A zine devoted to philosophy, occultism, ethics, religious, cultural, and political thought. Published in Darwin, Australia. It features contemporary articles along side bygone papers from around the world. All content: Levin A. Diatschenko. Layout & design: Nico Liengme.
The VeilScience, OcculTiSm, eSOTerica, PhilOSOPhy, & hiSTOrical anecdOTe
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Vol. 3 april 2011
enduring silence is uncomfortable because it forces us to hear our own thoughts. here, we notice
the mental dialogue, and that it is out of our control. We find ourselves trapped in memories or daydreams, tunes or circular rambling. upon finding that we cannot stop it, we flick the radio or television on. The noise stops the mental dialogue by drowning it out. We repeat that solution unconsciously
every day—or we avoid the problem by surrounding o u r s e l v e s constantly with noise. Fear of silence, says the theosophist annie Besant (a Study in consciousness), is evidence of a weak mind.But there is more to it than that. What we also discover in the silence, and then avoid[1], is the fact that we do not know how we ought to employ our thoughts instead. a radio is a form of employment. The host says, “listen to this.” now we have something for our mind to do. if it is a talk show, that gives us topics for us to think about, passively. a book is mental employment. Television too.So, what we become aware of in the silence is lack of purpose. Silence
is a question. This question is what we are avoiding. is it possible that as long as it remains unanswered, that question becomes the most common cause of depression (and anxiety) to humanity? an interesting phenomenon is when some wealthy people gain enough money to retire, yet stay in the workforce – not with the motive of service, but with explanations like: “i got bored sitting around.” retired
people often have similar attitudes (although service is increasingly becoming a motive too). it is also interesting when people express discomfort at a job where there is little to do. “it is better
when it is busy,” they say. “Time goes faster.” Time, of course, does not go faster. The worker simply becomes less conscious of its passing. less conscious.This avoiding of time sounds suspiciously similar to how we avoid silence. it betrays the lack of any purpose outside the purpose of the company we work for. Keep busy and the day will go faster; your life shall wiz by too, with any luck. a job, then, drowns out a physical problem the way the radio drowns out a mental one.Cont. P2
The SilenT QueSTion
“so, what we beCoMe aware of in the silenCe
is laCk of purpose. silenCe is a question. this question is what
The Silent Question continued...There is something very similar, by degrees, about addiction to drugs and fear of silence/being alone/free time/empty space. all are initially based on avoiding the “silent question”. all are based on the realisation of excess, whether it is excess of uncontrollable thought, space, free time, or so forth.in his famous book, Junky, William S. Burroughs explains, “you become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in any other direction. Junk wins by default.” radio, keeping company with people, television, computer games (or card games, for that matter) and beer – these all win by default too. (“Keeping company with people” is here over simplified, but refers to the people who we stay with rather than being alone, not to close friends and beneficial influences.) “as a habit takes hold,” continues Burroughs, “other interests lose importance to the user. life telescopes down to junk, one fix and looking forward to the next, ‘stashes’ and ‘scripts,’ ‘spikes’ and ‘droppers.’ The addict himself often feels that he is leading a normal life and that junk is incidental. he does not realise that he is just going through the motions in his non-junk activities. it is not until his supply is cut off that he realises what junk means to him.”The last line bears another similarity. it is not until our supply of entertainment or company is cut off, that we realise our problem. The majority of our lives have been based upon avoidance of facing this problem, usually unconsciously because we never let our supply of distractions be cut off for too long.Perhaps the widespread use of antidepressants in modern society is indicative of this reluctance to turn inwards. While definitely helpful, drugs take away the symptom – not the cause – of depression. all too often the cause is not uprooted.here is another strange habit, which the reader may have experienced in people from time to time: at night, when sleeping alone in the silence, some folk turn their bedside radios on. The radio stays on all through the night, helping them sleep.These cases sound extreme. however, to find out how much you are affected, cut off your “supply” for a while.notice how jobs control our thoughts as well as bodies. if we feel empty (of purpose) inside, we take on a substitute purpose in the form of a job. having a job is a form of possession: we become possessions of our employers. They control us. There are three levels to this possession: physical, in the repetitive tasks, say, of factory workers; emotionally, with the boss controlling your emotions through deadlines, rewards and chastisements; then the deepest level is mental possession, when the boss’s concerns inhabit your thoughts or dreams. This is complete “occupation”, though not absorption.absorption is when your identity becomes the job. your personality becomes synonymous with the company. The job, being a substitute soul (for apparent lack of internal one), takes complete ownership – leaving any true soul floating in permanent abstraction. But they save us as well. remember, we complain when there is no work to do. also, we are glad to employ our thoughts as the boss wishes, not knowing what else to employ our minds with.an employer could be seen as a substitute saviour. Without the work he gives his employees, many men fall apart, engaging in self-destructive behaviour. Too much free time is often like too much rope.The idea of a higher Self, and of divinity, is intrinsically linked to the idea of there being a divine Purpose. it implies that purpose is at the core of sentient forms (as opposed to sentient forms being
in any specific place and time, its people are almost entirely concerned with what are called ‘the current issues.’ They prefer to discuss these
issues exclusively. The understanding is that they are current because they are important. The proposition here is that those same issues are only current because they are discussed.
newspapers don’t discuss climate change because it is important; it has been an important issue since the industrial revolution kicked off. The discussions of the day are mostly reactions. The words “do unto others as you would have others do unto you” are far from outdated, despite their time of authorship. Buddhist and hindu texts – even older — wrote that we are all interconnected. Then einstein, Tesla and others helped to prove that on a physical and electrical level. einstein didn’t discover something new; he confirmed something old. Our time-centricity is just another prejudice. We have the same interests and problems that we’ve had for centuries (like food, sex and war). Our progress amounts to being more efficient at being the same.
The politics of the day are like soap operas; there is never any resolution. The Veil is an attempt at detaching itself from the orbit of its own day. and, from that space, publishing articles on their own merit. The idea is that an article that is relevant to today, need not necessarily have been written today.
inside The Veil you will find entertaining anecdotes, letters, articles and documents of interest from a range of different eras and countries.
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at the core of purpose). For example, if each human is a cell in a greater being called humanity – and an even greater being called earth[3] – then a purpose is alluded to in the way that cells unite into organs and fulfil functions for the health of that organism. This is alluded to in the words, “he in Whom We live and move and have Our Being” (new Testament).“Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere”, said edmund Burk, the so-called philosophical founder of conservatism, “and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without... men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” This quotation could cause much mischief politically, but there is no doubt a point in it.Similarly, William Blake said: “i must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s; i will not reason and compare: my business is to create.” if we are connected to our higher Selves, it stands to reason we become conscious of a creative purpose. a soccer/football player experiences this when paying attention to the whole team (his “Team Self”) during the game; he sees where he fits.By this reasoning, an “enlightened” man would inevitably become a self-employed man. until then your boss at work is your “acting soul”. When we dislike our boss, we actually dislike the gap he fills. he or she is a symbol of the void. That being said, this does not mean bosses are necessarily good, as a spiritual purpose should necessarily be. We must perceive a difference between self-actualisation and Self-actualisation, the one being selfish and the other group-aware. This is why occultists call desire “distorted will”. The glimpse of the moon reflected as broken, shimmering shards in the lake.many of us realise that our jobs are not fulfilling any greater and noble purpose. But only a very few of us struggle with our jobs enough to find them intolerable. either the need for money or fear of being idle is the bigger motivator. Oftentimes, people eventually give up and become perfect employees. The idealist burning to toil at what he considers his “calling” is surely struggling to “exorcise” his employer. he is no longer satisfied with weekends. But until then, no matter how much people dislike it, the most mundane job fills a void and therefore keeps people going. Burroughs experienced it too:“after a junk cure is complete, you generally feel fine for a few days. you can drink, you can feel real hunger and pleasure in food, and your sexual desire comes back to you. everything looks different, sharper. Then you hit a sag. it is an effort to dress, get out of a chair, pick up a fork. you don’t want to
do anything or go anywhere. you don’t even want junk. The junk craving is gone, but there isn’t anything else. you have to sit this period out, or work it out. Farm work is the best cure.”Where there is so much suffering that the employee needs to quit, there are two purposes rubbing against each other, causing friction. unless the aspirant’s perceived purpose is strong enough to attract money and thus fulfil his living needs, he must camp under the “staff” of another (that is, get a day job). his spiritual cum daily struggle is to manifest his soul’s purpose to the point where it is as powerful and sustaining as his employer’s “false” purpose. This does not necessarily mean self-employment. it could mean manifesting/attracting the “right” employment for the aspirant’s potential.We can imagine an employer’s ‘sphere of influence’: a long shadow being cast from him over all his staff and all his outlets or factories. an aura is also a “sphere of influence”. alice a. Bailey said this about auras:“The aura is usually spoken of in terms of colour and of light, due to the nature of the vision of the one who sees and the apparatus of response which is in use. Two words only describe an aura from the point of view of occult knowledge and they are ‘quality’ and ‘sphere of influence.’ What the clairvoyant really contacts is an impression which the mind rapidly translates into the symbology of colour, whereas there
is no colour present. Seeing an aura, as it is called, is in reality a state of awareness.”imagine the employer as a great spirit incarnating in all the extended bodies of his workers, himself the head of a homo Gestalt of some kind; the head with many limbs. in the case where the employer has himself attained some level of spiritual presence, then we would theoretically get no friction, even if the employees were not empty of purpose themselves. We would get synthesis – like an organism or a soccer team. a Prime minister or President’s aura reaches across his nation, but need not necessarily posses or restrict; it could enable and facilitate. a truly great soul reveals a united vision. Jobs sprout naturally as the people work to realise that vision.Prayer could be seen as applying for a job. This doesn’t mean selfish prayer; true prayer involves discipline,
selflessness and regularity – in the same way jobs do. a prayer is employing one’s thoughts. in islam, for example, believers sound the same prayers in the same order, five times per day. imagine having to stop daydreaming about your own problems each day at the same time. When we employ something – like a muscle – it becomes stronger and healthier thereby. The Quaker version of prayer is literally to turn towards the silence and look into it. members and “attenders” of a meeting sit together in a circle of chairs, in silence, for an hour. They seek “The Presence” in this silence, and in doing so transform the negative void into a positive portal. The world is put aside, and finally the Quakers’ ears are pricked up to hear the “still small voice”, or the “voice in the silence”, as they call it. if a member is moved to speak to the group, they do so, and then return to silence. The positive connotation Quakers give to silence is illustrated in the saying: “if you cannot add to the silence, it is better you do not speak at all.” We often ask if prayers are answered. if prayer is applying for work, the prayer is answered by itself. in this sense, religion is not about understanding the universe; it is about participating in the universe. meditation could also be seen as applying for work. in meditation, you are also reaching inwards for divine purpose. if your equipment is calm enough, your resolve strong enough
and your love wide enough, you will apparently sense this purpose. Those who claimed to have experienced the above behaved as if they’d passed a job interview; they did a lot of work afterwards. and they seemed to have gained the tools to do it. When christ got the job, he no longer had any time to be a carpenter. Buddha had no time to fulfil the functions of royalty, despite the financial incentive. George Fox and mahatma
Gandhi didn’t mind the jail time; it was part of the job. Poor Blavatsky was exhausted from all the work. and so on with countless idealists.if, when reaching into the void, we ask, “is there really anything there?” then what we are also asking is: “is there actually any thing worth doing?” if not, we are justified in fearing silence, time and space. imagine the cells of an organism scattering the way a soccer team disbands when a game is cancelled. Or when employees are laid off. imagine cancer cells.is it any surprise, then, when the scriptures say that work is holy?[1] A void.[2] ...and so on to a greater being called the Universe, etc.
