical to laying the
foundation for a genuine cosmic relation.
This may seem like a glamorous activity, something to present on
youtube.com or a talk show like Oprah. But it is not. There is just too much
hard work involved extending over a life time.
Consequently, other than to satisfy curiosity, it will neither appeal to
nor be of use to anyone except those who are already highly dedicated and
committed to mastering the basic exercises.
Akashic
Plane
Franz
Bardon describes the cosmic letter J on the akashic plane as being the expression
of the highest, all-embracing love. He
also says that practicing the J on this plane enables an individual to
understand and to experience this love.
As with the other cosmic letters, it is
helpful to ask questions and do some thinking about these letters before,
during, and after practicing with them.
This action attunes our consciousness to these cosmic vibrations. It sets us up to gain insight and to understand
their meaning and application.
The questions we might immediately ask about
the letter J are:
What is the highest,
all-embracing love? Have I felt it? Can I imagine it?
I
have pursued these themes in some of my writings (see Mystical Fables, not yet out).
A young man has a moral conflict.
He can’t decide between his wife and his mistress. His attempt to solicit the help of an old
wizard fails. But he is told to ask the
old wizard this question in order to solicit the wizard’s help: What can you
tell me about the mysterious love that underlies the universe? The wizard can not resist and spend weeks
telling the young man stories about the spiritual evolution of the human
race. The stories start with the
beginning of the universe and end with an answer to the question—what is the
ultimate destiny of mankind and how is it found?
It is said that human beings are a
microcosm reflecting in themselves the greater
macrocosm, that is, the universe. If you
look at the universe from the point of view of science, it is vast, very
physical, but governed by the laws of physics.
When you gaze at the stars at night, and the two hundred billion
galaxies beyond, do you think that the universe is cold and hostile or is it
teaming with life? Do you think like
Beethoven in quoting Schiller in the 9th symphony, “Brothers—beyond
the starry vault must dwell a loving father.”
And
so we might ask,
What is the mysterious love
that underlies the universe and what part might it play in revealing the
destiny of the human race? In other words, how is love woven
into the elements of nature—earth, air, fire, and water? How about chemistry,
physics, electro-magnetism, astrophysics, etc.
In
another book I am writing there is an ancient practice called The Great Rite
which celebrates the act of creation in which god and the goddess were
joined. The high priest and a young
woman unite during the Great Rite to reenact this celebration. The young woman is trained and selected based
on her ability to embody the Goddess of the Earth both through sacred dance and
in performing sex magic with the high priest.
This rite stands at the center of this civilization and is inspired by a
spirit of the earthzone referred to as Ubarim after
whom the kingdom is named.
A young warrior magician, however, comes to
believe that the young priestess belongs to him and not the high priest. The Great Rite is better celebrated as an act
of love between two people rather than as a sacred ritual uniting a
society. The question then is:
What would our society be
like if it were founded and shaped by the love that stands behind the creation
of the universe? How might such an
attempt go wrong if fanatics or self serving or even the most devote high
priests tried to use high magic to fulfill this vision? How might it be done right?
In
other writing, I refer to the great world teachers as those who have entered
the sphere of the sun with their consciousness.
They know what it is like to be one with the universe. Consequently, when they assume human form to
teach mankind they often do so by accepting great limitations on their powers
in order to enact a drama that conveys a particular spiritual theme to
mankind. If you follow Joseph Campbell’s
understanding of mythology, he describes those like Buddha, Christ, Moses, Krishna,
etc. as doing precisely this. The
question then becomes--
For what purpose have I
entered life? What story does my life tell?
If I were inspired by the highest love, what purpose would my life
reveal?
The
cosmic letter J on the akashic level is about love, union, conception, and completion. Like another cosmic letter—UE—its voice says,
“I create, I inspire, I guide/I make all things new in the fullness of
time.”
Imagine that in the moment you die your
soul mate, your spiritual and divine consort, appears to you and he or she
says, “I have always been with you and beside you ever step of the way. All you needed to do was to use your
spiritual senses to realize that at the center of your heart I have been, am, and will be one with you forever.” The cosmic letter J is saturated with this
kind of inspiration.
Some die for the touch of love because it
is so rare. Others’ hearts grow bitter,
hard, or cold because their love has grown old.
By contrast, the cosmic letter J envisions a sea of love that embraces
the universe. Its depths can not be
measured. It is everywhere. It is in the air, in water, in earth, in
fire—in every element is hidden the taste of its presence. Every sensation bears witness to its
existence. The letter J gives you a
different perspective, one not based on intellect but on experience.
Investors in the United States want to
believe that there is a benevolent Federal Reserve Chairman, (now Bernanke), watching over the U.S. economy. Investing, like life, always embodies
risk. But to assume risk it is very
helpful to imagine that the risk you take will prove to be worthwhile in the
end.
The global market, however, is best served
when each investor makes his or her own informed and intelligent
decisions. When you are good, you
oversee your own investments. When you
get better, you oversee others’ investments.
When you get very good, you run a mutual fund or other investment
vehicle containing billions of dollars.
When you are wise, hopefully, you become something like Bernanke who is the chairman of the Federal Reserve and
whose decisions to some extent influence the global economy.
The same applies to life. You can be benevolent but others still have
to make their own choices. According to
the story we have, one of the great moments in the history of prophecy on earth
occurred with the Oracle of Delphi told the Spartan king, in response to his
inquiry, that either Greece would be conquered or the king of Sparta would be
mourned. And so we have the story of
battle of Thermopylae.
You can give others council, wisdom, and
inspiration, but they still have to make their own choices. King Leonidas chose
to sacrifice himself. Life often
involves sacrifice and in this case, against staggering odds, the Oracle and King
Leonidas turned out to be right about how to protect
Greece.
We all oversee our own lives. We watch over and to some extent do our best
to protect those who are close to us.
When you get very good and truly wise, there are, no doubt, many openings
in this universe for those who are willing to oversee, guide, and inspire
entire planetary civilizations. You can
be very loving and, indeed, embody the highest love. But unless you wish to become a spiritual
dictator you have to allow people to make their own choices. Without risk, choice, and experience,
learning is not possible and life has no opportunity to flourish.
The four aspects of the Mysteries are to
will, to know, to dare, and to keep silence.
To love is to dare. It often requires
great courage. To dare is to accept the
world as it is and also to strive to turn it into what it can be. The question then is,
What kind of courage is
employed by those who are inspired by the highest love? What motivates them to
be willing to give of themselves? How do they pull it off?
At
the risk of boring some of my readers, I write about the letter J as it is used
in the magic formula J-CH-W by a magician in long ago Atlantis:
EXT. SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ROOFTOP—MOMENTS LATER
HE’AD’RA
(speaking word of power)
Jaaaaa
With
the sound of “Jaaa” an opal light of dark violet,
red, blue, and green intermingling expands across the sky.
MONTAGE
All
manner of spirits from all seven planetary spheres including the Angel of
Death, arch demons, the 49 judges of Saturn, the elementals, and many other
spirits from many realms and domains are surprised and astonished as they are
held captive and bound by He’ad’ra’s voice.
The
spirits turned their faces toward the third planet from the sun and to the
continent of Atlantis and then to He’ad’ra.
Hurled
and caught by a cosmic power of concentration, like the swirling tides of a
cosmic whirlpool in a cosmic sea, their voices join. The united spirits appear before He’ad’ra as a bright flame with a whirlwind of colors
whirling within it. These cast a dark
red glow that melts, twists, and cracks the columns of marble and the floor.
As
they presented themselves in front of He'adra in a
column of light, they speak as one in an unearthly calm, in an eerie, quiet,
and childlike voice:
SPIRITS
For what purpose are
we called?
On
the akashic level, the cosmic letter J involves a great union and joining of
all beings under the law of love in order to fulfill a divine purpose. In order to do this, the character called He’ad’ra was granted a gift from God earlier in his life:
MONTAGE: INT.
BEDROOM—LATE NIGHT
He’ad’ra sits up in bed amid a lucid dream. Blurry lights around him
transform into myriads of stars, nebula, and galaxies. He gets out of bed and stands up as the walls
disappear. M100, at first appearing as a
small spiral galaxy, expands into a gigantic galaxy of white, blue, and red
stars that rotates beneath him and then drifts through his legs.
EXT. AMONG
GALAXIES—NIGHT
He’ad’ra’s room seen
faintly illuminated amid the stars.
GOD (off screen)
Of all those who dwell on the earth, it is only
within your heart I am free to appear.
Ask of me, therefore, whatsoever you will
in the heavens above, upon the earth, or beneath the earth and I will grant it
to you.
HE’AD’RA
May
my will be in harmony with Your own--that all my
actions in service to others may arise from the One Light and serve the
purposes of Divine Providence.
GOD
(off screen)
Because
you ask for neither wealth, fame, nor anything for yourself at all but only to
benefit others, your power shall be without limitation--your voice shall be like My own. There shall be none like you, neither before
you nor after you in the history of the world.
The
above is part of a dramatic presentation involving the cosmic letter J. My story is fiction but the magic I describe
in the story is not.
In practicing a cosmic letter on the
akashic level, the task is to first place one’s consciousness on the akashic plane, that is, penetrating through space and time. And then one identifies with Divine Providence
in accordance with the specific qualities of the cosmic letter.
Through experience, we gain a sense of what
our individual purpose is in life. But
here on the akashic plane, we put aside our personal identity. We imagine ourselves to be pure spiritual
being.
The cosmic letter J on the akashic level is
a divine celebration. It is the union of
the God and Goddess. It is a union of
everything that exists throughout the universe.
It is the union and bliss by which the
universe was created. And it is
on-going. There is no end to it. Creation is taking place in every moment.
Whether it is the Hindu Swami mastering
his chakras, the Tibetan Lama practicing his yidams,
or the Zohar and the Quabbalah
with the name of the Elohim that is a masculine noun
with a feminine plural ending—the divine is seen in union with its opposite,
with its consort, in every moment. This
is one way to comprehend this kind of love.
In his work on ritual magic, Bardon
describes the symbolism and use of the magic circle and wand. By standing at the center of the magic
circle, the magician unites the four elements and joins his will to God. At the end of his book on basic practices,
Bardon has the student imagine that he embodies the four divine qualities of
spirit. He practices uniting his
consciousness to these four qualities both in an impersonal way and by also
identifying with them in the form of a personal deity. These practices are prior in Bardon’s system
for working with the cosmic letters.
With the letter J, the three sense
concentration involves the note of G#, a cold watery sensation, and dark opal
with the colors of red, green, violet, and blue. The red is power in all aspects. The green is very similar to what I describe
in the cosmic letter G--it is personal harmony, satisfaction, wealth, and
success along with the blessing of Divine Providence.
The blue is Jupiter’s sense of generosity,
an expansion of life possibilities, and the enlightened mind. It is all aspects of wisdom and
knowledge. The color of violet is cosmic
consciousness. It is being everywhere
and within everything. It is the
original purposes of life in their purest forms.
The cold watery sensation is like the magnetic
fluid that holds and unites these four divine qualities of spirit. Like the magnetic fluid, it is utterly
receptive, open, and empty. It easily
can contain anything within itself--nurturing, preserving, and animating
it.
(Note:
The cosmic letters often employ a dynamic tension between the three sense
concentrations in order to produce their creative power. For example, with the letter D the cool color
of blue is combined with the hot sensation of fire. Or, with the letter N, the hot color of red
is combined with the sensation of cold water.
With the letter J, the water cold sensation
acts like the magnetic fluid that encompasses and joins four different
colors. You have oneness amid diversity. The note of G# also occurs with the cosmic
letter S. As I sense it, the note in
this case produces a steady state and balance in a vast space. It embodies equilibrium. This is in dynamic contrast to the fire in
the letter S which is expanding and explosive in power. With the letter J in combination with the
water, the G# assists in uniting and stabilizing the diverse qualities of the
four elements.
However, the G# used specifically with the
letter J on the akashic plane is similar to the color violet: the note is pure
emptiness penetrating everywhere and within everything. It is a oneness with
everything that exists.)
Consequently, in practicing the cosmic
letter J on the akashic plane, there is a sense of uniting oneself with the
essence, the life, and the spirit at the core of every being. It is uniting oneself with every deep purpose
in life.
You can probably understand then that in
mastering the cosmic letter J there is no need of magic circle or wand, no need
for ritual or ceremony. No need of
priest or temple. In one of my stories,
the Goddess of the Earth says to Le’ah’e,
GODDESS OF THE EARTH
(walking toward them)
Four
billion years I have watched over and tended this planet. I created life. No religion comprehends Who I Am, though it is I who
grant permission before each appears.
(walking up to Le’ah’e)
Your innermost desires are the same as my
dreams:
To have children who can see through the
eyes of the stars,
who unite all opposites, the constellations themselves, into one song
of love.
(beat)
Will you shine with my light?
Be anointed with my beauty?
Speak with my voice?
LE’AH’E
Yes.
GODDESS OF THE EARTH
Two
things I require:
Establish justice upon the earth
(beat)
And
do as my Beloved and I do—
(passionate)
make the world new.
LE’AH’E
How do I do this?
GODDESS OF THE EARTH
Create a religion without rituals, priests, or temples
in which love, wisdom, power, and justice are equally honored and pursued.
You
could say that those who practice the cosmic letter J on the akashic plane are
indeed practicing a genuine cosmic religion, one in harmony with the universe,
one that embraces all divine purposes, and one that seeks to master omnipresence—to
be an all-embracing love that senses, joins with, protects, and celebrates the
original inspiration and inner spirit that is at the core of every being.
On such a level as this, like I say, there
is no need of wand or magic circle. When
you speak, your words speak from and with the force of the life that is at the
core of any being. Under this law of
love, you are free to join with any being in the universe to fulfill a divine
purpose. Such is the nature of Divine
Providence and all-embracing love.
There are jokes on Wall Street such as if
the Federal Reserve Chairman—Bernanke--were to get in
a car accident on his way to work the stock markets around the world would
close three to five per cent lower at the end of the day. Like I say, businessmen need to feel that
their economies are stable and that if there are problems a benevolent presence
will protect them.
A teacher in a classroom sets the tone and
the quality of the classroom by the power of her voice. It is not just done by command and
authority. It is through sympathy,
empathy, and persuasion. When she is
good, the students are convinced that she looks out for their best interests. If she is very good she actually cares about
them in that way.
