Synesius - A letter to Hypatia: On Dreams

In a letter to Hypatia of Alexandria, of whom he was a student, Synesius of Cyrene wrote that his essay, or as he called it "book" was:

"[...] set up as a thank-offering to the imaginative faculties. It contains an inquiry into the whole imaginative soul, and into some other points which have not yet been handled by any Greek philosopher. But why should one dilate on this? This work was completed, the whole of it, in a single night, or rather, at the end of a night, one which also brought the vision enjoining me to write it. There are two or three passages in the book in which it seemed to me that I was some other person, and that I was one listening to myself amongst others who were present.

Even now this work, as often as I go over it, produces a marvelous effect upon me, and a certain divine voice envelops me as in poetry. Whether this my experience is not unique, or may happen to another, on all this you will enlighten me, for after myself you will be the first of the Greeks to have access to the work."

An extract from On Dreams:

"[...] divinations are amongst the best vocations of man; and if all things are signs appearing through all things, inasmuch as they are brothers in a single living creature, the cosmos, so also they are written in characters of every kind, just as those in a book some are Phoenician, some Egyptian, and others Assyrian.[1]

The scholar reads these, and he is a scholar who learns by his natural bent. One reads some of them and another reads others, one reads more and another less. In the same way one reads them by syllables, another reads the complete phrase, another the whole story. In like manner do the learned see the future, some understanding stars, and of these, one the fixed stars, another those flames which shoot across the sky. Again, there are those who read it from the entrails, and from the cries of birds, and from their perches and flights. To others also what are termed omens are manifest, written indications these of things to be, and again voices and encounters otherwise intended, for all things have their significance for every one. [1285] In the same way, if birds had had wisdom, they would have compiled an art of divining the future from men, just as we have from them; for we are to them, just as they are to us, alike young and old, very old and very fortunate. It must needs be, I think, the parts of this great whole, since it all shares one feeling and one breath, belong to each other. They are, in fact, limbs of one entire body, and may not the spells of the magicians be even such as these? Obviously, for charms are cast from one part of it to another, as signals are given, and he is a sage who understands the relationship of the parts of the universe. One thing he attracts to himself through the agency of another thing, for he has present with him pledges of things which are for the most part far away, to wit, voices, substances, figures. And as when the bowel is in pain, another part suffers also with it, so a pain in the finger settles in the groin,[2] although there be many organs between these parts which feel nothing.

This is because they are both portions of one living organism, and there is that which binds them one to the other more than to other things. Even to some god, of those who dwell within the universe, a stone from hence and a herb is a befitting offering; for in sympathizing with these he is yielding to nature and is bewitched. Thus the harp-player who has sounded the highest note does not sound the sesquioctavus next, but rather strikes the epitrite and the nete, a heritage today from a more ancient state of harmony.

But there is in the cosmos, even as in human relationship, a certain discord also; for the universe is not one homogeneous thing but a unity formed of many. There are parts of it which agree and yet battle with other parts, and the struggle of these only contributes to a harmonious unity of the whole, just as the lyre is a system of responsive and harmonious notes.[3] The unity resulting from the opposites is the harmony of both the lyre and the cosmos. Archimedes the Sicilian asked for a point of support outside of the earth wherefrom he might prop himself against the whole earth, for he said that as long as he was himself upon the earth he had no power over it. But the man, howso great his knowledge of the nature of the universe may be, once placed outside of it, could no longer make any use of his wisdom. He uses the universe against itself; accordingly his touch with it once lost, he will watch it in vain, and the lifeless symbols only would then be recorded. And small wonder, for whatever of the divine elements is outside the cosmos can in no wise be moved by sorcery.

He sits apart and careth not. nor taketh any thought thereof.[4]

It is the nature of pure reason not to be deflected; it is only the emotional element which may be cajoled. Wherefore the multitude of things in the universe and their relationship furnish the bulk of the subject-matter in the initiations and prophecies. There is a multitude of the discordant elements, but a relationship is the unity of things existing. Now, as to initiations, let not our law-abiding discourse noise them abroad; there is no offense, however, in explaining divination."