“having a job is a forM of possession: we beCoMe
possessions of our eMployers. they Control us.”
4 | The Veil Vol. 3
The great work in practical magic, after the education of the will and the personal creation
of the magus, is the formation of the magnetic chain, and this secret is truly that of priesthood and of royalty. To form the magnetic chain is to originate a current of ideas which produces faith and draws a large number of wills in a given circle of active manifestation. a well-formed chain is like a whirlpool which sucks down and absorbs all. The chain may be established in three ways—by signs, by speech, and by contact. The first is by inducing opinion to adopt some sign as the representation of a force. Thus, all christians communicate by the sign of the cross, masons by that of the square beneath the sun, the magi by that of the microcosm, made by extending the five fingers, etc. Once accepted and propagated, signs acquire force of themselves. in the early centuries of our era, the sight and imitation of the sign of the cross was enough to make proselytes to christianity. What is called the miraculous medal continues in our own days to effect a great number of conversions by the same magnetic law. The vision and illumination of the young israelite, alphonse de ratisbonne, is the most remarkable fact of this kind. imagination is creative not only within us but without us by means of our fluidic projections, and undoubtedly the phenomena of the labarum of constantine and the cross of migne should be attributed to no other cause.
The magnetic chain of speech was typified among the ancients by chains of gold, which issued from the mouth of hermes. nothing equals the electricity of eloquence. Speech creates the highest intelligence in the most grossly constituted masses. even those who are too remote for actual hearing
understand by excitement, and are carried away with the crowd. Peter the hermit convulsed europe by his cry of “God wills it!” a single word of
the emporer electrified his army, and made France invincible.
Proudhon[1] destroyed socialism by his celebrated paradox:
“Property is robbery.” a current saying is frequently sufficient to overturn a reigning power. Voltaire knew this well—who shook the world by sarcasms. So, also, he who feared neither pope nor king, neither parliament nor Bastille, was afraid of a pun. We are on the verge of accomplishing the intentions of that man whose sayings we repeat.
The third method of establishing the magic chain is by contact.
Between persons who meet frequently the
head of the current soon manifests, and the
strongest will is not slow to absorb the others. The direct
and positive grasp of hand by hand completes the harmony of
dispositions and it is for this reason a mark of sympathy and intimacy.
children, who are guided instinctively by nature, form the magic chain by playing at bars or rounds, then gaiety spreads, then laughter rings. circular tables are more favourable to convivial feasts than those of any other shape. The great circular dance of Sabbath, which concluded the mysterious assemblies of adepts in the middle ages, was a magic chain, which joined all in the same intentions and the same acts. it was formed by standing back to back and linking hands, the dance outside the circle, in imitation of the antique sacred dances, representations of which are still found on the sculptures of old temples. The electric furs of the lynx, panther, and even domestic cat, were stitched to their garments, in imitation of the ancient bacchanalia; hence comes the tradition that the Sabbath miscreants each wore a cat hung from
The TRiple ChainBelow is an extract from Dogme et rituel De la Haute magie (transcenDental magic, its Doctrine anD ritual) By elipHas levi. it was originally puBlisHeD By riDer & company, englanD, 1896, anD translateD from tHe frencH By artHur eDwarD waite in 1910. levi is tHe pen name of alpHonse louis, a well-known frencH occultist. tHis famous Book was tHe first to make magical metHoD accessiBle to tHe average citizen.
“the Chain May be established in three ways—by signs, by speeCh, and by ContaCt.”
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the girdle, and that they danced in this guise.
The phenomena of tilting and talking tables has been a fortuitous manifestation of fluidic communication by means of the circular chain. mystification combined with it afterwards, and even educated and intelligent persons were so infatuated with the noelty that they hoaxed themselves, and became the dupes of their own absurdity. The oracles of the tables were answers more or less voluntarily suggested or extracted by chance; they resembled the conversation which we hold or hear in dreams. Other and stranger phenomena may have been the external manifestations of imaginations operating in common. We, however, by no means deny the possible intervention of elementary spirits in these occurrences, as in those of divination by cards or by dreams; but we do not believe that it has been in any sense proven, and we are therefore in no way obliged to admit it.
One of the most extraordinary powers of human imagination is the realisation of the desires of the will, or even of its apprehensions and fears. We believe easily anything that we fear or desire, says a proverb; and it is true, because desire and fear impart to imagination a realising power, the effects of which are incalculable. how is one attacked, for example, by a disease about which one feels nervous? We have already cited the opinions of Paracelsus on this point, and have established in our doctrinal part the occult laws confirmed by experience; but in magnetic currents, and by mediation of the chain, the realisations are all the more strange because almost invariably unexpected, at least when the chain has not been
formed by an intelligent, sympathetic, and powerful leader. in fact they are the result of purely blind and fortuitous combinations. The vulgar fear of superstitious feasters, when they find themselves thirteen at table, and their convictions that some misfortune threatens the youngest and weakest among them, is, like most superstitions, a remnant of magical science. The duodenary being a complete and cyclic number in the universal analogies of nature, invariably attracts and absorbs the thirteenth, which is regarded as a sinister and superfluous number. if the grindstone of a mill be represented by the number twelve, then thirteen is that of the grain which is to be ground. On kindred considerations,
the ancients, established the distinctions between lucky and unlucky numbers, whence came the observance of days of good or evil augury. it is in such concerns, above all, that imagination is creative, so that both days and numbers seldom fail to be propitious or otherwise to those who believe in their influence. consequently, christianity was right in proscribing the divinatory sciences, for in thus diminishing the number of blind chances, it gave further scope and empire to liberty.
Printing is an admirable instrument for the formation of the magic chain by the extension of speech. no book is lost; as a fact, writings go invariably precisely where they should go, and the aspirations of thought attract speech. We have proved this a hundred times in the course of our magical initiation; the rarest books have offered themselves without seeking as soon as they became indispensable. Thus have we recovered intact that universal science which
so many learned persons have regarded as engulfed by a number of successive cataclysms; thus have we entered the great magical chain which began with hermes or enoch, and will only end with the world. Thus have we been able to evoke, and come face to face with, the spirits of apollonius, Plotinus, Synesius, Paracelsus, cardanus, agrippa, and other less or more known, but too religiously celebrated to make it possible for them to be named lightly. We continue their great work, which others will take up after us. But unto who will it be given to complete it?
[1] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (died 1865), the first individual to call himself an Anarchist. [Veil editor]
“ to forM the MagnetiC Chain is to originate a Current of ideas whiCh produCes faith and draws a large nuMber of wills in a given CirCle of aCtive Manifestation.”