You can practice the letter J on the
akashic plane. This level of awareness
penetrating space and time can be practiced in your own spiritual space—the J
in this case expands your aura but it is only your own aura that is involved. You can also practice the cosmic letter J on
the akashic plane of the earthzone--within the aura of the planet earth. Here the J is slightly different. You can get a sense of how the higher spirits
channel the influences that reach the earth from certain degrees of the
Zodiac. That is how Bardon describe the
360 spirits of the earthzone in his book on evocation. In their meditations, these spirits extend
their influence across the entire planet.
They are inspiring, protecting, and benevolent.
There may not be very many on earth who are listening.
But the inspiration is there.
Practicing the cosmic letter J in the earthzone you can get a feeling of
what it is like to be one of these spirits and one with all life on earth.
Summary
Just
from the three sense concentration if nothing else, the J on the akasha can be
summarize to produce a sense that
I am one with everything
that exists sustaining it, purifying it, and renewing it.
In the color green I am the highest love sustaining and renewing all of
creation.
In the color blue I continuously offer the highest wisdom and knowledge
to all who need them.
In the color red I continuously set in motion the means to purify, to
sanctify, and to guide all uses and applications of power throughout the
universe. There is no limit to the
creative power I offer.
In the color violet I endlessly offer the deepest and most enduring
purposes to all who wish to participate in and fulfill them.
There
are three more levels--the mental, astral, and physical levels--for practicing
the letter J. What I wrote today came
out of four hours of meditating on the J on the akashic plane. Obviously my procedure involves a lot of
meditation and a small amount of writing.
Over the next few weeks I will try to describe my experiences with these
other planes as well.
As you notice, I am making an effort to
find connections between personal love and cosmic love and also between
intellect and intuition. In other
writings, I describe in detail the difference between the electric and magnetic
fluids. These are primal and spiritual
energies analogous to masculine and feminine.
With the cosmic letter J we find the creativity and vision that derives
not from the separation but from the union of these opposites. Or, as William Blake would say, to taste this
ecstasy is to taste divinity.
Mental Plane
My only religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama
. . . the
Great Journey does not lead far away,
but
instead leads closer in:
to the
center which unites us all.
--Philip Carr-Gomm
Bardon
says that the letter J on the mental plane “expresses the mystery of rapture or
ecstasy in its highest form.” Practice
enables one to master the ecstasies that belong to each of the four
elements—earth, air, fire, and water—seen in consciousness, intellect, will,
and in love. An individual learns how to
evoke one or all of these ecstasies at will.
From Bardon’s other writings we know how
important attaining magical equilibrium is—that is, arriving at a balance of
the four elements in one’s astral body. In
working toward magical equilibrium, we get to know the elements as they already
exist within us. We study their
operations with great care.
The practice of magical equilibrium
involves, for example, associating negative emotions such as anger, revenge,
arrogance, depression, laziness, etc. with a particular element. And then one conscientiously works to turn
that negative quality into something positive.
(Note: There is a certain leeway
in ascribing a specific quality to one element.
Insensitivity for example is a weakness in the water element but an
individual can be insensitive because he is too intellectual, too willful, or
too focused on the material world to notice what other people are feeling. You have to use your own discretion in
deciding which element goes with which quality.
Also, some of the qualities listed belong
more to the astral plane and others belong more to the mental plane. In discussing astral equilibrium, we are
discussing emotions that belong to an individual’s personality. If someone says, “I love you,” it is possible
he is speaking of an astral feeling as in “I am overwhelmed with awe and
longing whenever I think about you.”
This is an astral response as is typical of falling in love.
The “I love you” could also be a mental
body response as in “In so many ways we are like each other—we are completely
compatible, in sync, and in harmony with each other.” In other words, the
person is saying, “I like the idea of our relationship. It works. It makes sense to me.”
But when the mental plane becomes very
strong, there is always going to be an astral effect. If you feel ecstasy on the mental plane, you
will almost always experience very powerful feelings on an astral level as
well. Using one’s mind to change
negative astral qualities to positive qualities is basically using the mental
plane to change the astral. In this
sense, the practice of attaining magical equilibrium involves equally the
mental and astral planes. For this
reason, I am linking the description of the ecstasies on the mental plane to
the process of changing the astral qualities of the elements.)
There
are various methods Bardon recommends for developing astral equilibrium. You can use autosuggestion—you repeat to
yourself as in an affirmation that you have the positive quality you are
after. You can use will power to simply
stop a certain kind of action. And you
can mediate on the opposite quality.
In terms of methods, autosuggestion and
affirmations seem to belong to the air element.
It is cognitive psychology—you remind yourself with words and ideas of
the way you want to be. This method is
more intellectual. Using will belongs to
the fire element. Meditation is more
like the water element.
Behavioral methods seem to belong more to
the earth element. If you are trying to
eat less sweets you can modify your behavior by simply
eating a little less each day. You do
not have to do much in the way of thinking, feeling, or using your will. You simply focus on changing your behavior in
a slow way that does not cause pain but inevitably brings about change.
In a book I am doing on undines, I summarize various
ways to mediate on an element:
“There are different ways of making a feeling, a spiritual
presence, or an inner truth our own. You
can use the method of focusing—notice the feelings that a description of an
experience awakens in your body as you read or speak the words. Open to the
feelings and let them transform as they vibrate, echo, and expand within
you.
You can use contemplation—let the words be your guide as you let them
sink into your mind leading to you a place of dream and vision beyond the
limitations of thought and reason.
You can the method of dialoguing—let the feeling within the words appear
to you as a person with whom you can speak and who speaks as you listen. Discuss your different perspectives and ask
the tough questions.
You can use invocation—let the words raise your awareness to a higher
level so that you feel closer to something greater than your self and that now
has greater access to you.
You can use evocation—speak the words as if you are the one who wrote
them and that what they mean rises from the core of your being.
You can use meditation—open your mind with care and concentration so
that the vibration of the words (their essence, the light and life within them)
become a part of your mind, your body, and your soul.
You can treat them like poetry (as poetry and words of power existed in
ancient times)—the sounds and imagery speak to your heart and imagination of
and with the primordial powers of creation.
How? Similar to meditation, you
become very still like a mirror, like the surface of a still lake, like open
space through which sun and moon light appear.
And then with more feeling than is typical of meditation you let what is
in front of you appear within you so that you overcome the separation.
You can use path working—somewhere between daydreaming and waking up within
a dream begin an imaginative journey that moves between who and where you are
and what you wish the world to be.
Or, to sum it all up, you just become the
thing you are concentrating on.”
If
we meditate on the opposite quality of a weakness in an element, we are
focusing on a positive quality of another element. It might be helpful, therefore, to discuss
the elements in terms of when they are positive and quite strong. This also leads us toward a discussion of the
ecstasy of the individual elements.
Some spirits of the earthzone such as the
spirit referred to as Jvar specialize in magical
equilibrium. Jvar
may have an individual who has trouble with a certain element practice
embodying a strong, positive quality of that element or of another element that
has an influence over the first
If you feel oppressed and obsessed, Jvar may have you meditate on the element of air. The air sensation in this case may be an
astral energy that feels light, weightless, at ease, balanced, and free. Its emotional qualities are feeling playful,
happy, content, sensitive, alive to each moment—appreciative and full of
wonder, looking at life as if you back in time at Stratford watching the first
showing of one of Shakespeare’s plays.
This is touching on the air element in its ecstasy—in this case,
artistic inspiration.
In other words, Jvar
is attuned to overcoming the negative quality not only by working with the
opposite positive quality. He is also advising an individual to become familiar
with the ecstasy within each element.
The negative often has a hold upon us
because we have not yet become familiar with the genuine beauty and pleasure
that each element contains. Our limited
experience keeps us in bondage or in a jail.
The key to freedom is to understand and experience the creative magic
that is a part of the positive qualities of each element.
In a sense, then, practicing the cosmic
letter J on the mental plane involves many different things. It is as study of four elements in their
ecstasies, true. It is also a study of
magical equilibrium, of turning negative to positive. And it is a study of the ideals that motivate
and inspire human beings. The individual
ecstasies are something sacred—they take us out and beyond our individual
identities and unite us with something greater and more powerful than
ourselves. In this sense, the letter J
on the mental plane is an introduction to a genuine cosmic religion.
Different religions have grown up around
these elemental experiences and turned them into spiritual ideals—love and
compassion, enlightenment and wisdom, divine will and justice, and divine
purpose and accomplishing works that are of enduring value. Religions, however, rely heavily upon
tradition. For example, it takes
religions hundreds if not thousands of years to form a consensus about what is
sacred. This is important because the
members of a particular religion feel a compelling need to agree on what is at
the center of their tradition. In the process,
religions have been shaped by historical, cultural, philosophical, economic,
and political considerations. And as a
result they have rituals, doctrines, lineages, hierarchies, and priests.
In pursuing magical equilibrium, by
contrast, our concern is not with belief, doctrines, or traditions. Our primary focus is on the activity of the
elements in our personalities. Our daily
lives are the spiritual training ground.
We ask questions such as: How does my mind
work? What is the depth and richness of
my feelings? What are my goals and what
strengths and virtues do I need to acquire in order to attain and to maintain
them? Where am I with my intellect,
will, feeling, and consciousness? What
might these become if I deepen and transform them?
In studying the ecstasies of the four
elements in our own astral and mental bodies, we are exploring the connections
between our individual microcosm and the greater macrocosm. We are bringing ourselves into harmony with
the laws of the universe. The feeling of
completion that arises is not just personal and satisfying. It is a magical action. The depth of this vision of what life is
capable of being takes us beyond our cultural traditions to a universal,
global, and finally to a cosmic level of awareness.
(Note: I often get questions
about the difference between the elements in Chinese acupuncture and the
elements in hermetic magic. And one
scientist used me as an example of a modern person who still uses an archaic
system that approaches nature in terms of four elements rather than viewing it
from the perspective of modern science.
I have no objections to science. I love science. Scientists, however, seem very unaware of the
capabilities of the mind. As a spiritual
anthropologist, I have been studying the varieties of spiritual and psychic
experience for the last thirty five years.
The most creative research in telepathy is taking place not among
psychics but by the U.S. military. With
so much technology at our fingertips we barely need to refine our senses to
attain mind to mind contact. Scientists
have already attained direct, wireless communication between the brain and
computers. Some would like a computer
chip inserted in each person at birth so a government can tack the whereabouts
of each person. Who needs
telepathy? You can call just about
anyone on a cell phone and ask them what they are thinking.
There is actually no need to refer to four
elements. Mentifil,
the gnome, for example, studies the electronic oscillation in most of the
elements found in the periodic table.
Nonetheless, physical matter, liquids, gas, and fire have certain
general characteristics which make them convenient reference points.
We could just as easily say that modern scientists
use an archaic and childlike system of classification--one unified field of
matter, energy, and life are separated in arbitrary ways and then referred to
as biology, zoology, physics, chemistry, astrophysics, astronomy, meteorology,
oceanography, etc. Everything that
exists has an electronic vibration. When
you are clairsentient, you can perceive this directly with your mind. Scientists simply have not developed this
kind of sensitivity. If they did, the
process of discovery would be accelerated as direct perception is added to
scientific observation.
The undines are specialists not just in
the H2O molecule or water as it exists in nature. They can increase or modify the qualities of
a magnetic field at will. All the same,
it took a great number of astrological variables acting in just the right way
to produce water as it exists on our planet--a very rare occurrence among the
billions of stars in our galaxy. Alien
scientists arriving at earth would probably exclaim, “Look at how the water
element penetrates and shapes every aspect of this planet’s life, geology, and
atmosphere.” I think the ancient
scientists might have had an edge in understanding the uniqueness of the water
element on earth by assigning it a primary place in their system of
classification.
The salamander Itumo
can do the same with electricity and lightning as undines do with water. The entire biosphere is receptive and subject
to being modified by an awareness that penetrates it
with the powers of the mind. A sylph
like Cargoste can put back the onset of an ice age by
twenty to fifty years by altering the route of the jet stream and other
atmospheric phenomena.
Scientists along with politicians and
businessmen often employ high levels of intuition as well as psychic powers as
they go about their professions. They
simply are unaware of when they are using these “magical” powers. Instead, they are considered to be brilliant,
gifted, charismatic, or inspired. I find
that using the four elements to describe heightened states of awareness is a
very useful tool. It seems far richer
and more complete in its explanatory power than anything I have yet found in
modern psychology.)
The Ecstasy of Fire
Do you know what it is like to explode
From the core of your being—
To be a flame of white light
Reaching down from the sky
And up from the earth
And to celebrate this art within
your heart?
I will tell you:
It is bliss unafraid of
emptiness
It is love unafraid of loss
It is desire burning so hot
It annihilates the shadows within
the lover’s heart.
Wherever there is an abyss, a
chasm, or a gulf
Within nature, between one heart
and another,
Or separating mankind from the
divine—
My joy and delight will suffice
To pierce and shatter the
darkness of any night
So you may find the path across.
From the salamander Itumo
In
regard to transforming the negative qualities of fire into something positive,
consider anger. There are entire
curriculums relating to anger management.
Individuals can be ordered to anger management by a judge who then
reviews the individual’s degree of participation in the court ordered
program. Part of the training is to
become aware of a series of increasingly intense sensations and emotions that
lead one to act without thinking. In
other words, you simply train to be more conscious by observing what you
experience rather than remaining unconscious.
Another aspect of the training is to learn
to intervene on your own behalf. When
you notice you are about to act with anger you take a time out. You break the otherwise automatic sequence of
behaviors which amount to preprogrammed actions. You think make a conscious decision about the
outcome you wish to happen.
In Honolulu, every divorcing couple who has
children is ordered to divorce meditation.
The mediators make the well-being of the children the central issue in
the divorce process. In both these
cases, society has institutionalized and demanded that individuals work to
transform themselves by, in effect, striving toward greater balance in their
emotional life and mental attitudes.
Before even practicing the cosmic letter J
we can ask questions and explore the universal aspects of the four elements in
terms of the treasures of life and spirit they contain. Again, consider anger. Anger may flair up unexpectedly for an
individual. Like road rage, someone is
driving down the highway completely relaxed and at ease and someone suddenly
cuts him off. He may overreact and do
something completely foolish or even dangerous.
In another situation, he may feel threatened when another individual
simply expresses a genuine feeling of doubt or anxiety about something
affecting both of them.
The anger can be ascribed to the fire
element. You could say it appears
because the individual’s will power is weak or deficient—the fire element is
underdeveloped so that he feels he has to overreact in order to
compensate. You see this all the time
with individuals whose minds are already made up. They are obstinate and inflexible—they
blindly assert themselves to appear to be firm and decisive.
Or, you could also say that the anger
results because the fire element is too strong and unrefined—the individual
feels compelled to act. He has lots of
fiery energy. But in this case also he
lacks the experience necessary to make a good choice.