Letters of Synesius of Cyrene to Hypatia of Alexandria http://www.livius.org/su-sz/synesius/synesius_letter_154.html

Full text of Synesius On Dreams http://www.livius.org/su-sz/synesius/synesius_dreams_02.html

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Illustrated by Harry Clarke

The Moral

It scarce may be believed, 
This tale of Donkey-skin; 
But laughing children in the home;Y
ea, mothers, and grandmothers too, 
Are little moved by facts! 
By them 'twill be received.

 "Donkey-skin" illustration by Harry Clarke

 "It was with difficulty that he withdrew from this gloomy little alley, intent on discovering who the inmate of the tiny room might be. He was told that it was a scullion called Donkey-skin because of the skin which she always wore, and that she was so dirty and unpleasant that no one took any notice of her, or even spoke to her; she had just been taken out of pity to look after the geese."

 "CURIOSITY MADE HIM PUT HIS EYE TO THE KEYHOLE"

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29021/29021-h/29021-h.htm

Nehalennia - Protector Goddess of sea-farers

"Although Nehalennia (or Nehelennia) became known for her worship by the tribes in the Netherlands she was mainly worshipped by the Suebians in Germany, for this reason it can also be said with certainty that she was Germanic in origin and not Roman or Celtic like some scholars believe.
During the 17th and 19th century AD many altar stones dedicated to her were found by fishermen on the bottom of the sea near the peninsula of Walcheren in the Dutch province of Zeeland, on some of the stones she is asked to protect the ship of the creator of the stone, there are also depictions of her on some of the stones but mostly in a Romanized form which was probably copied from depictions of Isis, a fertility goddess who was worshipped by the Romans.
A remarkable detail is that on some of the stones the name of the creator is Roman or Celtic in origin, which implicates that the local Roman and Celtic occupiers took over some of the native deities and equaled them with their Roman counterparts.
There also seems to have been a temple dedicated to Nehalennia near Walcheren, which was destroyed in 694AD by Christian missionaries, near the coast to the west of the city of Domburg was a temple of Nehalennia too.
During the early Middle Ages there was a local custom in some parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in which the people rode a ship on wheels through the country while dancing around it and celebrating, this custom was later forbidden under Christian pressure.
This procession sounds very similar to the Nerthus ritual that was described by Tacitus, also; in Germany the people worshipped a goddess who protected ships and sea trade, her symbol was a ship; the symbol of Nerthus was also a ship so it may be very well possible that Nehalennia and Nerthus were one and the same goddess
Before the merchants at Walcheren sailed out they visited Nehallenia's temple where they asked her to grant them a safe trip and a profitable trade, they also promised to erect an altar stone for her when they would return safely, some of this stones have been found and are displayed in museums, most of them bear the Latin inscription; "Votum solvit libens merito", which means something like; the promise fulfilled, with pleasure and reason".
The name "Nehalennia" is thought to have meant "Goddess of the new light" and she was almost certainly the protector of ships and sea trade."
from http://www.northvegr.org/leidstjarna/ostara2003/forgotten.php

"Nehalennia is known from more than 160 votive altars, which were almost all discovered in the Dutch province of Zeeland. (Two altars were discovered in Cologne, the capital of Germania Inferior.) All of them can be dated to the second and early third centuries CE. Most pieces show a young female figure, sitting on a throne in an apse between two columns, holding a basket of apples on her lap. Nearly always, there is a wolf dog at her side. In some cases, the fruit basket is replaced by something that looks like loaves of bread; in other cases, we can see the woman standing next to a ship or a prow.
Several inscriptions inform us that the votive altar was placed to show gratitude for a safe passage across the North Sea, and we may assume that other altars were dedicated for the same reason. (Of course, this does not mean that all pieces were erected after a safe passage.) An example of a typical inscription:

To the goddess Nehalennia,
on account of goods duly kept safe,
Marcus Secundinius Silvanus,
trader in pottery with Britain,
fulfilled his vow willingly and deservedly.