Logo of the Odd Fellows
“printing is an adMirable instruMent for the
forMation of the MagiC Chain by the extension of
speeCh. no book is lost; as a faCt, writings go
invariably preCisely where they should go, and the aspirations of thought
attraCt speeCh.”
6 | The Veil Vol. 3
liFe anD DeaTh in
RuRRangalaBy RoD BakeRroD Baker is a teacHer anD assistant HeaD-master witH a science BackgrounD. He Has spent years working in aBoriginal communities, anD was aDopteD By a yolngu family.
i went to the funeral for my little brother for two weeks. he was twenty when he died. Too young.
We don’t say his name now and that helps us let his spirit rest. he was the lead singer and bass player in the yirrkala award winning band and one of the first four graduates from grade 12 with university qualifications from a bilingual, aboriginal, community school.
my little brother adopted me into his family when i first went to arnhem land to teach. Through him i learnt who i was in the yolngu universe. The fabric of the yolngu universe is the gurrutu (kinship) system and every entity, animate or inanimate is mapped and known through it. When i let go of my attachments to my western identity i was swept up into this world. This sublimation is most complete during ceremony, especially when the ceremony is for someone close to your heart. in thinking about gurrutu it is easy to envision a multidimensional network spinning on a computer animation but i think the closest concept in the west is love. it is personal. We love a person, a place or a thing and then we become part of it. Gurrutu is a systematic network of love weaving us into the entire universe. Problems only come when the fabric tears and we no longer know love or who we are.
Our grandfather on our mother’s side (ngathi) was one of the strongest men in knowledge while he lived. Our ngandi (mother, or in white man’s way of saying it ‘mother’s sister’ or ‘auntie on mothers side’) was the principal of the school. i learnt more than i ever taught.
my little brother was working across arnhem land as a music tutor before he died. he was one of those people with love for everyone and whom everyone loved. his death created ripples across all of arnhem land, from yirrkala to Oenpelli.
he died down in adelaide during heart surgery that lasted 9 hours before they came out and told us we had lost him. We had travelled all the way from darwin and he had come from yirrkala in the hope that he might live. i was with another one of our ngandis.
he had rheumatic fever as a baby. he had a tissue (pig) valve put in his heart when he was 15. my little brother was tired a lot because his heart had to work too hard to get the blood around the body. We didn’t know that was why he was tired all the time. By the time he came to hospital in nhulunbuy it was getting late. By the time he was medi-evacuated to darwin hospital it was almost too late. We almost lost him in darwin. There are no facilities for heart surgery in darwin despite the number of indigenous residents of the northern Territory with heart problems. he flew to adelaide and we nearly lost him during the flight. We clung to hope. he made it into surgery. he didn’t make it out.
yolngu funeral ceremonies are where esoteric knowledge is taught and expressed. young boys and girls join in the dances with the young adults who know how to dance the elements of spirit and life, sometimes an old feller will join in too. Western educational philosophy talks about kinaesthetic learning, we know about that. The older men who have a deeper understanding sing the songs a little bit like postgraduate students in your universities. The women only sing and publicly express their knowledge when we are really hurting from first hearing the news of a death or when we feel the loss during the ceremony. We all felt it when his spirit came in during the sea gull dance. The women wailed and the men had stoic tears.
Our philosophy is sophisticated. We use lots of metaphors and like Socrates and the celts we never used to lock our knowledge into writing. The fabric of our universe is the Gurrutu system and some people can see similarities with quantum physics and relativity. We have a lot more words to describe different types of relationships between things than western culture. We took his spirit home through ceremony. We sang songs about turtles and dolphins diving out of and into the water. We sang songs about the osprey diving into and out of water. Out of and into the water is like waking up and going to sleep, like living then dying. carl Jung would understand this.
Then we sung my little brother to where
we were going to bury him; a beautiful, peaceful place, our mother country. it has soft sandy ground and no sharp seeds if you know where to walk. you can walk through the bush bare foot if you want. The bush is full of food; fruit and kangaroo and fish are in the river. The river is beautiful. it comes out of a sacred spring in a forbidden jungle and then flows gently over waterfalls and through pools you can swim in. We call this water the water of knowledge. it is another metaphor; different waters come together and mix up, they can form fertile places like the meeting of fresh and salt water or turbulent and dangerous waters with undercurrents that can sweep you away. Water, knowledge, spirit, it is the same thing. The water at rurrangala is safe, there are no crocodiles. it is nice to swim in the river when it is hot and sweaty. it is a wonderful place to grow up and find yourself.
We just had a new house built. it is one of the best designed houses in the homelands. it was organised and payed for by the laynapuy homeland association, which is run by yolngu people. it has two big verandas for sitting on in the wet season. it has a kitchen with plenty of storage and one of only a few really good wood fire ovens with a cook top in arnhem land. We have one of the first flushing toilets in the homelands. do you have a public toilet in your town? maybe the government thinks that there are not enough people in the homelands to spend the money on them. We have solar hot water and that is a first! We have a generator for power so we can have the lights on or watch dVds or videos when we have enough fuel for the generator and enough money for the fuel and when the generator is working. There is no television reception.
There are cypress pine trees that flavour the air with their aroma. We burn the wood on campfires and it keeps the mozzies away. it stains the pots with this thick flaky black stuff.
it is a very gentle place just like my little brother was. hundreds of people came for the funeral. Some stayed here for months. Some will stay for longer. death realigns our lives when we love
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one another. We learn at ceremony like you learn at school. We learn who we are and how to live. They mark us absent from school when we go to ceremony for a few weeks and the school looses teachers because of poor attendance.
lots of clans got involved singing and dancing him home. We dug the
hole, put him in and filled it by hand ourselves. We cried. in the last dance we speared the turtle. it took a while to get him; we had to paddle up to the shelter and where we saw the turtle. it came in and out of the water. We backed up and paddled forward a few times, concentrating real hard on getting that turtle. he came to the surface again and we paddled forward
and got him with the harpoon. Then we smoked ourselves and burnt the shelter where the body had been in the freezer.
Some family brought some turtle eggs and we ate them. life goes on in a cycle and we are all part of it. We share it with our families.
“ in thinking about gurrutu it is easy to envision a MultidiMensional network spinning on a CoMputer aniMation but i think the Closest ConCept in the west is love.”
8 | The Veil Vol. 3
Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet,
we should be tempted to call it, not an heroical, devotional, Philosophical, or moral age, but, above all others, the mechanical age. it is the age of machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster. The sailor furls his sail, and lays down his oar; and bids a strong, unwearied servant, on vaporous wings, bear him through the waters. men have crossed oceans by steam; the Birmingham fire- king has visited the fabulous east; and the genius of the cape, were there any camoens now to sing it, has again been alarmed, and with far stranger thunders than Gama’s.
There is no end to machinery. even the horse is stripped of his harness, and finds a fleet fire-horse yoked in his stead. nay, we have an artist that hatches chickens by steam; the very brood-hen is to be superseded! For all earthly, and for some unearthly purposes, we have machines and mechanic furtherances; for mincing our cabbages; for casting us into magnetic sleep. We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highway; nothing can resist us. We war with rude nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils.
What wonderful accessions have thus been made, and are still making, to the physical power of mankind; how much better fed, clothed, lodged and, in all outward respects, accommodated men now are, or might be, by a given quantity of labour, is a grateful reflection which forces itself on every one. What changes, too, this addition
of power is introducing into the Social System; how wealth has more and more increased, and at the same time gathered itself more and more into masses, strangely altering the old relations, and increasing the distance between the rich and the poor, will be a question for Political economists, and a much more complex and important one than any they have yet engaged with.
But leaving these matters for the present, let us observe how the mechanical genius of our time has diffused itself into quite other provinces. not the external and physical alone is now managed by machinery but the internal and spiritual also. here too nothing follows its spontaneous course, nothing is left to be accomplished by old natural methods. everything has its cunningly devised implements, its pre-established apparatus; it is not done by hand but by machinery. Thus we have machines for education:
lancastrian machines; hamiltonian machines; monitors, maps and emblems. instruction, that mysterious communing of Wisdom with ignorance, is no longer an indefinable tentative process, requiring a study of individual aptitudes, and a perpetual variation of means and methods, to attain the same end; but a secure, universal, straightforward business, to be conducted in the gross, by proper mechanism, with such intellect as comes to hand. Then, we have religious machines, of all imaginable varieties; the Bible-Society, professing a far higher and heavenly structure, is found, on inquiry, to be altogether an earthly contrivance: supported by collection of moneys, by fomenting of vanities, by puffing, intrigue and chicane; a machine for converting the heathen. it is the same in all other departments. has any man, or any society of men, a truth to speak, a piece of spiritual work to do; they can nowise proceed at once and with the mere natural organs, but must first call a public meeting, appoint
committees, issue prospectuses, eat a public dinner; in a word, construct or borrow machinery, wherewith to speak it and do it.
Without machinery they were hopeless, helpless; a colony of hindoo wavers squatting in the heart of lancashire. mark, too, how every machine must have its moving power, in some of the great currents of society; every little sect among us, unitarians, utilitarians, anabaptists, Phrenologists, must have its Periodical, its monthly or quarterly magazine; – hanging out, like its windmill, into the popularis aura, to grind meal for the society.