In a sense, the anger is a signpost, a
warning, and an invitation. It is
saying, “Consider how much more dynamic and in charge of your life you would be
if you actually embodied more will and power.
Right now you feel impotent in certain situations. You are out of control. What if you had more direction and your sense
of purpose were more powerful and profound?
Would you waste a moment of your time in on being angry when you have
such great things to do with yourself?”
What is it like to
experience the ecstasy of the fire element in terms of will? What would it be like to feel that you have a
will power equal to if not far greater than anyone you have ever met?
In
literature and drama, this issue about will power is often at the center of a
story’s conflict. The bad guy is
striving to have power over others. Now
a screenplay writer has to love all his characters or they just don’t come
across well.
Rowling in her series on Harry Potter has
a bad guy called Lord Voltmort. But this bad guy is one-dimensional. There is no room to feel any sympathy for
him. He is a cliché. He just wants power and the power he wants
serves no purpose.
The problem with this presentation is that
the bad guy only exists to spur the good guys to act. Without him, there is no story. He exists so that everyone else can run
around discovering who they really are and doing heroic things in order to
defeat him.
One of my very favorite characters in
literature is Senator Palaptine/the Sith Lord in Star
Wars. The Sith Lord can disguise his
power so that even Jedi can not sense who he is. And he does something right: he feels that
the galaxy should be organized and run more efficiently. The Jedi seem incapable of such vision.
The problem with great bad guys is that they
all seem to have the same character flaws.
They are manic depressive or schizophrenic. One moment the Sith Lord disguised as Senator
Palpatine is the height of reason, diplomacy, consideration, and even
handedness. The next moment in one of
his video conferences he is nearly hissing with rage, arrogance, and
hostility.
The bad guys are impatient. They rarely wait till just the right moment
to make their move. They are arrogant
which leads them to overreact or underestimate the opposition. They just do not see the world clearly.
And above all else the bad guys have the
character flaw of needing to be recognized.
They want to show the world or the galaxy just how great they really are
to make up for all the suffering they have gone through or all those years of
being in hiding and unappreciated.
So what if the bad guy did not have these
character flaws? What if he was consistent,
patient, and judicial in his temperament so that he always strives to see the
world clearly? And what if he was
actually humble so that he realized holding power is a sacred honor and great
responsibility—so that he is content to accomplish all his purposes by
remaining hidden and acting from behind the scenes?
I ran this by one of my consultants and he
said, “Then you would have a good guy instead of a bad guy.” And there it is. To make an interesting and convincing bad guy
you have to give him some good qualities.
Similarly, to make an interesting and convincing good character you have
to mix in some weaknesses, failure, and bad attitudes.
And there you have life. Sometimes the good guys with one or two
character flaws are as dangerous as the bad guys. Nixon could establish détente with China and
Russian but he was paranoid. He was
willing to cheat when it came to maintaining the democratic process.
Some people loved Bill Clinton. But while he knew that Al-Qaeda was training
25,000 terrorists in Afghanistan, his government was unable to act because he
was undergoing the process of impeachment.
A weakness for women brought about 9/11.
I ask seriously, who is worse?
Those with malice and a tiny bit of power who seek to kill and to
destroy or someone running the most powerful army, intelligence organization,
and economy on earth but whose political impotency enables 9/11 to happen?
The Sith Lord is dangerous because he makes
a great attempt using his psychic powers to empathically understand
others. He likes to use force. But he absolutely loves to control others
from within by actually understanding what motivates them.
Look at how he turned the young Anakin,
soon to be Darth Vader, to the dark side.
“We will be following your career with great interest,” says the Sith
Lord in the guise of Senator Palpatine.
Did the kid ever have a chance?
The Sith Lord was more interested in Anakin, understood him far better,
and monitored his inner and outer movements more carefully than Anakin’s own
Jedi master.
Using empathy to understand others is a
good thing except in the hands of someone with evil designs. What is great about Palpatine is that he is
more empathic than anyone else in the galaxy. He actually runs his organization
through an inner psychic connection to his followers. What is bad is that he abuses the power.
One of the actors who played the Sith Lord
said the Sith Lord was hard to play because all he wanted was pure power and so
he was pure evil. This misses the
point. Power is itself a divine
virtue. It grants you the ability to
change the world. Instead of being
helpless or possessed by good intentions (well meaning, devote, sincere, etc.)
but otherwise completely impotent, you actually get to make a difference. And making a difference in life is part of
what being alive is all about.
As I have said elsewhere, if you have power
you can change things. If you act with
wisdom, the changes you make are harmonious and fair. If you act with love, what you do heals
others and allows them to feel more alive. And if you act with divine purpose
your works endure through all ages of the world.
Back to the question of
anger. If you make the fire
element positive by developing your will power you do not remain angry for
long. This is because being dynamic and
in charge of your self means you strive to make the best of every situation you
enter. So you do not waste time on non
productive emotions.
On the other hand, if you work with the
opposite of anger and fire, namely, water and feeling you possess more empathy
for others and more inner serenity. You
do not experience anger because you are no longer impatient. You do not become
hostile because a person or situation does not match your expectations. Instead, you accept life as it is before you
start to change it.
I am capable of great anger. But it is hard for me to remain angry because
of my empathy. I can actually understand
the point of view, feelings, and experiences of anyone. Immediately seeing both sides of a conflict
tends to reduce the amount of tension.
If you combine both fire and water in good
measure, then you have sympathy for others and you remain focused on
accomplishing the most and getting the most out of a situation. Great leaders do not avoid asking others for
sacrifice. They simply convince others
that what they are asking for serves an important purpose and it is being done
for the greater good. And even when you
are the one being asked to make the sacrifice, the individual with power will
convey to you some of his fire and water: he will show you that he understands
what you feel and he will transform your feelings by making you feel
appreciated and valuable.
In the books written by Carlos Castaneda,
the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan said that in order to face the unknown, the Nagual, a young apprentice often must undergo servitude to
a petite dictator. The petite dictator
is anyone who tries to totally dominate others and subject them to his
will. In fighting to be free of this
dominating individual, a student of magic learns to develop his own will
power. He is witness to power in its
negative aspect and must in turn exert tremendous will in a positive way to
overcome it.
But this is not just about developing one’s
will power and distinguishing positive from negative. It is about a requirement necessary for
facing the unknown. To face the unknown,
a student needs to be bring all the resources of his
being into play in order to overcome an obstacle. Similarly, to enter the divine world, you
need to have total will power and conviction at your disposal so as not to rely
upon the support of society and the rules relating to custom and conformity.
The positive fire element will at some
point ask of us if we are ready to gather all your resources and focus them
through our wills so that we are ready to accomplish a spiritual purpose. The petite dictator—your boss, your spouse,
your parent, your religion, a gang/organization/group of some kind—will attempt
to control every aspect of your life.
This attempt at control is not just accomplished through external
pressures. It will use bribes, bait, rewards,
or a job offer as well as coercion, threats, blackmail, guilt, shame, and
whatever else it can use to take advantage of your weaknesses.
In a similar way, a religion may try to act
as a jailer, warden, judge, policeman, prosecutor, and parole officer. If you show any guilt, uncertainty, doubt, or
fear they will grab hold of you for your own good. They offer safety and a community, friendship
and solace, so you can get on with your life.
In their own eyes, they exist to protect you from your self.
You are free of the petite dictator when
you are able to just walk away. It is
not easy but you have decided to pay the price that is required to be in charge
of your self. You no longer feel
tempted, threatened, or afraid. You have
come to understand the dictator’s limitations.
Sometimes the petite dictator plays the role of guarding you from the
unknown. They are the “guardian of the
threshold” to the mysteries.
These
guardian/priests/ministers/evangelists/religious teachers are in the depths of
their hearts terrified of the unknown.
They have stood at the boundaries separating conventional wisdom from
the mysteries of life and they turned back because their fear was too
great. But if in fact you are free of
fear and you embody a purpose that empowers you to go where they can not go,
they will no longer attempt to interfere.
They glance into your eyes; they will listen to your voice; and with a
body to body, soul to soul, heart to heart exchange of on a subliminal level,
they will say in effect, “You may pass.
Go with God speed. What you
attempt to do will never even enter my dreams.”
In a nutshell, you can take all the
struggles in your life involving will power and consider them to be tests
offered to you so that you will be ready to enter akasha, the fifth element. It will take all of your will power to enter
the divine world but this is as it should be.
Those who take into their hands the powers of creation should fully
understand both the positive and the negative and the purposes that are served
by each.
Bardon gives examples of the fire element
in its negative aspect to which I add a few.
They are anger, rage, jealousy, hatred, hostility, animosity,
vindictiveness, irascibility, gluttony, insatiable, irritability, intemperance,
bent to destruction, oppression, intolerance, aggression, accusing, blaming,
self-righteousness, fanaticism, passive-aggressive, manipulative, controlling,
domineering, etc.
In the positive qualities of fire are
activity, enthusiasm, firmness, courage, eagerness, foresight, assertive,
direct, spontaneous, and resolution.
We might explore the ecstasy of the fire
element by referring to its more refined aspect—the electric fluid: In brief, the electric fluid is hot, burning,
expansive, dynamic, intense, powerful, and explosive in sensation. It has the capacity to produce great
light.
This can also be expressed in a negative
fashion. As such its
burning and consuming power acts to dominate the wills of others. It tortures and torments, hazes and
subjugates. It absorbs others’ wills
into itself. It utilizes every means possible to corrupt, divide, undermine,
and enslave others to its purposes.
For the negative electrical fluid, the light
is there but it lacks purity and clarity—the vision is distorted and
twisted. The faith and conviction are
there but are often expressed in a degraded form as arrogance and
self-righteousness.
In terms of the positive, you
could say that independence, strength, courage, conviction, faith, will,
determination, dedication, self-reliance, self-mastery, uprightness, clarity,
order, adaptability, practicality, planning, productivity, excitement,
exhilaration, creativity, and vision are qualities that are present when the
electrical fluid is operating successfully.
(For more on the electric and magnetic fluids, see
lava.net/~pagios/archetypes3.htm --The
electric and magnetic fluids/Four feminine archetypes/the story of Eros and
Psyche)
Put briefly, then, part of the ecstasy of fire is exhilaration,
excitement, enthusiasm, conviction, and a profound sense of purpose. The ecstasy of will is
feeling that you are aligned with the forces of life. The momentum unfolding the universe is
flowing through your will.
A
man does what he needs to do. The ecstasy
here is being in touch with the deepest and greater power within you. Without this you can not be who you are meant
to be. With it, something of the
radiance, brilliance, and life giving power of the sun is shining through you.
Think about the sun for a moment. If its light were a song, the sun is singing
in concert with every other star in the universe. Yet its song is original and arises from the
depths of its being. If you can get
inside this, if you can sense what the spirits of the sphere of the sun feel,
the level of joy is incomprehensible. I
would be willing to call this joy ecstasy.
Looking back, when I experienced the height
of my despair when I was in a Tibetan monastery or living by myself in the
Rocky Mountains, there were these odd moments that came to me. I felt my life was totally without meaning or
significance. And then I would stop at
Baskin Robins and have a scoop of chocolate chip ice cream. And this astonishing feeling would overcome
me—I sensed how incredibly beautiful life was.
It was like being for a brief instant transported to the sphere of the
sun where the joy is beyond comprehension.
This did not explain my despair or
depression to me. But it did help me
keep my priorities straight. I had certain
questions I wanted answered about the divine world and I felt empowered to keep
searching—that the price was worth paying to find those answers.
A Jew I knew who was a psychic asked me
about the question of suffering. But
this is not an academic question. For
the spirits of the sphere of the sun you either become healed if you are hurt
or you seek to heal those who are still suffering. For the sphere of the sun, anything can be
recreated new. Despair, for example,
when it is really profound is almost identical to cosmic consciousness. This is because you are experiencing total
detachment from individual identity and an emptiness that is so open it can
embrace anything. St. Columba, for
example, talked about the degree of his despair before he experienced the
presence of God. (see my story on St. Columba: lava.net/~pagios/columba.htm)
Like I say, the ecstasy of fire enables you
to set your priorities. You focus on
your goals. You try not to allow the
small things to disturb you. The point
is to accomplish your mission and this you can do if you feel this ecstasy
within you. It accompanies you every
step of the way.
Of course, I realize my discussion about
the ecstasy of fire is rather metaphysical and refined. We can talk about ecstasy in more prosaic
terms. Contrast my approach to the
ancient Greeks. The Greek city states
had a habit of fighting each other during the summer and taking a break during
the winter.
It is no surprise, then, for the Greeks to
have this saying, “Men love war more than food, sleep, or women.” In modern times, some say the task of a man
is to find some sort of productive work that is as exciting and captivating as
sex. When he does so he attains a
balance between his instincts and his role in society.
Consider those activities that engage a
100% of your attention and which are exhilarating, giving you that thrill of
power that arises from the core of your being.
The question then is
Can you find a productive
activity through which you can focus the deepest primal powers in your self and
also the full force of your personal and spiritual will?
If
you can do so then you know something of the ecstasy of fire.
Though
I am not discussing the elementals in this essay, in passing I would like to
quote from my book on nature spirits.
The elementals are rather unique in that, being composed of only one element, they clearly embody the primary qualities of that
element:
In the fire element is an exuberant power. The
beings who reside in fire, the salamanders, seize each moment with zeal in
order to dissolve the obstacles blocking their path to fulfillment. Such fiery
will destroys all fear and apprehension. For the salamanders, each moment
presents the opportunity to purify, strengthen, and expand the power of
will.
The Ecstasy of Air
My mind is
the sky--
Pure,
clear, and open.
Its air flows
through my chest,
Its winds are
my breath.
In the air
element is found clarity of mind and the attainment of
freedom. The air element is so vast and expansive, so
encompassing, those who
are illuminated by its wisdom vanquish all confusion and overcome all
attachment. The beings who reside in the sky, the sylphs, enter each moment
seeking to attain and to abide in complete harmony.
The Zen master knows when a student gets a koan
right. He witnesses a new flower blossoming. The air is filled with the
fragrance of light.
The perfection of wisdom is simply learning to ask the right question at
the right time of the right person.
Franz Bardon says there is
an ecstasy of intellect created by the cosmic letter J. Some of us are given a taste this ecstasy in
college. If we are lucky, a few of our
college professors strove with diligence to teach us how to think clearly. They promoted a love of scholarship. They demonstrated through example how to be
concise, to the point, and persuasive.
They illustrated how to argue both sides of a question in order to
assess and understand different points of view.
They showed us how to weight evidence in support of a theory. They taught the value of observation and
experimentation.