With individuals, in like manner, natural strength avails little. no individual now hopes to accomplish the poorest enterprise single-handed and without mechanical aids; he must make interest with some existing corporation, and till his field with their oxen. in these days, more emphatically than ever, ‘ to live, signifies to unite with a party, or to make one.’ Philosophy, Science, art, literature, all depend on machinery. no newton, by silent meditation, now discovers the system of the world from the falling of an apple; but some quite other than newton stands in his museum, his Scientific institution, and behind whole batteries of retorts, digesters and galvanic piles imperatively ‘ interrogates nature,’ – who, however, shows no haste to answer. in defect of raphaels, and
The MeChaniCal agefirst puBlisHeD in 1829 in tHe eDinBurgH review, anD written By tHomas carlyle (1795 – 1881). He was a writer anD well-known social commentator During tHe victorian era.
Thomas Carlyle
“not the external and physiCal alone is now
Managed by MaChinery but the internal and
spiritual also.”
The Veil Vol. 3 | 9
angelos, and mozarts, we have royal academies of Painting, Sculpture, music; whereby the languishing spirit of art may be strengthened, as by the more generous diet of a Public Kitchen. literature, too, has its Paternoster-row mechanism, its Trade-dinners, its editorial conclaves, and huge subterranean, puffing bellows; so that books are not only printed, but, in a great measure, written and sold, by machinery.
national culture, spiritual benefit of all sorts, is under the same management. no Queen christina, in these times, needs to send for her descartes; no King Frederick for his Voltaire, and painfully nourish him with pensions and flattery: any sovereign of taste, who wishes to enlighten his people, has only to impose a new tax, and with the proceeds establish Philosophic institutes. hence the royal and imperial Societies, the Bibliotheques, Glyptotheques, Technotheques, which it is expected the stray agencies of Wisdom will swarm of their own accord, and hive and make honey. in like manner, among ourselves when it is thought that religion is declining, we have only to vote half-a-million’ s worth of bricks and mortar, and build new churches. in ireland it seems they have gone still farther, having actually established a ‘Penny-a-week Purgatory Society’! Thus does the Genius of mechanism stand by to help us in all difficulties and emergencies, and with his iron back bears all our burdens.
These things, which we state lightly enough here, are yet of deep import, and indicate a mighty change in our whole manner of existence. For the same habit regulates not our modes of action alone, but our modes of thought and feeling. men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand. They have lost faith in individual endeavour, and in natural force, of any kind. not for internal perfection, but for external combinations and arrangements, for institutions, constitutions – for mechanism of one sort or other, do they hope and struggle. Their whole efforts, attachments, opinions, turn on mechanism, and are of a mechanical character.
There is an isle in the sea — not far from the happy isles of Zarathustra — on which
a volcano ever smoketh; of which isle the people, and especially the old women amongst them, say that it is placed as a rock before the gate of the nether-world; but that through the volcano itself the narrow way leadeth downwards which conducteth to this gate.
now about the time that Zarathustra sojourned on the happy isles, it happened that a ship anchored at the isle on which standeth the smoking mountain, and the crew went ashore to shoot rabbits. about the noontide hour, however, when the captain and his men were together again, they saw suddenly a man coming towards them through the air, and a voice said distinctly: “it is time! it is the highest time!” But when the figure was nearest to them (it flew past quickly, however, like a shadow, in the direction of the volcano), then did they recognise with the greatest surprise that it was Zarathustra; for they had all seen him before except the captain himself, and they loved him as the people love: in such wise that love and awe were combined in equal degree.
“Behold!” said the old helmsman, “there goeth Zarathustra to hell!”
about the same time that these sailors landed on the fire-isle, there was a rumour that Zarathustra had disappeared; and when his friends were asked about it, they said that he had gone on board a ship by night, without saying whither he was going.
Thus there arose some uneasiness. after three days, however, there came the story of the ship’s crew in addition to this uneasiness — and then did all the people say that the devil had taken Zarathustra. his disciples laughed, sure
enough, at this talk; and one of them said even: “Sooner would i believe that Zarathustra hath taken the devil.” But at the bottom of their hearts they were all full of anxiety and longing: so their joy was great when on the fifth day Zarathustra appeared amongst them.
and this is the account of Zarathustra’s interview with the fire-dog:
The earth, said he, hath a skin; and this skin hath diseases. One of these diseases, for example, is called “man.”
and another of these diseases is called “the fire-dog”: concerning him men have greatly deceived themselves, and let themselves be deceived.
To fathom this mystery did i go o’er the sea; and i have seen the truth naked, verily! barefooted up to the neck.
now do i know how it is concerning the fire-dog; and likewise concerning all the spouting and subversive devils, of which not only old women are afraid.
“up with thee, fire-dog, out of thy depth!” cried i, “and confess how deep that depth is! Whence cometh that which thou snortest up?
Thou drinkest copiously at the sea: that doth thine embittered eloquence betray! in sooth, for a dog of the depth, thou takest thy nourishment too much from the surface!
at the most, i regard thee as the ventriloquist of the earth: and ever, when i have heard subversive and spouting devils speak, i have found them like thee: embittered, mendacious, and shallow.
ye understand how to roar and obscure with ashes! ye are the best braggarts, and have sufficiently learned the art of making dregs boil.
Cont. P10
gReaT eVenTSa cHapter of ‘tHus spake zaratHustra,’ tHe pHilosopHical novel By frieDricH nietzscHe. tHis was composeD in four parts Between 1883 anD 1885, anD Has maDe a Huge impact on tHe worlD of pHilosopHy. tHis version was translateD By tHomas common anD is puBlisHeD witH permission By eBooks@aDelaiDe (eBooks.aDelaiDe.eDu.au/) unDer creative commons licence 2.5 (Http://creativecommons.org/licenses/By-nc-sa/2.5/au/).
“ ‘freedoM’ ye all roar Most eagerly: but i have
unlearned the belief in ‘great events,’ when there is MuCh roaring and sMoke about theM. and believe Me, friend
hullabaloo! the greatest events — are
not our noisiest, but our stillest hours.”
10 | The Veil Vol. 3
on MeMoRyWe live by the second but
remember by the minute. We live by the minute but
remember by the hour. and so on. 60 seconds ‘die’ during the lifespan of a minute. humans live and die like cells, while humanity lives on. most of these humans are likewise forgotten.
The smaller is lost in the larger. revolutionaries are lost in che Guevara. mimes are lost in marcel marceau.
it depends on the sphere of detail what will be recalled. a clock with three hands shows three simultaneous spheres of detail of the same thing: the present. adam and eve would sufficiently represent the human species to the entity named Planet earth. Similarly, we generally think of The atom, not of particular atoms.
an archetype can be said to be more tangible than a particular because it is less fleeting. it is, therefore, more real. This is why it is remembered. The archetypical mother will always be familiar whereas a particular middle-class mother, say, from Brisbane australia in the 1980s is forgotten in the folds of time. But she is an incarnation of the archetype, which suggests her potential.
mythology is full of archetypes, and therefore full of reality.
memory techniques are usually based on associations. if you want to remember an entire pack of playing cards, the most common system for doing this is to have an association for each card. Then, as each card comes up, you link the associations by telling a story. This is basically what myths are. The mind does not want to remember the cards; it wants to remember what they mean (even if that meaning is reduced to a mental image). in this way the card is less real than its association, and so too is the body less real than the soul.
Of course, with something like cards, the associations are often contrived. But the mind would still rather remember meaning in general, than random objects. (To get the full point of this, i recommend practicing at remembering playing cards in the order by which you see them.)
This implies the path to immortality. a particular reaches immortality by conforming to an archetype. a true christian seeks to imitate christ, for example. a Buddhist seeks to become a Buddha. The effects of the
Great Events continued...
Where ye are, there must always be dregs at hand, and much that is spongy, hollow, and compressed: it wanteth to have freedom.
‘Freedom’ ye all roar most eagerly: but i have unlearned the belief in ‘great events,’ when there is much roaring and smoke about them.
and believe me, friend hullabaloo! The greatest events — are not our noisiest, but our stillest hours.
not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of new values, doth the world revolve; inaudiBly it revolveth.
and just own to it! little had ever taken place when thy noise and smoke passed away. What, if a city did become a mummy, and a statue lay in the mud!
and this do i say also to the o’erthrowers of statues: it is certainly the greatest folly to throw salt into the sea, and statues into the mud.
in the mud of your contempt lay the statue: but it is just its law, that out of contempt, its life and living beauty grow again!
With diviner features doth it now arise, seducing by its suffering; and verily! it will yet thank you for o’erthrowing it, ye subverters!
This counsel, however, do i counsel to kings and churches, and to all that is weak with age or virtue — let yourselves be o’erthrown! That ye may again come to life, and that virtue — may come to you!—”
Thus spake i before the fire-dog: then did he interrupt me sullenly, and asked: “church? What is that?”
“church?” answered i, “that is a kind of state, and indeed the most mendacious. But remain quiet, thou dissembling dog! Thou surely knowest thine own species best!
like thyself the state is a dissembling dog; like thee doth it like to speak with smoke and roaring — to make believe, like thee, that it speaketh out of the heart of things.
For it seeketh by all means to be the most important creature on earth, the state; and people think it so.”