If you were really lucky, you may have run
into one of those individuals like the man who discovered how to splice genes. He said something interesting in regard to
our topic: “There is no greater pleasure than the thrill of scientific
discovery.” Now that man was anointed
with the ecstasy of the air element.
In the Western world, we have scientists
whose passion enables them to dedicate themselves for a life time to scientific
research. And their research transforms
the world.
But we are after magical equilibrium. We want to know how to make the air element
stronger, more positive and refined. The
element of air on the mental plane is the object of our study. Again, Bardon wants the beginnings student to
carefully analyze and describe his strengths and weaknesses with the each
element. And then the student is to use
autosuggestion and will power to slowly change each of the negative qualities
into positive qualities.
This is a good approach. In addition, as with the element of fire, we
will want to understand and experience the ecstasy of air so we can use this
also on focusing on our negative qualities in order to better understand and to
transform them.
I occasionally have a conversation with
someone I know who is smoking a cigarette.
The nicotine is obviously addicting. But there is also a psychological
component to the addiction. The smoke
affects the lung meridian, the vitality in the chest region. In acupuncture, the lung meridian relates to
the feeling of moving into the future with balance and harmony. On the other hand if you are experiencing
anxiety rather than harmony in regard to the future, smoking has this
fascinating effect. It is like placing
around your self a force shield that isolated you and
protects you—for a brief while you are detached from the world and your anxiety
temporarily ceases. This is acquiring a
small dose of the air element procured through a rather destructive habit.
Some people refer to how teenagers are
obsessed with music. One of the
developmental tasks for a teenager is to find his or her way in the world. The wisdom of the order generation may not
seem sufficient or relevant. This kind
of life transition can be very confusing, especially on an emotional
level. Music, the notes and harmonies,
often have a calming influence on one’s emotions. They can define, refine, and give expression
to what we are feeling. Music and songs
can increase our energy at the same moment as we shrug off our tension,
relaxing and letting go. Music is also a
taste of the ecstasy of air.
Bardon has students practice imagining
they are surrounded by the air element so they are floating weightless and free
in a vast space. This is experiencing
the air element directly through imagination and magical concentration. If you practice enough, you can reproduce at
will a feeling and sensation of being harmonious, detached, and completely free
anytime you wish. But this takes a whole
lot of work. Lighting up a cigarette or
turning on your Ipod is much easier and provides
instant gratification. On the other
hand, if you love nature, the universe, and the idea of developing the spirit
within you so that you can help others, then you will probably commit to some
form of training.
Bardon offers a list of
positive qualities belonging to the air element to which I have added a few in
relation to the intellect: Diligence,
cheerfulness, independence, familiarity, optimism, wonder, dexterity,
attentiveness, friendly, harmonious, judicial temperament, tolerant and a
tolerance for ambiguity, negotiation, temperance, fair, honest, impartial, even
handed, even tempered, buoyant, sense of humor, rapport, attunement, truthful, open-minded, objective, detached,
aware, alert, positive, curious, articulate, concise, thoughtful, reasonable,
considerate, analytical, self-reflective, and wise.
On the negative side we find qualities such as
squandering, boasting, gossiping, trivial, lustful, vulnerable, oversensitive,
easily offended, feeling wronged, disconnected, inattentive, distracted,
off-balance, vacillating, indecisive, anxious, self-doubting, conflicted, entangled,
confused, alienated, paranoid, ambiguous, enabling, aloof, impersonal,
narrow-minded, closed-minded, opinionated, ideological, bigotry, racist,
biased, prejudiced, argumentative, presumptuous, skeptical, sarcastic, cynical,
disdainful, contemptuous, sly, fickle,
foolish, over familiar, frivolous, facetious, dishonest, deceptive,
wistful, and dreamy.
Again, an individual can have a negative air quality
because he is weak in the air element.
He is foolish—getting himself in over his head and making terrible
mistakes--because he lacks knowledge, experience, and training. They say this
in a humorous way about investing. You
can not become truly great until you have made every kind of mistake. For example, you can make bundles trading with
paper money—using a program that pretends you are actually investing. But this has almost nothing in common with
using real money. It is a totally
different game.
Lots of
beginning investors will say to themselves something like, “If I can just make
1% return per week I will have over a 50% return per year.” “Dream on,” says
the demon to the protagonist in the movie, Jacob’s Ladder.
The same
applies to someone starting the Bardon system.
He may say, “Why I am going to master this system and have all sorts of
magical powers within a few years.” And
a similar demon whispers in his ear when he is sleeping, “Dream on.”
An
individual can have a negative quality of the air element because he has a lot
of air element but has never learned to apply it in a positive way. You see this at the extreme with
stalkers. They are not just over
familiar. They assume they know what is going on inside of another person’s mind. A man or woman acts as if the object of
desire is a lover and best friend when he or she may never have met this person
or having anything that constitutes a relationship.
That is a
huge dose of the air element causing him to feel that he has knowledge when
there is only ignorance. As was said of
the prosecutor down in Atlanta—he was a perfect example of self-interest
meeting self-deception. He proceeded to
prosecute in order to get reelected. But
there was not only no credible evidence; he concealed evidence that would have
exonerated the defendants.
When I
trained as a mediator in Honolulu, the entrance exam was a verbal set of
questions. The examiner wanted to
determine if I could listen, remain impartial, and tolerate ambiguity. It all came down to whether I could oversee a
process that empowers others to discover their own mutually satisfying
solutions.
In addition
to a well designed curriculum and negotiating abilities, there were two primary
skills of meditation that we employed.
These are familiar to many people but you rarely witness them being used
in ordinary life. The first is active
listening.
In active
listening, you occasionally summarize what the other person is saying. You summarize the facts and ideas being
mentioned. And you also summarize the emotions
with which this person is presenting these facts or ideas. In the process, you can also point out or ask
about any incongruities between what is saidand the
feelings the person is presenting.
For
example, “You are saying your husband is constantly demanding your time and
energy. You also seem fairly comfortable
caring for him in this way except when it wears you out.” This gives the other person a chance to think
about and clarify her own statements.
Maybe she is bothered by giving so much or maybe she has reasons for
doing what she does but has never thought about them.
The other
skill is called reframing. It has vast
applications. In meditation, it is used
to reduce tension. If someone says he is
angry, you summarize his point of
view but you rephrase his emotion, “His loud music has been a constant problem
on the weekends and this has been bothering
you.” On a scale of one to ten, “anger”
may be a seven. “Being bothered” may be
a three. You have just shifted the
intensity of a described emotion from a seven four notches down to a
three.
Or someone
says, “I am terribly upset.” And you
summarize, “And so this problem has been interfering
with your life.” Again, you have
just taken an emotionally charged phrase, “terribly upset,” and replaced it
with a phrase that redirects the person
toward what is desired—“no longer being interfered with.”
You would
think an individual would not let you get away with this. But in meditation something amazing
happens. The participants do not notice
what you are doing because you are supplying them with a huge amount of the air
element--it is bright; it is clear; it is positive; it is hopeful. It strives to take into consideration every
detail and aspect of the situation, both facts and emotions. Rarely does one person listen to another
person with total attention to thought and feeling. And without prejudiced or bias, the mediators
present the bottom line—the set of choices that must be made in order to
resolve the conflict.
I occasionally use a spirit of the sphere of
Mercury, Achaiah, to help in a situation of
conflict. This spirit is amazing. The most negative person will start acting
and thinking in a totally completely manner.
They are exposed to the ecstasy of the intellect and this ecstasy is
more captivating and satisfying than being negative.
The problem
with intervening in this way is that you can solve problems temporarily. But you can not interfere with someone’s free
will. If he or she really wants to be
negative, it is their right to make that choice. You can intervene to limit their negativity
in regard to how it affects others. You
can give a taste of life in its beauty and power. But at some point a person has to decide if
he really wants to make the effort necessary to take his life in a direction
opposite to where he is currently going.
For any
number of reasons besides magical ones, an individual can experience a large
dose of the air element. He may suddenly
find himself artistically inspired (think Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with its vision of harmony). He may feel transcendent (think Krishnamurti who renounced theosophy and decided that there
is no reason enlightenment can not occur spontaneously).
He may experience
an intellectual breakthrough (like the scientist who had a cold and stayed home
and as he was peeling an orange suddenly envisioned that the way to pattern the
DNA molecule is as a double spiral). He
may experience beauty (Dante catches a glimpse of a young girl on one occasion
and writes the Divine Comedy from
that vision). The ecstasy of air grants
artistic inspiration, insight, feeling transcendent, enlightenment,
intellectual breakthrough, the desire for discovery, etc.
It is said
that the enlightened mind is open, clear, luminous, and free. I woke up from a nap one day and
spontaneously wrote a poem called, The
Voice of Enlightenment
(see lava.net/~pagios/lettera.htm). The
voice says in the poem,
I am a mirror so clear
I am in this moment right here—
It’s a moment so rich, so filled with bliss
So endless, so infinite
Only compassion can touch it.
There are moments when I experience this. I can evoke it using the cosmic letter A for
example. (see
lava.net/~pagios/a.html). I know a young
woman who has a strong, inborn connection to the yidam
described in Buddhism as Amitabha Buddha. If I meditate with her, I experience without
any effort a boundless realm of light.
It is like saying, “My mind is the sky/pure, clear, and open.” There are moments when I feel this
spontaneously. But most of the time I
must strive with great effort to find it again.
She takes what she has for granted and fails to strengthen her
connection to it.
Life
presents us with situations that are very confusing. We find ourselves trying to manage under
great restrictions, high levels of conflict, and with very limited
knowledge. And furthermore, our brain
chemistry may not be working to our benefit.
Who knows, cell phones destroy brain cells, wireless networks suppress
neurological activity, and all sorts of food additives interfere with our genes
and our nervous systems. And here we are
trying to transform our negative air qualities into positive ones.
Under
conditions like this it is helpful to remind ourselves of the ecstasy of air
element in its full power—that the mind is open, clear, and luminous like the
sky. And each moment conceals within it
treasures of bliss, wonder, and a freedom and harmony that know no
limitation. If there is a genuine cosmic
religion, then it should assist and empower us to find and develop these
qualities in ourselves.
The Ecstasy
of Water
In water are
love and sharing--the experience of life giving birth to life and of flowing in
and through another. In water is the
absolute destruction of loneliness, separation, and isolation. For the beings who dwell within water, the
undines, each moment is a magnetic sea containing the dreams and the taste of
ecstasy--each moment arises from and resonates with the love sustaining all
life on earth.
There is a peace in the soul as deep as the ocean, as flowing as
water, as still and clear as a mirror, and as vast as the starry night. Isaphil
Are human beings brain dead?
How can anyone miss wanting to taste the incomprehensible bliss that
this planet creates? Let me put this another way. Does it take a poor poet such
as me to deliver such an obvious message?
From the
undines—to humanity:
The
universe is on fire with wonder, beauty, and ecstasy.
If we understand that water is itself a sacrament, a
sensation, feeling, and symbol given to us that bears witness to omnipresent
love, then we shall know “a well-being that flows like a stream from the dawn
of time to the ends of eternity.
At night I dream that I have
become a silver chalice. And within this
chalice is gathered the purest essence of all the stars. When I dream this dream, though I am but the
sea, I feel I have become one with the universe. (The goddess of the sea from
the story, Isaphil)
In terms of magical
equilibrium, examples of the positive astral qualities of the water element as
modesty, humility, abstemiousness, fervency, compassion, meditation, insight,
calmness, tranquility, serenity, peaceful, vivacious, scintillating,
tenderness, and forgiving.
The negative qualities
are indifference, apathy, laziness, frigidity, compliance, conformity,
complacent, insensitive, negligent, shyness, insolence, instability,
narcissistic, licentious, etc.
As with fire, we can also
review the refined aspect of the water element or the magnetic fluid. The magnetic fluid is cool, cold, magnetic,
and contracting. It is attractive, soothing,
and calming. It is receptive as in
utterly empty of form and completely open—able to receive and contain anything
in itself, preserving, nurturing, and animating it with life.
In
psychological terms, it is empathic, sensitive and responsive. It draws together, bonds, joins, and
unites. It accepts and affirms. In spiritual terms, it reaches towards an
all-encompassing, all-embracing love.
We could say that peace, repose, calmness, happiness, contentment, serenity,
well-being, delight, kindness, gentleness, affection, empathy, sensuality,
pleasure, bliss, and love are qualities that are present when the magnetic
fluid is operating successfully.
The magnetic fluid has this
receptivity, sensitivity, and encompassing power. It reaches into inner recesses of your soul, the
secret chambers of your heart, and extends further through space and time. It embraces all visions that life is meant to
fulfill.
It is bliss, wonder, ecstasy, love, rapture, pleasure, enchantment,
dream, and vision-- mysterious, vast, and utterly gratifying. We might describe the magnetic fluid as
having a wild serenity, an engaging peace, and an enticing stillness.
By contrast, the negative of the magnetic fluid acts
to undermine, dissolve, and reabsorb into itself the inner life of the individual
throughout his or her entire life.
It is like
an undertow, a whirlpool, or a riptide subjecting the individual’s conscious
identity to a force that acts to dissolve its integrity. It sucks consciousness out and down into a
sea of the unconscious in which the individual experience no longer has
meaning. It destroys the individual’s
vitality and poisons his or her motivation.
The
negative paralyzes, seduces, wastes, and numbs consciousness. It induces insanity—that is, it destroys
consciousness with guilt, shame, fear, terror, illusions, delusions,
obsessions, fascinations, depressions, nightmares, and false visions.
In brief,
the negative aspect of the magnetic fluid is that it absorbs and contains
without releasing or giving birth. It
shelters without enabling growth.
Instead of healing, it poisons.
Instead of nurturing, it denies.
“Beware of
sweetness” said the poet, for you know not whether it will refresh and make you
more alive or whether, like cocaine and heroin, its “high” is subtly designed
to drag you down into the depths.
Wouldn’t it be great to be
able to walk into a psychologist’s or psychiatrist’s office, explain what you
wanted in terms of feeling different, and walk out an hour later feeling
exactly the way you wanted? I consulted
one time with a therapist about an individual I wanted to help. She was on the list of therapists recommended
to deal with specific problems. Sitting
in the therapist’s office I felt like I was in a kind of hell as described by
Jean Paul Sartre in his play, No Exit.
There is no hope. The therapist had no
knowledge, no wisdom, no understanding, and no intuitive skills. Why was I wasting my money consulting a
“professional?”