When i had said this, the fire-dog acted as if mad with envy. “What!” cried he, “the most important creature on earth? and people think it so?” and so much vapour and terrible voices came out of his throat, that i thought he would choke with vexation and envy.
at last he became calmer and his panting subsided; as soon, however, as he was quiet, i said laughingly:
“Thou art angry, fire-dog: so i am in the right about thee!
and that i may also maintain the right, hear the story of another fire-dog; he speaketh actually out of the heart of the earth.
Gold doth his breath exhale, and golden rain: so doth his heart desire. What are ashes and smoke and hot dregs to him!
laughter flitteth from him like a variegated cloud; adverse is he to thy gargling and spewing and grips in the bowels!
The gold, however, and the laughter — these doth he take out of the heart of the earth: for, that thou mayst know it,— The hearT OF The earTh iS OF GOld.”
When the fire-dog heard this, he could no longer endure to listen to me. abashed did he draw in his tail, said “bow-wow!” in a cowed voice, and crept down into his cave.—
Thus told Zarathustra. his disciples, however, hardly listened to him: so great was their eagerness to tell him about the sailors, the rabbits, and the flying man.
“What am i to think of it!” said Zarathustra. “am i indeed a ghost?
But it may have been my shadow. ye have surely heard something of the Wanderer and his Shadow?
One thing, however, is certain: i must keep a tighter hold of it; otherwise it will spoil my reputation.”
and once more Zarathustra shook his head and wondered. “What am i to think of it!” said he once more.
“Why did the ghost cry: ‘it is time! it is the highest time!’
For WhaT is it then — the highest time?”—
Thus spake Zarathustra.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Veil Vol. 3 | 11
on MeMoRyimitation – of the life – on the world or community, are what generate or lead back to the ‘intangible’ association.
magic traditions, such as the hermetic Order of The Golden dawn (made famous by the poet W.B. yeats, and aleister crowely), attempt this with their rites, calling it the ‘taking on’ of a ‘God-form’. Wicca has a similar exercise called ‘drawing down the moon’. Bailey speaks of the man Jesus being “overshaddowed” by the christ. Perhaps method actors do a similar thing again, with characters.
Following is an ontological joke from The Three Stigmata of Palmer eldritch by science fiction writer Philip K. dick:
[anne]: “a hostess is giving a dinner party and she’s got a lovely five-pound T-bone steak sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen waiting to be cooked while she chats with the guests in the living room – has a few drinks and whatnot.
But then she excuses herself to go into the kitchen to cook the steak—and it’s gone. and there’s the family cat, in the corner, sedately washing its face.”
“The cat got the steak,” Barney said.
“did it? The guests are called in; they argue about it. The steak is gone, all five pounds of it; there sits the cat, looking well fed and cheerful. ‘Weigh the cat,’ someone says. They’ve had a few drinks; it looks like a good idea. So they go into the bathroom and weigh the cat on the scales. it reads exactly five pounds. They all perceive this reading and one guest says, ‘Okay, that’s it. There’s the steak.’ They’re satisfied that they know what happened, now; they’ve got empirical proof. Then a qualm comes to one of them and he says, puzzled, ‘But where’s the cat?’”
[in explaining the joke, anne says], “That joke poses the finest distillation of the problem of ontology ever invented.
[...] remember the wine and the wafer.”
consider the mystery of people like cagliostro, Jesus, Osho, Gandhi, Gurdjieff, alice Bailey, and Blavatsky. any discussions on these personalities are full of query and argument. Some will argue they are charlatans and scoundrels; other will say they were saints and masters. There is a movement nowadays claiming evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross, and that he went on to marry mary magdalene, and even have children. another group of people say Gandhi was passive aggressive through his fasts, emotionally manipulating, and spiritually self-centred with regards to what his abstinence of sex caused.
in some of these issues, perhaps both parties are right. There is both the cat and the steak. There was Jesus of
nasareth, and then there was christ; there was mohandas K. Gandhi, and then there was The mahatma. One is the worldly, flawed self. The other is the divine archetype they attempted to ‘draw down’ into themselves through the way they lived. This is why the new name has explicit meaning. alkeides’ name changed to hercules. charles Bradlaugh (first atheist to be elected into english parliament) became ‘Our charlie’. morihei ueshiba (founder of aikido) is now called ‘O Sensei’. cassius clay jr. became muhammad ali. T. e. lawrence became known as lawrence of arabia. and so on, just as a simple playing-card becomes a symbol for some other association, and consequently has a more lasting effect.
The new name implies a change. in natural and healthy cases, this is a moment of initiation into deeper knowledge. The moment may not be theirs, but the moment other people recognise this.
mohandas K. Gandhi was one indian citizen who, in the eyes of the world, only represented himself and his immediate family. later he began – through his words and actions – to represent india. There are parallels in all the above examples, the separated individuals giving way to the representations of unity. This precipitates as a new name to indicate the symbolically new person.
if you represent only your immediate family, your immediate family shall remember you when you die. The rest of the world will forget you in the folds of history. But, if you represent a nation then a nation will remember you. mohandas Gandhi died; the mahatma lives on. One cannot think about che Guevara and not Socialism.
On the negative side, we might note that hitler is synonymous with nazi philosophy. i theorise that this shows the difference between true and contrived meaning. in remembering playing cards, the meanings can be contrived and still give results. The cards are still successfully remembered, as is the result of nazi philosophy still affecting us. But if one studies the history of the playing cards and their suits, the true meanings of each symbol would dissipate any arbitrary associations (playing cards have their origin in the Tarot, which has its origin in caballa and egyptian religion). likewise, if one studies the true origin and meaning of the word aryan, the contrived racist and materialist meaning falls away. hitler’s definition of races and their differences are based on cards and not qualities, so to speak.
“an arChetype Can be said to be More tangible than a partiCular beCause it is less fleeting. it is,
therefore, More real. this is why it is reMeMbered.”
Philip K. Dick
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What is life? mineral life is to hold the mineral matter together. Vegetable life is
to hold the vegetable matter together and increases in volume. animal life is to hold the animal matter or flesh together increase the volume and give motion to muscles. The base of life is the north and South pole magnets. The magnets are indestructible.
every period of material life goes through two periods, construction and destruction period, but the life itself is indestructible, life has no beginning and no end. The sun is living in a destruction period and the earth in a construction period. in the sun only mineral life exist but on earth mineral, vegetable and animal life exist. When one form of life goes through the destruction period the life leaves the matter and goes somewhere else. For instance when zinc in a battery is taken in parts by acid, the north and South pole magnets that held the zinc together, they leave the zinc and if right connections are made they will come out of the battery, then they can be used for other purposes.
i can run those north and South pole magnets in my perpetual motion holder, then they will produce perpetual motion and when i want to use the same magnets for other purposes. i can make a flash of light from them. now you can see when the zinc went dead those north and South pole magnets that held the zinc together they did not die but escaped and went some where else.
The drawing on the front cover is like the perpetual motion holder i made. if i run north and South pole magnets from a car battery (car battery is stronger than zinc battery) in those two coils while the laminated iron cross bar is across the iron bar prong, and fill the iron bar orbit with magnets, then those north and South pole magnets
will never stop running around, they will run around until the cross bar is pulled off. The north pole magnets come out of the battery’s positive terminal and South pole magnets come out of car battery’s negative terminal. To be sure it is so, you get two pieces of soft steel welding rod four inches long, put them in clips and connect them with the car battery. Put those two loose rod ends together until the rod gets hot. now test each of those rod ends you were putting together with a small needle- like horizontally hanging magnet. Then you will see tile one which is connected with positive
terminal is north pole magnet, and the one which is connected with negative terminal is South pole magnet (like poles repulses, and unlike poles attract). you can change the rod pieces, but every time the one is connected with positive terminal will be north pole magnet, and the one connected with negative terminal will be South pole magnet.
if perpetual motion holder’s north pole prong is put east. South pole prong West, and then elevate the cross-bar’s center up to tile South pole vertically hanging magnet, then the magnet
will swing South and when the cross-bar’s center is elevated up to north pole vertically hanging magnet, then the magnet will swing north. The cross-bar’s ability to swing the north and South pole magnets. off its center will remain as long as the cross-bar is not disturbed. it has little power but it could be made stronger by making bigger dimensions. From the above experiment you can see the perpetual motion holder can act as a living thing. it knows which way to swing each magnet. This shows if more magnets are added to a living then it can perform things it could not do before. The same is true concerning our body and everything else. Those surplus magnets, they are real life.
magnets in general are indestructible. For instance you can burn wood or flesh. you can destroy the body, but you cannot destroy the magnets that held together the body. They go somewhere else. iron has more of the magnets than wood, and every different substance has a different number of magnets that hold the substance together. if i make a battery with copper for positive terminal and beef for negative terminal i get more of the magnets out of it than when i used copper for positive terminal, and sweet potato for negative terminal. From this you can see that no two things are alike.