Of course it did not help that the
therapist had not resolved her own insecurities. She was not in a loving relationship. She did not know what it is to care for and
love children. She lacked
curiosity. She had no passion for
knowledge. She blindly accepted the
assumptions of her profession without any questions. She had no wonder, no awe, and no awareness
of the variety of human experience. She
was distracted, tired, and unorganized.
How can someone like that think she is in a position to offer assistance
to others? She had no energy to give.
The following example belongs to the
description of the cosmic letter W operating on the mental plane. It deals with the clairsentient ability to
not only sense but to create feelings in others. It also relates to the ecstasy of water.
This is a therapist who is clairsentient:
You walk into her office. You say
something like, “I want to be self-confident and feel clear in my mind. I want this strong enough that I can offer
genuine emotional support and affection to the people in my life.” Of course, personal history is
important. How you think about your self
and the way you have solved problems in the past are important.
But this therapist is different. She says, “Okay. Let’s work on that. Relax and focus just on the feeling of being
self-confident. She senses the client’s
mental and astral bodies. Then she says,
“Feel that you are in charge of your life and that the choices you making are
the best choices.” She observes again
his internal feelings. She works with him
until he is focusing in a completely positive manner.
And then she uses the active side of her
clair-feeling: she slowly introduces directly into his mental body a slightly
warm and fiery energy that supports and creates self-confidence. He can feel this energy within himself. He says to her, “I have never felt quite like
this before. I like it.” And they proceed to talk and meditate
together for the rest of the hour.
By the time he leaves, it not just the
ideas in his mind that are different. It
is not just that by changing a few of his ideas he slowly begins to change how
he feels about himself. It is not like
visiting a barber and talking about the kind of haircut you want or visiting a
dentist and talking about having a cavity filled. You want to get the haircut and have the
dental work finished by the time you leave.
With this therapist, you walk out the door and you feel self-confident,
clear, and able to offer support and affection to others. The energy of the astral and mental bodies
has actually changed to match what you desire.
Even in the above example, the charge
transmitted from the therapist to the client will slowly fade. He will have to return and experience this
again and she will strive to teach him how to reproduce in himself what he
wants without visiting her. But the
magic of water is here—clair-feeling or the ability in this case to focus on an
idea and reproduce in your self the precise vibration and feeling that goes with
it.
There is a similar to the process occurring
in the practice of magical equilibrium.
You define your negative traits and focus on exchanging them for
positive ones. Through a variety of ways
you change your vibration. You no longer
have the negative vibration of an element.
You change it into the positive.
Direct amplification and transforming of
feelings with thoughts may not seem to be a part of real life. But these things occur all the time. There is for example the natural chemistry in
interpersonal relationships. You meet
someone and you feel completely different.
It is not uncommon to hear lovers say things like, “I never felt fully
alive until I met you.” “I feel like I
have known you my entire life.” “I can not imagine living my life without you.”
“No one makes me feel the way you do.” A
personal encounter and there is an awakening of feelings you may never have
felt before; and these feelings at times may be nearly impossible to recreate
without the connection to this specific person.
Consider the feeling of happiness. For some individuals happiness is a warm
feeling of being loved, accepted, and affirmed.
Given an individual’s personal, social, and family history, this kind of
feeling may be extremely difficult to experience. There is so much in the person’s memory and
reactions to past events that stand as obstacles to be overcome before
happiness can even be felt.
But our unhappy person walks into the
office of a globally certified clairsentient therapist and presents what he
wants. She again attunes her mind to his
mental and astral bodies. She trains him
to focus on reproducing in himself the feeling of being loved, accepted, and
affirmed.
In her presence, he puts off to the side
everything else in his mind. He
temporarily is free of distractions. All
that exists for him as they meditate together is the idea of being happy. She talks to him getting him to alter his
focus in minor ways. She notes the
changes he is producing in himself through his own mind. She checks to insure that he is registering
the changes occurring in his own feelings.
And then she again works with her clairsentience. She reproduces in him a surcharge of the
feeling, sensation, and energy of happiness.
He says, “This is unbelievable.” It takes
until the next morning before his usual state of unhappiness begins to reassert
itself. But she has assigned him
homework. His task is to spend some time
each day focusing on being happy without her presence. When he returns he is more conscious of what
is involved in making a change in the water element in his astral and mental
bodies.
Experiencing happiness for the first time
in a rich and compelling manner does not require a globally certified clairsentient
therapist. There are seminars you can
attend. I have been to a few. Find some internationally famous and gifted
individual who gives seminars in these kinds of things. I went to one where we formed “families” the
first day--a group of five individuals who we remained with over a period of
four days.
The group became a substitute family. We reenacted the primary feelings that a
family involves—trust, talking about and to some extent revisiting the things
that had affected us the deepest in life, solving problems involving us in
confrontations and talking about things we had never revealed before.
You can do the seminar and through a series
of carefully supervised role playing and psychological theater arrive at
feelings you have never felt before—the things you have missed out in life
because circumstances did not take you in the right directions. Or, you can also learn to work at magical
equilibrium and slowly make your own progress.
I often mention the work of Eugene Gendlin
with his book called Focusing. Gendlin teaches a method called focusing and
in it he may have a client ask himself, “What is keeping me from feeling happy
right now?” Gendlin did a careful study of the skills that successful clients have
used in the past in order to complete their therapy. Gendlin uses words to guide his clients.
I think Gendlin really deserves a lot of
recognition for his work. But again, as
a magician I have to ask myself, “Why do these psychologists fail to develop
their intuition so they can observe directly what is going on inside of other
people’s minds and feelings?” Carl Jung
discussed “transference” between therapist and client as a way of accounting
for the influence a therapist has on his client. Was Carl Jung brain dead that he was unable
to observe the actual energy that transfers between two individuals when they
are in close association? What is a
matter with these people that they are not aware of energy?
Gendlin one time expressed surprise that a
client could perform focusing so much better when Gendlin was at the other end
of the phone--even through all that Gendlin did was remain silent and
listened. Is Gendlin unaware that there
is a direct mental to mental and astral to astral body connection when you are
on the phone with someone? Scientific
observation is a good thing. Being
unaware is not.
When I was young I noticed
the degree of well-being felt by different people. The opposite of well-being is feeling that
things can, have, or will go bad. You
are always on the edge of uncertainty—something terrible may happen. And if you grow up in a city like Detroit
terrible things do happen. It is a reasonable expectation and a self-fulfilling
prophesy.
So imagine my surprise when I met three
women who had an astonishing feeling of well-being. I took the time to interview these women and
observe them over a number of years.
When you have certain feelings, you are able to live in a different
way. You think different and see things
that others do not see.
These three individuals shared certain
things in common. They remembered their
childhood dreams and felt those dreams were still important. They were amazingly free of worry. They did not define themselves by their social
identity. They made mistakes but those mistakes did not limit or define their
subsequent courses of action. They could
take risks and seek new and unknown experiences without feeling regret or loss
at what they were leaving behind.
More specific was their sense of time. They had a feeling of timelessness—that they
were a part of the flowing of time like a river. Everything good in life
that is going to happen will occur naturally and inevitably. Life felt good, in spite of its suffering,
and that basic goodness extends in all directions without limitation.
Over the decades I tried very hard to
reproduce this feeling of well-being in myself.
I did this partly because I felt it was so incredibly wonderful to have. And in part I was constantly leaving the past
behind and so I wanted to be able to move into the future with that same
unhindered feeling of freedom.
There were times when with other women I
found meditations that would temporarily reproduce in myself the level of
well-being the three women possessed.
But it was temporary.
Being out in nature helped a lot. Well-being is like floating on a raft down
the Little Colorado River. The walls of
the canyons as they go by are pretty much the same ten years, ten thousand years,
a hundred thousand, or a million years ago. You get that feeling of the
continuity of life so that the little things that bother you no longer seem of
any importance.
For me, the planet earth is like a living
being. It has a physical body, an astral plane, a mental plane, and an amazing
spiritual level of awareness surrounding it.
And the earth has a dream—the earth is determined that one day a race
shall appear that shall, like the earth, feel one with the universe.
This is her dream. And sensing this: feeling the deeper purpose
underlying all life on this planet gives me a sense of well-being similar to
what those women once introduced to me.
In this case, I had to go on a very long spiritual quest in order to
reproduce in myself that quality or ecstasy of the water element. But it was worth the effort.
The ecstasy of water? Is it so difficult?
It is to feel love saturating every cell in your body. It is to feel one with another, a secret
sharing heart to heart. It is peace,
well-being, and serenity. It is the joy
of giving, of sharing, and receiving.
It is also sensing the life
that animates all beings and the way you are part of this one life. You
feel that each moment arises from and resonates with the love sustaining all
life on earth. And it is an inner contentment that allows you to feel one with the universe.
I meet people who have
experienced all of the above things. But
they almost always fail to retain their experiences in their memories. They forget. They let the sacred enter their
souls and then vanish almost without a trace.
When you train for magical equilibrium, you strive to remember ecstasies
such as these. They are signposts
indicating the path we are to take and also elixirs that enable us to transform
and to attain our destinies.
The Ecstasy
of Earth
In the earth
element is the wisdom that banishes depression, sadness, and sorrow.
From
Introduction to Faery Tales and Elemental Beings
So few of you
listen to your dreams
Or bother to
enter
The
gates that lead into the silences of the heart.
But I feed on
silence.
It is who I am
It is my home
and my dwelling.
And its
transformations are my wisdom.
The
gnome Muscar
I sometimes
fool deer into thinking I am one of them
Because I can
stand perfectly still for a half hour
Listening
to the wind.
I sometimes
fool gnomes into thinking I am one of their own
Because
like for them the earth is my home.
I sometimes
fool spirits of the earthzone into thinking
That I am
like unto them--a guardian of the world--
Because in my
heart is a silence so deep, a stillness so complete,
I hear the
songs the stars sing
And see the inner
light shining in all things.
One of my poems
As long as
suffering remains to sentient beings
I will remain
to serve.
Dalai Lama
For those who are unprepared or insincere, silence is a country whose
borders are guarded by nightmares, terror, and whirlwinds of despair. But
those who cross over and explore these unknown lands find wealth beyond
compare. Master silence and you will have channels of communication that
open to all realms. You will be able to commune with any spiritual being.
You will understand the meaning when a spirit speaks.
You will discover there is nothing within you that you need deny or
fear. All desires become clear. Silence is where dreams originate,
visions are born, and passions enter to be transformed.
May silence fill you with infinite light
May the heart of life dwell within your heart
May the peace that embraces the universe and all its stars
Abide with you and guide you wherever you are.
Earthzone spirit referred to as Alosom
Positive qualities relating to the earth element are
being respectful, solid, grounded, conscientious, thorough, sober, punctual,
responsible, reliable, circumspect, concentration, firm, serious, hard working,
industrious, experienced, discerning, adaptable, practical, straightforward,
dedicated, strong, solid, enduring, preserving, attention to detail, and
consistent.
Negative qualities of earth are being phlegmatic,
insipid, tardy, unreliable, unscrupulous, lazy, conscienceless, melancholy,
irregular, dull, idiosyncratic, anomalous, eccentric, fixated, stuck, inert,
oppressed, hedonistic, carnal, and greedy.
Bardon says the earth element integrates the other
three elements. Consciousness unites
will, feeling, and intellect. Let us
review.
Will is
analogous to fire. In nature, fire is in
sunlight, volcanoes exploding, magma flowing, lightning striking, and the fires
of the hearth. Fire is hot and
intense. It expands, consumes, and
transforms. Will takes hold of life
overcoming obstacles and accomplishing its purposes.
Air is
analogous to intellect. In nature it is
the atmosphere and it is in our breath.
In its vastness and relative weightlessness, it maintains a balance
between hot and cold, moist and dry. It
protects the earth from the intensity of cosmic radiation while enabling
sunlight to pass and heat the earth. It
carries the clouds bringing rain to fertilize the earth.
Intellect
has air’s clarity, detachment, and oversight.
Through knowledge and understanding, we solve our problems and resolve
our conflicts.
Water is
analogous to feeling. In nature, it is
rain, clouds, rivers, lakes, water tables, and seas. It responds to the environment, molding
itself to the situation, flowing, letting go, absorbing, releasing,
purifying--it sustains and animates life.
Feeling has water’s responsiveness—its sensitivity, empathy, affection,
and love give life to relationships, families, and communities.
The earth
element is analogous to consciousness.
In nature, it is the forests, vegetation, mountains, plateaus,
plains—the planet earth in its physical being.
It provides stability, minerals, building materials, resources, shelter,
and food.
Consciousness also provides stability and continuity to our lives
through work, enduring purposes, and a sense of identity. Consciousness comprehends history. To be born into the world is to enter a
family of origin, a location, and a tradition.
There is language, gender, religion, nation, ethnicity, and race. Each of these comes with advantages and
disadvantages. And each contributes in
some way to our sense of who we are.
One of the
tasks of an adolescent is to find a productive role in society. You find a place in the world where you
belong and where you can make contributions through work, relationships,
community, and family. Your presence
makes a difference.
To do this
you need skills acquired in various ways.
They often involve the use of knowledge and intellect.
To succeed
requires will. You have to make an effort.
This can require courage, daring, risk taking, foresight, and
ambition.
And to find
where you belong you have to answer for your self questions about what makes
you happy, who you will love, and what feels right to you. Your feelings are every bit as important as
your intellect and will.
The three
together--will, intellect, and feeling--enable us to be fully conscious. If we think too much, we may not act or we
may fail to listen to our conscience when it speaks. If we are too ambitious, we may act too quickly
without considering the cost or laying the proper foundation necessary for
accomplishing our purposes.
There are
times to just will. There are times to
just think. And there are times to just
feel. Being conscious is moving freely
between each and all of these at once putting them together in the way that our
conscience reveals.
A question
we might ask pertaining to the earth element is
What are my
deepest core values and how do I express them through the activities of my
life?
The earth element when strong makes an individual
solid, grounded, stable, steady, and enduring.
The individual loves to work. He
takes something and he makes it more valuable.
He fixes it. He makes it
better. It makes it last longer. He makes it more useful. He transforms it. The world is a better place because of what
he accomplishes. We could say this
person is down to earth.
The writer
of the 90th Psalm was very solid and down to earth. But he was aware of a problem with the earth
element.
He noticed
that human actions tend to fade away and lose their significance. We are like grass that grows, flourishes, and
then is cut down and withers. Our lives
are like a dream for all that we labor at, all of our accomplishments, can
easily turn to sorrow and be undone in a moment. What can we actually do or work at that will
amount to anything and be of any enduring significance? This is an earth element question.
The earth
element comprehends shape, weight, density, and the form and mass of
minerals. These grant a degree of
permanence. The emperor Vespasian began
work on the Coliseum in 70 AD. Perhaps
the greatest structure built in the Roman Empire, it
remained in use for 500 years. And its
design has not been surpassed in 2,000 years.
Unlike the Great Wall of China, the pyramids of Egypt, or the Parthenon
of Athens, the design of the coliseum is still in use all over the world.
For the
writer of the 90th Psalm, however, a thousand or two thousand years
is nothing at all. It is as yesterday
when it is past or as a watch in the night.
How is the writer going to get himself out of this mess? Why is he so
depressed and obsessed with the issue of what endures and what passes away?
As I read the
psalm his discussion is with the Creator.
And it goes like this: “You create the heavens and the earth and yet you
are formless and timeless in your being.
Anything we do by comparison amounts to nothing. All our works are destined to be destroyed. Therefore, I make this request: grant us a
small part of your ability—let us work at things that are of enduring
value. Let your beauty be upon us.”
This is a
man who does not hold back. He employs
his full will. He knows what he wants and he asks for it. But he uses the full powers of his intellect
and a profound level of empathy. He actually
rises up in his feeling and with his mind to express persuasively and in detail
God’s point of view.
He says to
God, “I know very well how you perceive time and history. I know very well how you constantly test
human beings to discover if there are any who are willing to pursue the values
and purposes that arise from eternity.
Very bad things have happened to humanity and to me as well. And my time is very short. Therefore, grant me the wisdom and the
opportunity to live life in the best way possible. Let me accomplish your work on earth so that
your wisdom and your beauty might become a permanent part of human history.”
That is my
paraphrase of the writer’s words to God.
This is a man who wants to taste the ecstasy of the earth element. He is saying to God, “My cup is empty. Fill it that I might taste and celebrate your
creativity while I am yet alive upon the earth.” I have always been impressed by this
psalm.
The ecstasy
of the earth element has something to do with the mystery of silence. Within your self, you sense your connection
to something of enduring and of transcendent value. This inner silence empowers you. It protects you. It shelters you. It separates your from those whose values are
transient and of little consequence. You
are part of a great work that is being accomplished by Divine Providence upon
this planet.
You belong to
this world because you were born here.
You live here. You love here. You
work here and you die here. You also
belong to a timeless and spiritual world that oversees all transformations of
matter, of life, and of spirit. You
belong equally to both and you join the needs and purposes of both through your
actions. This is not at all easy to
explain to those who have no direct awareness of the inner worlds. Nonetheless, the ecstasy of the earth element
is being a part of the Great Work—the transformation of humanity and the
world.
I quote the
Dalai Lama at the beginning of this section: “As long as suffering remains to
sentient beings, I will remain to serve.”
That statement of intent has two aspects. There is compassion. He offers his assistance to those who are
suffering.
But the
other aspect derives from either a fantastically inflated ego or from the
consciousness of someone who has tasted enlightenment. His words mean he will incarnate again and
again, forever if need be--as long as there are those who suffer so that he
might offer assistance to them. His
statement of intent could be one of the mottos of a cosmic religion. You can place this man anywhere in the
universe and he will offer assistance to the sentient beings until they are
ready to ascend and attain the absolute freedom of pure spiritual being.
This man
knows the ecstasy of the earth element.
If you are able to project with your mind directly into his heart
chakra, you might agree with me that his cup is not empty. His purposes are timeless and he is on the
side of Divine Providence.
The ecstasy of the earth element gives us a sense of
accomplishing work that is of enduring value.
With this inner sense of worth comes a great feeling of honor and
dignity.
The silence
of the earth element in itself contains many ecstasies: at its height, you feel
that all spiritual beings are sitting next to you when you meditate. They are a part of same great work to which
you are joined.
I will take
the liberty of quoting the spirit Bardon calls Alosom
since he specializes in silence and I spent some time working with him to
express his art:
“To have
inner silence is never to be separate from your ideals, your dreams, your
visions, your hopes, and all that you would make real. It is to have
these things alive within you in every moment. Like a knight in the
legend of King Arthur who sits at the round table, you represent the kingdom of
the heart. It surrounds you and when you speak you speak with its power.
“Avatars and
world teachers enter history to remind us that divinity is everywhere.
Those with inner silence join the spiritual world and earthly existence.
This is because amid the routines and activities of life silence maintains an
open space inside them. In this space the highest ideal can be present
without being contaminated, compromised, or put off to the side. Silence
strengthens inner visions so there is never any doubt or uncertainty about
their reality.”
Silence is prophecy. Words fashioned in
silence become reality. Through silence, the most secret and intractable
of passions are transformed into visions. When you follow desires to
their source, you discover that the four elements conceal divinity--the lion,
the ox, the eagle, and the angel. They sit in peace and speak of what
shall be. To enter the center of stillness and yet feel the turning of
the wheel of time around you--to be open and receptive and yet transparent and
luminous--this is the gift of silence.
“To keep
silence is to be blessed by Divine Providence. It is the ability to take
the most difficult of fates and karmas and turn them into something wonderful
because you see the beauty within them. Law and
limitation bind things giving them weight, shape, and place. But
silence grants freedom because it knows how to wait. In the greatest
darkness and the loneliest prison, silence finds gates leading to liberation.
“Who can
stand against you, oppress or oppose you, when you have measured and crossed
the abysses of silence hidden within them? What army, what empire, what
wall, or weapon shall protect them? When you are silence, you are the
vibration, the matrix, and the substance from which their thoughts arise.
You are the eyes, the forge, and the hammer that has shaped their will.
Its design is an imprint of your mind.
“To possess
the virtue of silence is to command a treasure sharper and more beautiful than
the largest diamond. As fire to light, as emptiness to form, silence is
to wisdom, will, and love.”
The Four
Ecstasies at Once
I wrote most of the previous material by drawing upon
what I had already experienced with the four elements. When I evoke the ecstasies of the four
elements on the mental plane by actually using the cosmic letter J, I sense a
vast variety of things.
With fire, there is a feeling of expanding power—you where you
are supposed to be. You embody
unhindered movement in your actions and creativity activity.
There is no
limit to the self—everywhere there is power you are there within it. You have tremendous vitality. There is the feeling of another cosmic
letter, the letter N. You have
tremendous resilience and a sense of astral immortality. You also manifesting through your
consciousness the highest light as in the letter SH that reveals the original
purposes of creation in the past, in the present, and as they are yet to be revealed.
With air, everything is clear and lit up. You feel you can
understand anything. The mind extends
without limit. As one character in a
mythological story of mine complains:
I am haunted by moments of enlightenment:
I see the world with perfect clarity—
All that has been and all that shall be,
Nothing is hidden from me.
But then this character goes on to describe how when
this haunting departs he is left with the feelings of being shipwreck,
abandoned, and alone which seem to pervade his life. He is passive in his experience with
ecstasy. The idea is to become
acquainted with it so you can produce it at will and to some extent make it
part of your life.
At a seminar
I attended, someone asked the Dalai Lama if was enlightened. He replied, “I have the taste of
enlightenment.” For me, the taste of
enlightenment is the taste of absolute freedom.
Knowledge, understanding, and wisdom are freedom.
With water, there is a similarity to fire and air. Fire feels it is a part of all power everywhere. Air feels that all that illuminates the mind
is the same light within its mind.
Water feels
that everywhere there is love, affection, trust, compassion, caring, kindness,
and tenderness—you are within and a part of that love animating it, sustaining
it, supporting, renewing, purifying, fulfilling, and inspiring it. Everywhere there is love you are flowing
through it. This is the ecstasy of
omnipresence.
You also
feel a sense of oneness with everything alive—you feel its inner life, its vitality,
its consciousness, and its drives. If
you focus on anyone from this state of ecstasy, you feel a part of that
person. Their inner life is your own
without separation.
With earth, these words enter my mind as I experience the
ecstasy:
I was not just conscious.
My consciousness rose up
And attained a universal level of
awareness.
I did what needed to be done--
For myself
For those I loved
And for all of mankind
Because my purposes were joined to
the divine.
I am the union of heaven and earth
The circling of the stars
The illumination of lights
The turning of the seasons
The changing of day and night
They are not only joined in me
I am the stillness at the center—
For they were able to speak freely
through my voice.
If we put the
four elements together, experiencing them all at once, any variety of
things may occur. For my self, it is as
if the four elements are saying with one voice,
I am the sacred
cup whose waters are passed freely between those who celebrate the creation of
the universe. Drink and be healed. Drink and be fulfilled.
On the akashic plane of another cosmic letter, OE, is the vision of separation and reunion. It encompasses anything that has to undergo
separation in order to become transformed.
Almost all religions contain mythology or themes involving spiritual
journeys, quests, and a search for union with one’s divine parents.
Experiencing the ecstasies of the four elements is like finding your way
home to the divine world where you belong.
Summary
As I mentioned in the Preface to this section, much of
this is review and summary. When I
write, however, the ideas become clearer to me.
I put things together in new ways and learn in the process.
I have
puzzled over this idea of a cosmic religion.
How do you take a system like Bardon’s and turn it into something that
has a social life? How do you build a
community with it? What values would
that community share? What kind of
people would it contain and what would bind them together?
Many
religions claim to be universal but the hatred, fear, or insecurity are thick in the air.
How do you find people who are compassionate, who strive for balance and
virtue, and whose purpose is to serve without that service being contaminated
by selfishness?
When I
review what I have written, it encourages me to be more organized. It inspires me to make my energy stronger and
to use it more efficiently. And it
brings into focus the importance of remaining close to my ideals—of keeping a
balance between masculine and feminine, between the four elements, and between
the activities of my daily and my spiritual commitments.
As I
mentioned, daily life is the cauldron and training ground for spiritual
awareness. Working to attain magical
equilibrium in our personalities is very hard work and takes tremendous
dedication. Hopefully, I have presented
some of the inspiration that will assist others in this endeavor.
Astral Plane
Review
On the akashic plane, the four elements are seen as four divine
qualities—all-love, all power, all wisdom, and all enduring purposes. The four are united in order to fulfill a
divine purpose. To practice the J on the
akashic plane is to embody these four divine qualities and to offer them freely
without ceasing to the entire world.
On the mental
plane, the four elements are the ecstasies of will, intellect, love, and
consciousness. They do not encompass
everything. But they definitely add
great light to life. These four
ecstasies on the mental plane represent a vast expansion of what you can
actually anticipate and experience in life.
They are spiritual resources we can draw upon in the here and now to
enrich and guide our lives. It is
astonishing how much Western man does not know about these resources. The voice of these ecstasies:
Here are the great treasures of life; take hold of them and be transformed—use
them freely to fulfill whatever purposes you seek to accomplish.
By contrast, on the astral plane, the four elements become
four fundamental attractions. As
attracting powers, their expression is more personal, graphic, and
concrete. These attractions strengthen
our connections to others and, in so doing, heighten our creativity.
In brief, the astral is where the four
fundamental qualities of Divine Providence are made real within the realm of
our personal emotions. You could say
that the reason for practicing the letter J on the astral plane—its job--is to
create situations and connections to others that enable us to experience the
ecstasies on the mental plane. In doing
so, we get to know these great treasures of life better and learn how to apply
them.
As you might expect, Bardon packs a whole
lot into the letter J on the astral plane.
He says the J astral is analogous to all laws of sympathy and attractive
power. You learn to increase or diminish
these powers.
And further the letter J encompasses all
mysteries of love magic not only with human beings. It involves our connections to animals as
well as spirits including God. In other
words, the four powers of attraction are not just about romance, family, and
friendship. They shape how we relate to
religion, to our purposes in life, and to our ideals.
The Four Attractions
These four attractions are
meant to encompass every kind of emotional attraction or enthrallment and every
aspect of desiring to connect to another.
Behind these four attractions involving other people lie the vast range
of feeling belonging to the elemental beings—sylphs, undines, gnomes, and
salamanders. Since the elementals are
composed from one element only, the strongest among these nature spirits embody
the extreme of what human beings are capable of experiencing within that one
element.
For most people, the astral
plane is like a dark, empty, and silent room—it is a very scary place. To enter the astral plane when they sleep and
dream is like walking alone through a graveyard on a dark night or through a
wilderness without signs or landmarks.
For this reason, most people accept the limitations of life under which
they live. They make due without having
their needs fulfilled.
They do not cultivate a dream within
themselves that can change them and the world in which they live. Having never read about the ecstasies of the
four elements on the mental plane either in Western literature or from their
religions, most individuals’ primary focus is to conserve what they have and
work with what they know. And so you
rarely see shining in another person’s eyes a living vision of what they intend
to bring into being.
Nonetheless, the four astral attractions
are all around us. We run into them all
the time but they are not always positive and very rarely are they supported by
the mental plane ecstasies.
Relationships are full of these attractions.
Fire
is passion, intensity of desire, and wanting.
It is mesmerizing. When positive,
it is energizing, vitalizing, and engaging.
Bit it can be dangerous and violent.
It is living on the edge—you put everything you have into it.
We know the songs that express the astral:
“I want you so bad…. Its driving me mad” or “What a
wicked thing you do to make me dream of you.”
The problem with passion is that like fire
it flairs up and it then burns out.
Air
is sweet, playful, delightful, and being light hearted. It enables to people to attune to each
other. It is innocent. It establishes rapport so that a relationship
is almost musical, full of songs. Again,
the songs: “Loving her was easier than anything I will ever do again.” “The dizzy, dancing way you feel when every
fairy tale comes real, I’ve looked at love that way.”
The problem with air is that its delight is
capricious and fleeting. It is here
giving one hundred per cent of its attention and then it drifts off.
Water
is empathy. You feel an inner connection
as if you are in and a part of each other.
The other’s life is within and flowing through you. This is not a metaphor. If there is anything to learn from undines,
it is that literally the other’s astral life can be inside you vitalizing and
animating you.
The songs, “Oh love is gentle and love is kind. The sweetest thing when first its new;” “I'll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life;” “You have led me to the sun.”
The problem with water is that it flows. It flows into you and then it gives up, it
evaporates, freezes, or flows elsewhere.
Water’s bliss is not equal to responsibility. To be touched by its empathy does not mean
you have an enduring relationship.
Earth
is to revolve around each other like a planet and a moon or two stars. It is being fully connected. There is a deep, on-going support. In Bridges of Madison County, the woman says, “In four days,
he gave me a lifetime, a universe, and made the separate parts of me into a
whole.” Or the song, “Everything I do, I do it for you.”
Earth unites the other three into something
that should endure and involve high quality.
Earth is responsibility. But if
new seeds are not planted in the right season, then responsibility may be here
but the other three attractions disappear.