Several years ago i read in the paper that the scientists cannot find out how the green chlorophyll converts the sunlight in plant food. They are looking in the wrong direction. it is not the green chlorophyll that converts the sunlight in plant food, it is the water that does it. That green chlorophyll was not so green in the first place. in fact it was not green at all. it became green by evaporation. The water in plants catches the running sunlight that is coming from the sun and the north and South pole magnets wrap themselves around the caught particles
MineRal, VegeTaBle anD aniMal liFean article By eD leeDskalnin, written arounD 1945. leeDskalnin, an eccentric latvian immigrant to tHe usa, Built tHe famous coral castle (in floriDa) single-HanDeD. tHe structure is maDe entirely of large clean-cut Blocks of HarDeneD coral or limestone, eacH weigHing in tHe tones. He only useD tools from tHe local Dump, working at nigHt so as not to give away How He Built it. to tHis Day, scientists anD engineers cannot agree on How it is possiBle. leeDskalnin’s writings revolve almost exclusively arounD magnetic energy, packeD witH experiments for tHe reaDer to try. His writing skills are atrocious, anD we Do not eDit tHe Below.
The Veil Vol. 3 | 13
of sunlight and as soon as the particles of sunlight which are wrapped around by the north and South pole magnets are coming in the suitable part of the plant then they join the plant and become a part of it. The north and South pole magnets are going in and out of the earth all the time, everywhere and their numbers are limitless.
i have several lily pools where i keep water in. i have watched the lily pools for sixteen years. When i put clear water in the pools where the sunlight can shine in, then in two months’ time i can see the moss is beginning to grow. but when i poured the water in the pools where there was no green chlorophyll in the water. This shows that the plants can grow without green chlorophyll. The sunlight was running in the water every day and the north and South pole magnets were running through the water all the time. The north and South pole magnets are passing through every tree, the bigger the tree the more magnets will be passing through it. you have noticed that lightning hits the biggest tree and the tallest building. in the north hemisphere the South pole magnets are going up, and the north pole magnets coming down in the same flash. lightning only strikes if the north and South magnets are concentrated too much in a small space. if not concentrated then they pass through everything without much notice. i believe that water, sunlight and north and South pole magnets are making the plants to grow.
you have heard that if somebody happens to hold
a power line in their bare hands it becomes impossible for him to let loose from the power line. The power line is full of north and South pole magnets, so they overpower the body’s weaker system, and make it impossible for it to open the hands. This shows that the magnets can contract and release the muscles.
i can see tiny lightning in my eyes if i dose the eye lids and give a side push to the eye ball from the nose outward, but i could not do it every day. When i keep eating more for some time then i can see the tiny lightning while my eyes are open. all that i have to do is to turn my head from one side to the
other side. This shows that we have in our body the same kind of magnets that are making the big lightning in the sky. When i connect my tongue and feet with micro-ampere meter. the meter shows that i have magnets in my body. Some times i have more of the magnets in my body than at other times. The presence of magnets in our body would indicate that the magnets are operating our muscles.
Where do our bodies get the magnets from? you know that to get the magnets from zinc we have to put the zinc in acid in the battery where it can be dissolved. Our digestive system is like a battery but more complicated.
We get magnets from the food we eat. The acid and other digestive juices dissolve the food and liberate the magnets to be used for other purposes.
i have never studied human anatomy, but i know there are many little cords that the magnets can pass through. all that has to be done is to make the right connections. all our body functions are physical, there is no mental function in us, for instance thinking the same as talking is physical process. We all would think loud if we were not suppressed while we were small. When we think we contract the muscles that are for that purpose, but the contraction is so delicate we cannot notice it. This is all that i can tell about our body functions. if i had studied chemistry and human anatomy i am sure i could tell you more about our body functions.
Copyright October. 1945, by Edward Leedskalnin.
“our digestive systeM is like a battery but More CoMpliCated. we get Magnets froM the food
we eat. the aCid and other digestive juiCes dissolve the
food and liberate the Magnets to be used for other purposes.”
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it might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following
another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity.
For instance, if the ugly Sisters are older than cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) neceSSary that cinderella is younger than the ugly Sisters. There is no getting out of it.
haeckel may talk as much fatalism about that fact as he pleases: it really must be. if Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack. cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in fairyland submit. if the three brothers all ride horses, there are six animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and fairyland is full of it. But as i put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world, i observed an extraordinary thing. i observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened— dawn and death and so on--as if They were rational and inevitable.
They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as neceSSary as the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not.
There is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination. you cannot imaGine two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail. These men in spectacles spoke much of a man named newton, who was hit by an apple, and who discovered a law.
But they could not be got to see the distinction between a true law, a law of reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. if the apple hit newton’s nose, newton’s nose hit the apple. That is a true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other.
But we can quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose; we can fancy it flying ardently through the air to hit some other nose, of which it had a more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities. We believe that a Bean-stalk climbed up to heaven; but that does not at all confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five.
here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales. The man of science says, “cut the stalk, and the apple will fall”; but he says it calmly, as if the one idea really led up to the other. The witch in the fairy tale says, “Blow the horn, and the ogre’s castle will fall”; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause.
doubtless she has given the advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason.
She does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting those facts.
They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically
connected them philosophically. They feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing.
Two black riddles make a white answer.
in fairyland we avoid the word “law”; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm’s law. But Grimm’s law is far less intellectual than
Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. a law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. if there is a law that pick-pockets shall go
to prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets.
and we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. as ideaS, the egg and the chicken are further off from each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears.
Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the “laws of nature.”
The eThiCS oF elF lanDtHis is sampleD from ‘ortHoDoxy’ By g.k. cHesterton (first puBlisHeD 1908 By DoDD, meaD anD company). tHis is an aBriDgeD section from tHe cHapter of tHe same name.
“[w]e Cannot say why an egg Can turn into a ChiCken any More than we Can say why a bear Could turn into a fairy prinCe. as ideas, the
egg and the ChiCken are further off froM eaCh other than the bear and the prinCe; for no egg in itself suggests a ChiCken, whereas
soMe prinCes do suggest bears.”
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When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is maGic.
it is not a “law”, for we do not understand its general formula. it is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. it is no argument for unalterable law (as huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet.
We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. all the terms used in the science books, “law,” “necessity,” “order,” “tendency,” and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess.
The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in the fairy books, “charm,” “spell,” “enchantment.”
They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. a tree grows fruit because it is a maGic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched.
i deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. it is the only way i can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. it is the man who talks about “a law” that he has never seen who is the mystic.
nay, the ordinary scientific man
is strictly a sentimentalist. he is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. he has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none.
a forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide.
in both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. a sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his
tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country.
This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment.
This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales.
mere life is interesting enough. a child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales--because they find them romantic.
in fact, a baby is about the only person, i should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him.
This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make
us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. i have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. and, indeed, on this point i am all for the higher agnosticism; its better name is ignorance.
We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story.
every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.
Thou shalt love the lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. all that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. all that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
“ every Man has forgotten who he is. one May understand the CosMos, but never the ego; the self is More distant than any star.”
G.K. Chesterton
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The FiRST laBouR oF heRCuleSBy alice a. Bailey, extracts taken from Her Book tHe laBours of Hercules, an astrological interpretation. first written in tHe 1950s in separate articles, it was later compileD into a Book By lucis press (wHo still HolD copyrigHt). tHis is reprinteD Here witH permission from tHe lucis trust.
alice a. Bailey was a tHeosopHist Before founDing Her own esoteric scHool, tHe arcane scHool in tHe 1920s. sHe wrote many Books on spiritual Development anD universal BrotHerHooD, anD Has Been very influential on spiritual movements. many pHrases anD iDeas were BorroweD from Her (incluDing ‘tHe new age’), tHougH not necessarily preserveD or useD in tHe same way sHe DiD.
The MyThThe first great Gate stood open wide. a voice came through that portal: “hercules, my son, go forth. Pass through the Gate and enter on the Way. Perform thy labour and return to me, reporting on the deed.”
With shouts of triumph hercules rushed forth, running between the pillars of the Gate with over-weening confidence and surety of power. and thus the labour started and the first great act of service was begun. The story that they tell carries instruction for the sons of men, who are the sons of God.
The son of mars, diomedes of fiery fame, ruled in the land beyond the gate, and there he raised the horses and the mares of war, upon the marshes of his land. Wild were these horses and fierce the mares and all men trembled at their sound, for they ravaged up and down the land, wreaking great damage, killing all the sons of men who crossed their path, and breeding steadily most wild and evil horses.
“capture these mares, and stop these evil deeds,” was the command which fell upon the ears of hercules. “Go, rescue this far land and those who live upon it.”
“abderis,” cried hercules, “come forth and aid me with this task,” calling the friend he greatly loved and who ever followed in his steps as he went from place to place. and abderis came forth and took his stand beside his friend and with him faced the task. laying ll plans with care, these two followed the horses as they ranged the meadows and the marshes of that land. Finally, he cornered these wild mares within a field wherein there was no further place to move, and there he caught and tethered them. he yelled with joy at the success achieved.
So great was his delight in the prowess thus displayed that he deemed it ‘neath his dignity to hold the mares or drive them on the Way to diomedes. he called his friend, saying: “abderis, come hither and drive these horses through the Gate.” and then he turned his back and pridefully marched forward.
But abderis was weak and fared the task. he could not hold the mares, or harness them or drive them through the Gate in the footsteps of his friend. They turned on him; they rent and trod him underfoot; they killed him and escaped into the wilder lands of diomedes.