If you have been around for
a while, you have probably seen there four passions at work—you have seen the
emotional equivalent of lightning striking, individuals living within a dream,
delirious in love, crazy with desire, blinded, haunted, possessed, torn in two,
dead and then reborn (or only half alive or worse--a lost soul), reshaped, and
transformed.
You may have experienced these things,
survived them, and hopefully are wiser for it.
Or, to quote Bram Stoker, “The one who has found true love is the
luckiest person on earth.” That is to
say, among other things, in true love the four astral attractions are alive and
well within you without diminishing. This is no small accomplishment.
Bardon mentions the mental and astral
matrix. The mental body is joined to the
astral body through the mental matrix.
The astral body is joined to the physical body through the astral matrix. The connections between mind and soul and
soul and body are accomplished through what Bardon calls the four pole
magnet.
In other words, the four elements generate
an electric and magnetic fluid. These
fluids have both active and passive qualities.
So in effect the electric and magnetic in both active and passive qualities
tie the bodies together. It is through
the attraction of the four elements that these different parts, our mental,
astral, and physical bodies, are joined.
A relationship, by connecting us to
another person’s energies, can dramatically strengthen or weaken these
connections between body, soul, and mind.
An individual can say, “I was never fully alive until I met you.” And it may be that the relationship has
increased the astral physical connection so that indeed the person now feels
alive. He or she belongs and has a
reason for living that was not there before.
The world feels different because your consciousness is now more a part
of it.
In summary,
through a connection to anther person, a group, an institution, or an ideal or
spiritual being our astral life can be enriched. Being connected is healthy.
The external source can provide--
Fire--strength,
resolution, and courage. It can vitalize
and energize.
Air--It
can provide clarity, understanding, and insight. We can gain freedom from worry and
anxiety. We are more relaxed, balanced,
and at ease.
Water--It
can offer happiness, love, affection, contentment, and emotional support. You feel good inside yourself, cleansed and
purified.
Earth--And
it can help us to feel calm, patient, solid, grounded, with a feeling of being
home and belonging. Our life feels more
valuable, worthwhile, and important.
Western Art, Literature, and Philosophy
As I mention elsewhere,
Shakespeare has been credited with laying the foundation for the modern
personality—“Forget religion. Forget
theology, tradition, and philosophy.
Let’s just look at how people make decisions under difficult
circumstances.” This seems to be what
Shakespeare is saying.
And what is great about Shakespeare is that
he sticks to what he knows. He knows a
very great deal about human passions on the astral plane. He is not like Goethe or Dante. He is not chasing after divinity or pursuing
a journey that takes him between heaven and hell. For Shakespeare, you create who you are
through the choices you make. And those
choices take place amid strong and weak passions both positive and negative.
But Shakespeare did not know about the
mental plane ecstasies. Listen to him as
he strives to describe the ecstasies of the mental plane:
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how
infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express
and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the
beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!
That is Shakespeare sneaking
into his dialogues an attempt at presenting our potential as human beings on
the mental plane. It is great poetry but
it does not give us much to chew on.
What is the power of the mind? What is the depth of the human capacity
to love? What is the power limit of human will? What purposes are we capable of
pursuing?
You will not find the answers to these
questions in Shakespeare. He can not
find the way to enter and explore the mental plane. But if you want studies of human passions, of
love, of desire, of justice, of how people make decisions in both positive and
negative polarities directly within the human personality—then this is your
man.
It is this failure of Western literature,
philosophy, and religion to explore mental plane ecstasies that leads us to
modern existentialism. Three hundred
years after Shakespeare along come modern thinkers. They finally get around to noticing that the
mental plane ecstasies are not well known.
Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus, Jaspers,
Heidegger—they are complaining about the failure of religion and philosophy to
lead anywhere. There is no spiritual,
that is, akashic awareness that they can lay hold of. Religion speaks of it, literature strives for
it, but you can not get to the spiritual plane without passing through the
mental plane. That is, if you want to
speak with any clarity and conviction.
But the existentialists are brain dead
when it comes to the mental plane ecstasies.
They never tasted them. So they
conclude we are spiritual bankrupt.
Shakespeare would never ever have drawn that conclusion.
Because we do not know something well we
can not presume that it is not there.
You want it? Then go look for
it. Do not for a moment assume that
because Christianity does not know about the four ecstasies on the mental plane
that you are excused from searching. But
that is what Nietzsche did and these other existential clowns—they did not look
very hard for the great resources of life that are available to us.
If you have ever met an undine, you can’t
write crap like Sartre about human emotions.
If you ever met a sylph, you can not worry like Kierkegaard about
theologians who forge doctrines like blacksmiths banging away with a hammer on
a piece hot metal. You have tasted how
the mind itself is free, full of luminous light that shines clear like the
sky.
If you ever met a gnome, you can’t ponder
like Heidegger on how the early Greeks lost our connection to being. Consciousness is both time and timeless in
the same moment.
If you have ever met a salamander, the
ennui of Camus is not possible for you.
You feel directly within your astral body the force and power of the
universe unfolding through you. There is
no alienation. Hidden within the human
will is the ability to create anything.
Camus’ Zeus may sentence someone to endless
repetition. But we are way beyond Greek
gods and philosophy. The cosmic language
deals with the ability to create something from out of nothing. Greek culture could not understand this. By contrast, the prophets of Israel did
understand the nature of divine power—that we are all connected to it.
It is easy enough to
describe the four attractions within the context of romantic love. I have already done this. And for more you need only turn on the radio
to hear songs about astral emotions.
Religious music has a different
problem. It attempts to move between
astral emotions—what we feel going on in our lives right now—through the mental
plane—where we find resources for living better lives--to the akashic plane
where the divine dwells. This is never
easy for religion because the four mental plane ecstasies are nearly
unknown. Consider the song Amazing Grace:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!
Okay. We have the astral plane about personal
feelings—we all know what it is to feel lost and then to feel like we
belong. Grace, on the other hand,
belongs to the mental plane. This is
good. Grace is clearly named as a means
for taking us to God or the akashic plane.
What does grace do? How is it a resource
that enriches our lives and provides light to our paths? Here in the song it teaches us both what to
fear and what not to fear. And it comes
through belief.
What
else? The song goes on to say it uses
God’s promises as a source of hope. That
is talking about faith. This is the
Apostle Paul’s entire message—God’s promises to Israel are extended to the
gentiles through faith and not works or the rules of religious observance.
Do we know anything more about this
grace? How about how it creates
harmony? How about how it has the power
to bless, to enrich life in every aspect?
Nope, sorry, this is not within Christianity. With all due respect, you get a salvation
experience and a coupon. The coupon is
redeemable upon death or maybe when you reach heaven. It is not clear which is intended in the
small print.
The song, in a modern version, goes on:
“When we have been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun….” That is great poetry but it is poetry written
on a coupon to be cashed in later.
The peace that flows like a river from the
dawn of time to the ends of eternity, the universe being on fire with wonder,
beauty, and ecstasy—that kind of experience with grace—which comes from combing
the mental and astral planes--you do not find in Christian music. They do not taste ecstasy. It really, really should be there in their
music, art, and rituals but it is not. Amazing Grace is a really strong
religious song but it does not quite work for me for the above reasons.
A song like How Great Thou Art does get into naming “awesome wonder” and
“through the woods and forest glades I wander” … “look down from lofty mountain
grandeur” “hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze”—Okay. Here we have astral experiences with
nature—wonder, awe, greatness, the vastness of the universe. These are named.
Then the song talks about Christ dying to
take away our sins. You can put these
together quite easily within a pagan context—there is a sacrifice made in
winter that renews nature in the return of spring. Darkness to light, death to
new life. “Except
a seed fall to the ground and die it can not bring forth new life.” Gee,
Christ understood this perfectly! In pagan rituals, blood is the key because
its vitality can easily contain and unite both human and divine energies.
The Catholics try to steal the pagan rites
in their Mass and the Protestants almost want nothing to do with it. A Baptist church holds a Lord’s Supper
briefly once a month--they are that scared of the power of symbol and
ritual.
But in ancient Rome, they did the ritual
far better with greater power and meaning—you cut yourself and place some of
your blood on an altar. The god’s energy
passes into your blood. And then the
priest or you yourself finger paint the blood back on your head or face. You have been anointed with the life force of
your chosen deity. The vitality in your
blood and your emotional force intermingle and the divine finds a way to enter
into those two combined.
We do not do animal or blood sacrifices
anymore but the symbolism is perfectly clear.
Its relevance is for the here and now.
No coupon is necessary and the priest does not get the credit for
pulling off the transformation. The
priest just facilitates the transference.
His presence is not a necessity.
In other words, the connection between
nature’s beauty and salvation does not work in the song How Great Thou Art. There is
no mental plane ecstasy that is intended to be celebrated and deepened through
a personal exploration of nature within Christianity. And so one of Billy
Graham’s counselors at one of his crusades was so struck by the beauty of
nature as she rode her bicycle to the stadium that she quit Christianity and
became a druid. Druidism makes a
great effort to celebrate and explore the ecstasies of nature that all around
us lie.
Another song:
The first time I ever saw your face I thought the sun rose in your eyes and the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave to the dark and the empty skies my love. ….And the first time ever I lay with you I felt your heart so close to mine I knew our love would fill the earth and last until the end of time, my love.
Free play: http://play.rhapsody.com/celinedion/allthewayadecadeofsong/thefirsttimeeverisawyourface
http://odeo.com/audio/15925013/view
Why can’t religious people write like that? The personal astral experience becomes religious rapture!
There is movement here. The astral/personal is present—the first time we did such and such. But it expands to the mental plane—our love will the fill the earth. You know, that is precisely what love is supposed to do. And then it touches divinity—and last until the end of time. Okay, that could be just good come on but it is also how people sometimes feel in the moment which seems to go on forever. the first time ever I lay with you
I felt
Another song, What Child is This?
What child is this who lays to rest
on Mary’s lap is sleeping,
whom angels greet with anthems sweet
while shepherd’s watch are keeping?
Why lies He in such mean estate
where ox and lamb are feeding?
This song works for me. The image of a child on its mother’s
lap—maternal love on the physical plane.
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet—well, I know this
reference. Here is the
quote:
Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people…. Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
I
not only know this reference. I have
seen the entire sky filled with choirs of heavenly angels and I have heard them
singing when I evoked the archangel Gabriel with another person. Even the beauty of an undine like Istiphul is
no match for that.
Some
Christians live on fear. It is an
addiction for them. Religion does not
exist for them without lots and lots of fear stirred in. It is what keeps them awake during the Sunday
service. Well for sure, there is lots to be afraid of in life if you are timid, unsure of
yourself, and given to worry.
But the anthem we are referred to here is not
for people who enjoy being timid and fearful.
It is the opposite. It says,
“Fear not.” “On earth peace, good will
toward men.” Angels are singing
that. And I would join in with
them.
Peace on earth is mental plane stuff. It is something you can talk about and
plan. You do not say to a crowd on a
hillside in a nation occurred by the Romans, “Blessed are the peacemakers ….”
Unless you intend human beings to actually think about, plan, and engage in the
act of peacemaking.
The song, “Why lies He in such mean estate where ox and
lamb are feeding?” It has something to do with humility. To be great is to serve. This song celebrates that. To have all power is to serve without needing
to have others bow down to you. The song
presents that as basic truth.
And there are questions, What
child is this? Why lies he in such mean estate? Questions belong to the mental plane. They are an invitation to do your own
thinking, to search for and to find answers.
This song is almost beyond Christian or a
truth Christianity has not yet grasped.
It is about the birth of new light on earth, about being so empty that
you can be filled with the highest light which you freely offer “to all
people.”
Do Christians have any idea whatsoever about
the kind of light you need in yourself to bring about peace between the
nations? I ask this because I have spent
twenty eight years seeking to embody that light within myself. It is not easy but it is certainly not
impossible.
I should point out that for me the astral
body of the performing artist has a lot to do with how the song speaks to
me. After listening just now to fifteen
renditions of What Child is This? I must say none of these versions work for
me. None of the singers are open to the
astral plane as they sing.
It was when I heard Melinda Carol sing this
song that I was connected through it to the astral and the mental plane
ecstasies behind it. I wrote a poem, A Celtic Prayer, when I heard it the
first time and sent it to Melinda Carol who wrote back. The song tells me to get active on the mental
plane and seize the power I need to accomplish my purposes. Not very Christian but very
right.
I have the same problem with Scarborough Fair from the original poem,
Elfin Knight. It is a very strong astral song sung by a
fairy but you have to be open to the astral plane when you sing it to really
make it work. No one who sings this song
that I have heard has any connection at all to the astral. They are great artists, nice singing, but no
astral awareness. It is like Tom Bombadil in Tolkein who, if I
recall, sings into being his lover through the magic power of a song. She is described as
O
slender as a willow-wand!
O clearer than clear water!
O reed by the living pool! Fair River-daughter!"
That is the way Scarborough Fair is meant to be sung—it
is not a lament. It is calling something into being. Singing the song is meant to be a magical
action.
Another song going back
six hundred years, from Loreena McKennitt
with the words from St. John of the Cross.
See below for songs live by McKennitt along with Youtube.com:
http://www.quinlanroad.com/explorethemusic/maskandmirror.asp
The Dark Night of the Soul
Oh night thou was my guide.
Oh night more loving than the rising sun.
Oh night that joined the lover to the beloved one
Transforming each of them into the other.
I lost myself to him
And laid my face upon my lover’s breast
And care and grief grew dim
As in the morning mist became the light
I am impressed by this
song. It works for me. Here is a man really in touch with the
feminine on the mental plane—he really knows how to let go. Reading myself into the poem, the darkness is
being totally receptive as in being completely empty, open, and silent. It was this open emptiness, the night that
guided him.
Here we have specifics about mental plane
ecstasies and how to do it. There is a
resource here and it involves, like I mentioned, a total willingness to let go
and be empty. Care and grief are like
the morning mist, like astral emotions, that turn into light.
I like it.
This man is describing astonishing rapture in his involvement with
God. At great cost to himself, he moves
between the astral, mental, and spiritual planes. And yet, as others point out it, it reads
just as easily as a love poem written about another.
And finally a song sung by Diana Elaina
quoting William Blake:
Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past, and future, sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk'd among the ancient trees;
Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might control
The starry pole,
And fallen, fallen light renew!
William Blake was a druid
chief in the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. The song makes great effort to move between
the astral, mental, and akashic planes.
Blake is weak on the astral. He
is not always easy to understand. And he
is given to visions involving the mental and akashic planes.
The bard of which he speaks has mental
plane magic. He sees through past,
present, and future. He hears the Holy
Word kind of like the cosmic language in which sounds are magic.