Wiser, grief-stricken, humble and discouraged, hercules returned unto his task. he sought the mares again from place to place, leaving his friend, dying upon the ground. again he caught the horses, and drove them through the Gate himself. But abderis lay dead.
The Teacher turned to hercules and said: “labour the first is ended; the task is done, but badly done. learn the true lesson of this task and then pass in to further service to your fellowmen. Go forth into the country guarded by the second Gate and find and take the sacred Bull into the holy Place.”
The TiBeTan[1]
The CRux oF The TeSTThe conquest of matter and the overcoming of illusion loomed large before hercules and indicated from the very outset of the twelve labours the nature of his final achievement. it has been said that the keynote of the sign of aries[2] is hope and as he faced his twelve labours, hope was all the guarantee that hercules then had that he would achieve. hope, his
untried divine equipment, his personal club, and much enthusiasm: so start all disciples.
The meaning of the test is now surely plain. hercules had to begin in the world of thought to gain mental control. For ages the brood mares of thought had been breeding war horses and, through wrong thought, wrong speech and erroneous ideas, had been devastating the countryside. One of the first lessons that every beginner has to learn is the tremendous power that he mentally wields, and the amount of harm that he can cause in his neighbourhood and environment through the brood mares of his mind. he has, therefore, to learn the right use of his mind, and the first thing that he has to do is capture this feminine aspect f the mind and see to it that no more war horses are bred. any would-be hercules can easily prove that he possesses these devastating brood mares, if for one entire day he pays close attention to his thoughts and to the words he speaks, which are ever the result of thought, he will rapidly discover that selfishness, unkindness, love of gossip, and criticism constitute a large part of his thought content and that the brood mares of his mind are constantly being fertilised by selfishness and illusion. instead of these brood mares giving birth to ideas and concepts which have their origin in the kingdom of the soul, and instead of being fertilised from the spiritual realm, they become the parents of error, falseness and cruelty, which have their origin in the lower aspects of man’s nature.
hercules realised the harm that the brood mares were doing. he rushed gallantly to the rescue of his neighbourhood. he determined to capture the brood mares, but he overestimated himself. he did succeed in rounding them up and in capturing them, but he failed to realise their
The CapTuRe oF The Man-eaTing MaReS(aries, march 21st – april 20th)
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potency and strength, so he gave them to abderis, the symbol of the lower personal self, to hold. But hercules, the soul, and abderis, the personality, in unison were needed to guard these devastating horses. abderis alone was not strong enough, and what had been happening to the people in the neighbourhood, happened to abderis; they killed him. This is an instance of the working of the great law that we pay the price in our own natures of wrongly-spoken words and ill-judged actions. again the soul, in the person of hercules, had to deal with the problem of wrong thought, and only, when he becomes a one-pointed aspirant in the sign of Sagittarius and in that sign kills the man-eating Birds, does he really attain complete control of the thought processes of his nature.
The practical significance of the power of thought has been well expressed for us in the words of Thackeray: “Sow a thought, and reap an action. Sow an action, and reap a habit. Sow a habit, and reap character. Sow character and reap destiny.”
[1] The Tibetan, also known as Djwal Khul, was a Tibetan monk who worked closely with Bailey in the writing of her books [editor, the Veil].
[2] Each of the twelve labours corresponds to one of the twelve constellations. Bailey explains that the first is Aries [editor, the Veil].
as i sat there in that lonely room; the fire burning low in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has
warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; i began to be sensible of strange feelings. i felt a melting in me. no more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilised hypocrisies and bland deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet i began to feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. and those same things that would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. i’ll try a pagan friend, thought i, since christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy. i drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. at first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be bedfellows. i told him yes; whereat i thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.
We then turned over the book[1] together, and i endeavoured to explain to him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures that were in it. Thus i soon engaged his interest; and from what we went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen in this famous town. Soon i proposed a social smoke; and, producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. and there we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly passing between us.
if there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan’s breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. he seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as i to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would galdly die for me, if need should be. in a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those rules would not apply.
after supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room together. he made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his
enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and mechanically dividing them in two equal portions, pushed one of them towards me, and said it was mine. i was going to remonstrate; but he silenced me by pouring them into my trousers pockets. i let them stay. he then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, i thought he seemed anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, i deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, i would comply or otherwise.
i was a good christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible Presbyterian church. how then could i unite with this wild idolater in worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought i. do you suppose now, ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth—pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? impossible! But what is worship?—to do the will of God—that is worship. and what is the will of God?—to do to my fellowman what i would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the will of God. now, Queequeg is my fellow man. and what so i wish that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular Presbyterian form of worship. consequently, i must then unite with him in his; ergo, i must turn idolater. So i kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with Queequeg; salaamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.
how it is i know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, lay i and Queequeg—a cosy loving pair.
[1] The Bible [Veil editor]
MoBy DiCktHis is taken from cHapter ten of moBy Dick; or, tHe wHale, By Herman melville (first puBlisHeD in 1851). tHe narrator, isHmael, Has arriveD in a small wHaling town to finD tHe inn full. He tHus Has to sHare a BeD witH a Huge maori man nameD QueeQueg, wHose face is covereD in tattoos. tHis extract takes place on tHe seconD evening.
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in the ceremonies Freemasons are told that Freemasonry was in existence when King Solomon
built the Temple at Jerusalem and that the masons who built the Temple were organised into lodges.
Freemasons are also told that King Solomon, King hiram of Tyre and hiram abif ruled over those lodges as equal Grand masters. The ceremonies, however, are built up of allegory and symbolism and the stories they weave around the building of the Temple are obviously not literal or historical facts but a dramatic means of explaining the principles of Freemasonry. Freemasonry neither originated nor existed in Solomon’s time.
many well-meaning but misguided historians, both masons and non-masons, have tried to prove that Freemasonry was a lineal descendant or a modern version of the mysteries of classical Greece and rome or derived from the religion of the egyptian pyramid builders. Other theories reckon that Freemasonry sprang from bands of travelling stonemasons acting by Papal authority. Others still are convinced that Freemasonry evolved from a band of Knights Templar who escaped to Scotland after the order was persecuted in europe.
Some historians have even claimed that Freemasonry derives in some way from the shadowy and mysterious rosicrucian Brotherhood which may or may not have existed in europe in the early 1600s. all of these theories have been looked at time and again but no hard evidence has yet been found to give any of them credibility.
The honest answers to the questions when, where and why Freemasonry originated are that we simply do not know. early evidence for Freemasonry is very meagre and not enough has yet been discovered - if indeed it even exists - to prove any theory. The general agreement amongst serious masonic historians and researchers is that Freemasonry has arisen, either directly or indirectly, from the medieval stonemasons (or operative masons) who built great cathedrals and castles.
Those who favour the direct descent
from operative masonry say there were three stages to the evolution of Freemasonry. The stonemasons gathered in huts (lodges) to rest and eat. These lodges gradually became not the hut but the grouping together of stonemasons to regulate their craft. in time, and in common with other trades, they developed primitive initiation ceremonies for new apprentices.
as stonemasons could easily travel all over the country from one building site to another, and as there were also no trade union cards or certificates of apprenticeship they began to adopt a private word which a traveling stonemason could use when he arrived at a new site, to prove that he was properly trained and had been a member of a lodge. it was, after all, easier to communicate a special word to prove that you knew what you were doing and were entitled to the wages it deserved that to spend hours carving a block of stone to demonstrate your skills.
We know that in the early 1600s these operative lodges began to admit men who had no connection with the trade - accepted or ‘gentlemen’ masons. Why this was done and what form of ceremony was used is not known. as the 1600s drew to a close more and more gentlemen began to join the lodges, gradually taking them over and turning them into lodges of free and accepted or speculative masons, no longer having any connection with the stonemasons’ craft.
The only problem with this theory is that it is based solely on evidence from Scotland. There is ample evidence of Scottish operative lodges, geographically defined units with the
backing of statute law to control what was termed ‘the mason trade’. There is also plenty of evidence that these lodges began to admit gentlemen as accepted masons, but no evidence so far that these accepted members were other than honorary masons, or that they in any way altered the nature of the operative lodges. no evidence has come to light, after more than a
hundred years of searching building archives, for a similar development in england. medieval building records have references to mason’s lodges but after 1400, apart from masons’ guilds in some towns, there is no evidence for operative lodges.
yet it is in england that the first evidence of a lodge completely made up of non-operative masons is found. elias ashmole, the antiquary and Founder of the ashmolean museum in Oxford, records in his diary for 1646 that he was made a Free mason in a lodge held for that purpose at his father-in-law’s house in Warrington. he records who was present, all of whom have been researched and have been found to have no connection with operative masonry. english evidence through the 1600s points to Freemasonry existing apart from any actual or supposed organisation of operative stonemasons.