On the astral, trees are alive. You can sense the soul within them. And “that might control the starry pole,”--that
is divine level stuff. “And fallen,
fallen light renew! This is astral.
When Philip Carr-Gomm,
a druid chief in the same order, played this song for a seminar back in the
early nineties, I had never heard anything like it. It was put to music and sung by Diana Elaina
who was kind enough to write me a personal note when I ordered her album. But at the time a girl in the seminar and I
snuck into the conference room at night to make a clandestine copy of Philip’s
recording.
Without getting into the specifics, the
song almost takes you into an ancient grove of wise men on the astral plane who
celebrate the union of heaven and earth.
For Ansel Adams, nature has a beauty he would
capture in his photography. For William
Blake, nature is a gate leading to the astral plane. Its energies and its images are divine
poetry.
One last song. Take
Silent Night, Holy Night. You can
hear Jewel or Sinead sing it or Enya in Irish on
Youtube.com. Here are the lyrics from a
modern translation of the German.
Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night, holy night
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from Heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah
Christ the Saviour is born
Christ the Saviour is born
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth
The ten or so renditions I
just listened to on youtube.com do not work for me. What is great about art and the astral plane
is that you get to put your personality into it. What you express comes through who you
are.
This song requires an internal
expression. Look at the images. The
writer, Father Josef Mohr, is looking out at the snow at night during
winter. It is a silent night, a Holy
night. Because in this light of night
and white snow shining somehow amid the darkness, he takes us back to a virgin
Mother and her Child, tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace. The silence of the night, the white snow, the
isolation and quiet of winter, allude to a heavenly peace—something still. It is not just the snow and winter. Almost certainly there is the clarity and
vastness of the stars in the night sky.
Glories stream from heaven afar. Yes, perhaps in the starlight or in the
silence. Something has to be very still
and open and silent for this light to appear.
A savior is born. Hosts sing hallelujah. But the writer goes on. Son of God love’s pure light. He, the child, the son of God, is open and
silent and still like this night.
Radiant beams from Thy holy face with the
dawn of redeeming grace: Here is the tough part. Where or when do you ever get radiant beams
of light? He answers: from Thy holy
face. These are emanations from
God. And they come like the light of dawn, or the newness of spring in and through redeeming
grace.
This priest writes like a druid or a druid
writing Christian music. Nature has
qualities within it that serve to reflect the divine. Not only do they reflect the divine. If you become like nature in your self, if
you become silent, open, still, utterly receptive, then you can sense what the
writer senses.
All the same, are we just imagining radiant
beams of light, perhaps as wishful thinking, or perhaps we are to accept it as
a coupon to be redeemed later when we see face to face? Or is this light available in the here and
now to guide our lives?
The song has great connections between
night, winter, snow, silence, dawn, and divine light. And a child is born who is to redeem us the
way dawn redeems the night. This child
is held by a virgin, by the feminine, the way the mother earth gives birth to
any world teacher by uniting with the light of the sun or spirit. I take liberties.
If you really want to sing and perform this
song you have to do what the writer did when he wrote it—Josef Mohr. You have to do the “be still and know that I
am God.” And then when you look at the
snow during the stillness of night you realize that all the
world is holy. At that moment if you can
not see you can nonetheless clearly feel radiant beams of light.
This is because your physical body, your
physical situation, your emotions, your mind—they have all become silent,
still, and receptive to akasha, to the spiritual world. The light of spirit is then free to pass
through you.
When I listened to ten renditions of this song
no one got it. They are nice
artists. They sing nicely. But what I want is to be able to pass into
and through the soul of the artist who sings so that I experience what the
artist is experiencing as she sings. If
there is no inner silence and no receptivity, no openness to nature, then
nothing is communicated. It is just
entertainment.
But this is a magical song. For Josef, it has a
stillness so vast that you feel a compassion for the whole world arising
from it. If you want real redeeming
grace?—experience that.
Enya comes
closest on youtube.com as she sings this song in Irish. You can feel it as she sings. She can empty herself and she loves
nature. She has a passion for being
feminine—utterly receptive and giving.
But when I try to move through her soul as the song requires me to do if
I am to experience the power in her voice, I am stopped dead in my tracks. She has so much pain in her heart. She has not felt love in every cell of her
being. She has not united the masculine and
feminine in herself in a way that would lead to healing. She is still in the night. Forget the
Christian God. She does not even know
the dawning of healing light in the druid oak tree and sun. I love Enya but I am
asking too much from someone who is not initiated into the mysteries.
Enough of
my comments on religious music and those who perform it. The best image I know of the astral plane
letter J is a scene at the end of the movie Jacob’s Ladder. After dreaming he would survive, a man on an
operating table finally comes to accept that he is going to die. In his dream, he meets his young son who had
previously died.
The son is standing on a stairway leading
into the light. And the son, as he
offers his hand, says “Its Ok.” The
meaning is, “It is Ok that I died. It
was not your fault. It is Ok that you
are dying now. It is time to let go of
the pain you have been holding onto and leave your life behind. Come with me and enter the light.”
The voice of J astral says, “Take my hand.
Whatever you have been denied by life and what you were not able to find in
yourself or through contact with other people—its
Okay—I am giving to you now what you need to feel whole and complete.”
In ritual magic, the
magician will often open the gates to the four quarters or greet the four
elements or four elemental lords and so forth.
There is a magic circle, wand, etc.
The J astral is not like that. But then again we are not doing ritual
here. The letter J is the highest love
on the akashic plane moving through the highest ecstasies on the mental
plane. As it enters the astral, it
expresses the emotional force of the elemental beings.
I do not recall anything like this
experience described anywhere in literature or magic. Like I say, there is no magic circle
here. It is as if in the shimmering opal
light of blue, red, green, and violet the heads of each of the four elements
freely appear before and within you spontaneously. In and through you the four elements and elemental
beings are united.
In this state of astral rapture, you and
the universe are at ease and one with each other—just as when two people make
love they are in and a part of each other.
Your energies exchange, blend, and unite.
You may have noticed I took a break from
the letter J to work through the letter A again. The letter A deals
with clarity of mind among other things.
I did that in order to better prepare myself for experiencing this
letter J astral ecstasy.
At first, it seems like the J astral breaks
all the rules of magic to be so open and to engage such opposites. But now it feels right—we are meant to be
radiant with light and overflowing with life.
In fact, it is necessary for fulfilling many purposes. Human beings are a unification of
opposites.
I have already spent some time describing
the four elemental beings in talking about the mental plane. To recap this experience involving the four
elementals, the letter J astral can produce an experience in which all four
beings are present at once flowing in and through you. And yet this experience is maintained in a
state of complete harmony and balance.
There is fiery energy, power
expanding, dynamic and commanding. It is
intense and ready to explode with exhilaration.
There is love as sweet and
intimate as anything you can imagine.
You feel the soul of another within you with its entire being focused on
being one with you.
You feel free, as free as in
any dream you can imagine. You are unfettered
and unhindered. You are at ease and
every feeling you feel is expressed with harmony.
And you feel silent and
solid. You are exactly where you want to
be and doing what you want to do. What
you feel now in this moment and what you may be about in a thousand years from
now—it is all contained within you.
Nothing disturbs you. Your peace
goes that deep.
These are the four elemental
beings appearing freely in and around you.
This is astral equilibrium or what it is meant to be. It is the light of Divine Providence uniting
the four elements on the astral plane so that its purposes may be expressed
through your personality.
Physical Plane
The physical plane manifests
and offers support to the other three planes.
In this case, it manifests the ecstasy, union, and bliss through
physical sensations. These are the
sensations that accompany repose, contentment, well-being, love, etc. expressed
through sensory experience.
You are within and feel a part of these
physical sensations. They do not require
any mental plane activity or emotional response for them to work. They require no justification. It is just being present in the here and now.
Bardon mentions that this letter can be
used to increase sexual desire. And it
can be used to determine the gender and qualities of a future child.
Certainly if the physical expresses
something of the akasha’s union, the mental plane’s
ecstasies, and the four astral attractions, it is going to create a lot of
physical attraction as well. But it can
go either way. You can use sex to feel
really good. You can also use J to feel
really good without engaging in any kind of sex. These are pure physical sensory
sensations.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, some
individuals just have extraordinary beauty and physical appeal. You just put them in front of a camera and
they hold your eye. A supermodel model
may or may not be able to act or to sing.
She may or may not have any real life in her feelings.
But she can look tremendous just in terms
of being photogenic. Her physical
qualities are such that it is easy for others to project desires or dreams from
their inner psyche onto her. They see in
her the attractions of the astral and the ecstasies of the mental planes even though
she may know nothing about them. Her
body is a magic mirror and you see in her what you seek.
Still, the J is not about how you
look. It is the physical
sensations. If you experience the
physical you can easily at times experience the astral or mental as well. Take fire.
I used to love multiple attacks in Aikido. Three people attacking me over and over. I move without thought, acting spontaneously
as if in a trance.
I absorb all the aggression thrown at me
and easily turn it away. It is like a
dance. It is like a cinder cone
exploding continuously in a rain of lava.
I could be a salamander in this multiple attack the ferocity and yet
calmness of will are so exact. This is pure physical being expressing the
ecstasy of fire.
Take
air and water. In the Port-Huron
Mackinaw race I flew a spinnaker one time ….well, here is the poem. I have referred to it before:
Once I flew a spinnaker
Two thousand square feet of sail
Round, soft as silk,
Floating in the air off the bow
With lines, winches, and pole
I kept the sail on the edge of a luff
Barely fluttering, quivering,
Hypersensitive to each nuance of wind shift
The sailboat gliding over the waves
The stays taut, the mast tense
The helm guided by a firm hand,
After three hours of unbroken concentration
My body and mind joined to the wind
I said to another sailor,
“I wish making love could be like this
The body and breath one,
Adrenaline and endorphins running this thick
In the bloodstream.”
But he did not understand what I meant—
In a society where women are not fully aroused
The men are materialists
Their eyes are blind
Their hearts are closed
Having never tasted the feminine essence
They do not see
The inner light shining in all things
Through the translucent waves
Whispering in the wind
Calling to them in their dreams
The sea says, “Come and dance with me,”
But they do not understand,
Such men fail to attain to their destiny
Light does not illuminate their visions.
Flying a spinnaker is a pure
physical action. Doing it requires no
thought or emotions, just pure sensory alertness and concentration. Of course, I had at the time been racing
sailboats for fifteen years. When you
have enough training, as in magic, you do what you do without thought or
effort.
But the experience is physical. I am there in that sail and I am the wind
flowing through it; I am the hull of the boat and the water through which it
moves.
There is joining of body with boat, water,
and air. I am the fluidity of water and
I am the freedom of the wind and I am the love with which they caress each
other. That is physical sensation
reflecting astral and mental plane ecstasies.
At a Celtic seminar I attended on Iona, the
men and women split into separate groups at the end. The intent was for each group to offer
something to the other. So I find myself
lying with my head on a woman’s lap in a room candle lit. And fifteen women are singing to me as they
place their hands on my legs, arms, chest, and abdomen. It produces a physical sensory experience
with well-being. Speaking
metaphorically, it was no longer fifteen women but the earth who
is holding and singing to me.
It is a pure sensory experience but it is
supercharged with astral and mental plane energies. It is like the pools of Makapu’u
heavy with salt. Floating in the water,
I feel the vibrations of the sea moving through as the nearby waves break on
the rocks. It is pure sensory being.
But through the physical sensation and
vibration it is terribly easy to open to the astral plane—I unite with the
sea. And from there I pass through the
mental plane directly into the akasha of the solar sphere. Each time I float in that pool a being of
pure light speaks to me offering some gift that is yet unknown by humanity.
Get the physical right—the sensory
sensations of bliss strong enough--and the planes align like seven planets and
you pass through the gate of the Mysteries, that is, if you are ready.
This is partly why sex can be so dazzling at
times and at other times simply not fulfill what it promises. The physical sensations can set up resonances
and vibrations on the other three planes introducing the partners to bliss and
ecstasies and the deepest purposes of life.
But take away the physical sensations and the two individuals may not
have any idea as to how to reproduce in themselves the astral, mental, and
akashic energies the sex briefly released.
The letter J on the physical plane loves to
produce these kinds of physical sensations.
There are of course different ways cultures
react to the divine hidden within sexual attraction. The Hopi Indians for example treat marriage
as a social and economic entity. The
woman gets the house and the children should the partners separate. The man is there to provide for the
family. And the children belong to the
mother’s clan.
If you want spiritual union you should look
elsewhere. The spiritual is reserved for
the rituals of your clan. You share this
with your clan brothers or sisters.
If you asked a two horn priest about
spiritual union he might reply, “Oh, sure it can occur between a man and a
woman. But it is rare. For all practical purposes in our society,
you are going to do a whole lot better if you separate the spiritual from the
sexual. By keeping them separate, you
can get things done in your life. If you mix them together you end up wasting
your time on what will never be a productive activity.”
This view is also seen in the story of the
white buffalo woman. Two Indians see the
white buffalo woman who is very beautiful and appealing. One goes to make love with her. But because the energy is so sacred and
powerful and he can not control it, the energy turns destructive and devours
him as it shape shifts into the form of serpents.
The other Indian is wiser. He takes her back to his village where she
teaches new rituals that bring sacred energies into the community. The sacred serves the community and the
greater good. Mix it with selfish
desires and it destroys you.
I think this is a fair view of the druid
approach also. The spiritual is
approached through communal rituals. On
the other hand, some Wiccans have told me that on
occasion they do mix sex with ritual during the right season and for the sake
of the greater good.
There is no question that Bardon refers to
the letter J on the astral plane as revealing the mysteries of sex magic. But he does not expand on it. It is there.
We meet these energies in romance.
But to do more requires great training.
It is like the Dalai Lama. You would never suspect from talking to
Tibetan lamas or Buddhists that even a hint of sex magic exists. But the Dalai Lama states quite clearly in one
of his books that enlightenment in this life time is not possible without a
physical yabyum, that is, a sexual/tantric partner.
A few Taoists talk about sex magic because
they are big on working with life force.
They want to refine it and circulate it to keep an individual
healthy. They view sex from a practical
point of view—you need to exercise right, eat right, live right, meditate
right, and do sex right. Kind of like
that.
I think that some of the physical
sensations of the body can align in such a way that the inner planes from the
physical to the akasha open up and reveal their mysteries. But it takes heightened sensitivity, great
will, a very clear mind, and a high level purpose. It is not for the faint of heart, the
insecure, the selfish, or for those who do not have a commitment to developing
astral equilibrium in themselves. To put
it another way--the sacred is always dangerous.