This total lack of evidence for the existence of operative lodges but evidence of ‘accepted’ masons has led to the theory of an indirect link between operative stonemasonry and Freemasonry. Those who support the indirect link argue that Freemasonry was brought into being by a group of men in the late 1500s or early 1600s. This was a period of great religious and political turmoil and intolerance.
how FReeMaSonRy STaRTeDSuBMiTTeD By MeMBeRS oF leiChhaRDT loDge oF ReSeaRCh no. 225 (DaRwin, n.T.)tHe autHor of tHe Below article is unknown. But it almost certainly comes from tHe englisH ‘uniteD granD loDge’ of free anD accepteD masons. tHis version was founD on tHemasonicleaDer.com, a site affiliateD witH uniteD granD loDge anD DevoteD to tHe promotion of masonic eDucation. it comes witH tHeir permission. tHis is one account of tHe origin of freemasonry.
“as their Central idea was one of building a better soCiety they borrowed their forMs and
syMbols froM the operative builders’ Craft and took their Central allegory froM the
bible, the CoMMon sourCe book known to all, in whiCh the only building desCribed in any
detail is king soloMon’s teMple.”
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men were unable to meet together without differences of political and religious opinion leading to arguments. Families were split by opposing views and the english civil war of 1642-6 was the ultimate outcome. Those who support the indirect link believe that the originators of Freemasonry were men who wished to promote tolerance and build a better world in which men of differing opinions could peacefully co-exist and work together for the betterment of mankind. in the custom of their times they used allegory and symbolism to pass on their ideas.
as their central idea was one of building a better society they borrowed their forms and symbols from the operative builders’ craft and took their central allegory from the Bible, the common source book known to all, in which the only building described in any detail is King Solomon’s Temple. Stonemasons’ tools also provided them with a multiplicity of emblems to illustrate the principles they were putting forward.
a newer theory places the origin of Freemasonry within a charitable framework. in the 1600s there was no welfare state, anyone falling ill or becoming disabled had to rely on friends and the Poor law for support. in the 1600s many trades had what have become known as box clubs.
These grew out of the convivial gatherings of members of a particular trade during meetings of which all present would put money into a communal box, knowing that if they fell on hard times they could apply for relief from the box. From surviving evidence these box clubs are known
to have begun to admit members not of their trade and to have had many of the characteristics of early masonic lodges. They met in taverns, had simple initiation ceremonies and pass-words and practised charity on a local scale. Perhaps Freemasonry had its origins in just such a box club for operative masons.
although it is not yet possible to say when, why or where Freemasonry originated it is known where and when “organised” Freemasonry began. On 24 June 1717 four london lodges came together at the Goose and Gridiron ale house in St Paul’s churchyard, formed themselves into a Grand lodge and elected a Grand master (anthony Sayer) and Grand Wardens.
For the first few years the Grand lodge was simply an annual feast at which the Grand master and Wardens were elected, but in 1721 other meetings began to be held and the Grand lodge began to be a regulatory body. By 1730 it had more than one hundred lodges under its control (including one in
Spain and one in india), had published a Book of constitutions, began to operate a central charity fund, and had attracted a wide spectrum of society into its lodges.
in 1751 a rival Grand lodge appeared, made up of Freemasons of mainly irish extraction who had been unable to join lodges in london. its founders
claimed that the original Grand lodge had departed from the established customs of the craft and that they intended practising Freemasonry ‘according to the Old institutions’. confusingly they called themselves the Grand lodge of antients and dubbed their senior rival ‘moderns’. The two rivals existed side by side, both at home and abroad, for 63 years, neither regarding the other as regular or each other’s members as regularly made Freemasons. attempts at a union of the two rivals began in the late 1790s but it was not until 1809 that negotiating committees were set up. They
moved slowly and it was not until his royal highness augustus Frederick, duke of Sussex became Grand master of the Premier Grand lodge and his brother, his royal highness edward, duke of Kent, became Grand master of the antients Grand lodge, both in 1813, that serious steps were taken.
in little more than six weeks the two brothers had formulated and gained agreement to the articles of union between the two Grand lodges and arranged the great ceremony by which the united Grand lodge of england came into being on 27 december 1813.
The formation of the premier Grand lodge in 1717 had been followed, around 1725, by the Grand lodge of ireland and, in 1736, the Grand lodge of Scotland. These three Grand lodges, together with antients Grand lodge, did much to spread Freemasonry throughout the world, to the extent that all regular Grand lodges throughout the world, whatever the immediate means of their formation, ultimately trace their origins back to one, or a combination, of the Grand lodges within the British isles.
“a newer theory plaCes the origin of freeMasonry within a Charitable
fraMework. in the 1600s there was no welfare state, anyone falling ill or
beCoMing disabled had to rely on friends and the poor law for support.”
“although it is not yet possible to say when, why or where freeMasonry
originated it is known where and when “organised” freeMasonry began.”
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The premise of this theory is that gravity is caused by consciousness. an axiom would
be, ‘Where there is gravity there is consciousness.’ The more advanced the consciousness, the stronger the gravity. in the case of a planet, we have lesser lives attracted to (and enabled by) a planetary consciousness. consciousness is, however, encased in form; and form resists gravity, so that as lesser beings are attracted to earth’s consciousness, the earth’s form stops them at the surface.
The greater consciousness of the earth enables everything that goes on or exists within his aura of influence. But the planetary consciousness does this by ‘being’ itself, not by ‘doing’.
This explains the attractiveness of inspirational leaders, great artists, enlightened Ones, and prophets. let us say that their consciousness is advanced or evolved to a point where it becomes an attractive radiation. They attract followers, and they serve these disciples or students by ‘being’ themselves as much as by ‘doing’ good works. hence we have sayings like, “a man of gravity,” who speaks, “words of gravity”.
The most popular saying of the russian mystic Saint Seraphim of Sarov seems to allude to the above: “acquire a peaceful spirit, and thousands around you will be saved.”
The problem arrises that not all people of influence, and with many followers, are advanced in terms of quality of consciousness. adolf hitler is an obvious example.
The explanation here is that gravity is not the only influence causing coagulation or attraction. The difference lies in the above idea of ‘being’ and ‘doing’; or, of energy vs. force. energy is something that can be drawn upon, as in a pool of energy, a radiation. Force is active and specific, a projection. a battery might be energy, while the use of the battery’s power for a specific purpose is force.
The idea is that less energy/radiation needs to be compensated by more force/projection. So, while people journey far to see a reclusive wise man, evangelists go to every door and stand on street corners, convincing others of their views. One ‘is’ and the other ‘does’. a
good theatre director inspires – rather than orders – his actors to perform at their best.
in addition, the more developed the consciousness, the less external help it needs. For example, a person without any experience in arm-to-arm combat will need the help of a weapon in many survival situations. But a person experienced in martial arts has correspondingly less need for a tool. a movie with acting and writing of quality needs less special effects and explosions. a person alone in the african wilderness is a sitting duck against a lion unless that man has a rifle. however, a lion tamer in a circus can stand with but a whip and his voice amongst five lions. The famous stories of Saint Seraphim of Sarov and the bear are interesting in this context.
The next part of the theory is that there is an evolutionary threshold, wherein the balance between gravity/attraction (consciousness), and resistance/repulsion (form) are tipped. in the early stages, form or resistance is more powerful. eventually, consciousness radiates such that it overpowers its form.
This may fit with Gurdjieff’s notion that planets evolve into suns. But here we can account for the sun becoming the white dwarf, where form collapses inwards. (it is noteworthy here that the word ‘grave’ shares similar origins to the word ‘gravity’.) Further on, we have a black hole. This is the equivalent in humans of enlightenment in the Buddhist sense of the word. if we consider black holes as pathways to singularity, then singularity is one ultimate consciousness, which all things
evolve towards.
imagine the universe as a sphere shape, such as shown in a Brief history of Time by hawkings. The bottom pole is the big bang and the top pole the big crunch. movement from one to the other is time and so the sphere shows the expansion and contraction of space. however, because singularity exists during all stages, we can imagine the point becoming the line, a central pillar or spine leading from bang to crunch, in the centre of the sphere. all black holes would be like nerve endings, leading from the surface of the sphere back to the spine. a saint or enlightened man (or a group movement) would be such a nerve-ending leading back to the one consciousness.
The balance in a person could be marked by the mythical halo, which
is certainly not ‘material’. if the halo gets too bright, perhaps this leads to ‘collapse’ through ‘crucifixion’ (as seen through people like Plato, Gandhi, and christ). and after their deaths, a ‘black hole’ in the form of a philosophical, social, or religious movement forms in the vacuum left by the former ‘planet’. many great thinkers (such as Saint Germaine, alice Bailey, Gurdjieff, madame Blavatsky) seem posthumously to be surrounded by an ‘event horizon’ of mystery. commentators both praise and condemn them, leaving researchers confused with regards to the truth about these leaders.
in the occult philosophies, a triple relationship is taught to be present in all things. Gurdjieff called this the holy affirming, holy denying, and holy reconciling forces. christians have the holy Trinity, and hindus have their trinity of Siva, Vishnu, and Brahma. The cabala has its Three Pillars in the Tree of life. Bailey called it purpose, quality and form, or life-aspect, consciousness-aspect, and form-aspect. in her – and the theosophical – system, these constitute the first three of the seven ‘rays’ that make up the cosmos. When spoken of in terms of the rays, their names are ‘Will, love, and active intelligence.’
in that context, the factor called consciousness corresponds to the quality called love. This would also explain why gravity leads to consciousness: love attracts.