http://www.livius.org/ne-nn/nehalennia/nehalennia.html

from wiki
Nehalennia is attested on 28 inscriptions discovered in the Dutch town of Domburg on the Zeeland coast, when a storm eroded dunes in 1645, disclosing remains of a temple devoted to the previously unattested goddess Nehalennia.^[1] A similar number were discovered in 1971-72 in the town of Colijnsplaat, and two others have been found in the Cologne-Deutz area of what is now Cologne, Germany.^[2]
Nehalennia is almost always depicted with marine symbols and a large, benign-looking dog at her feet.^[3][4] Hilda Ellis Davidson describes the votive objects:

Nehalennia, a Germanic goddess worshipped at the point where travellers crossed the North Sea from the Netherlands, is shown on many carved stones holding loaves and apples like a Mother Goddess, sometimes with a prow of a ship beside her, but also frequently with an attendant dog which sits looking up at her (Plate 5). This dog is on thirteen of the twenty-one altars recorded by Ada Hondius-Crone (1955:103), who describes him as a kind of greyhound.^[5]

Davidson further links the motif of the ship associated with Nehalennia with the Germanic Vanir pair of Freyr and Freyja, as well as the Germanic goddess Nerthus and notes that Nehalennia features some of the same attributes as the Matres.^[6]
The loaves that Nehalennia is depicted with on her altars have been identified as duivekatar, "oblong sacrificial loaves in the shape of a shin bone". Davidson says that loaves of this type may take the place of an animal sacrifice or animal victim, such as the boar-shaped loaf baked at Yule in Sweden, and that in Värmland, Sweden "within living memory" grain from the last sheaf was customarily used to bake a loaf into the shape of a little girl that is subsequently shared by the whole household. Davidson provides further examples of elaborate loaves—Harvest Loaves—at times in the shape of sheaves and displayed in churches, bread employed for the fertility of fields in Anglo-Saxon England with parallels in Scandinavia, and examples from Ireland.^[7]
The Domburg inscriptions to Nehalennia inspired Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn to produce a hasty etymology linking the name Nehalennia to an ancient Scythian,^[8] with which he attempted, with the linguistic tools then available, to bridge the already-known connections between the European languages and modern Persian"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalennia

There are also comparisons to be made with Diana/Artemis, and holy women such as Walburga http://www.friggasweb.org/walburga.html
Walburga's Dog

Walburga's symbols, as shown in the oldest stonecarvings in her chapels, are a dog and a bundle of grain. There is nothing in the abbess Walburga's biographies to account for portraying her with a dog, but there is much to show that German goddesses were associated with the dog as their "Hilfstier" (helping animal). "Grey hounds accompany the three Norns. The fertility goddesses Frau Harke, Frau Gode, and Frau Frick (Frigga) have always a hound beside them, and...Frau Berchte in Steiermark is called the "poodle-mother" because of her dog" (Rochholz p. 20). The goddess Nehalennia is usually pictured with a dog on her altars and votive sites. Speaking Walburga's name is a charm to tame fierce or even mad dogs. In folklore, the dog has much to do with fertility, health and good luck. For example, Rochholz mentions superstitions about the need to feed a mysterious "Windhound," sometimes said to be left behind from the Wild Hunt, during springtide, to ensure good weather for the crops. The Windhound is connected to fertility, good luck and plenty in the house and the farm fields, and in some places is called the "Nourishment-Hound" (Nahrungshund) (p. 22). Rochholz details many other superstitions relating dogs with goddesses of fertility. The christian Mary and female saints are also frequently portrayed with dogs in German chapels, and there is a "Hundskapelle" (dog-chapel) in Innsbruck said to have originally been a Heathen temple. One must suppose that this attribute of a dog accompanying Heathen goddesses was carried over into the christian iconography of holy women, including particularly Walburga.

http://www.livius.org/ne-nn/nehalennia/nehalennia.html

Shell Grotto, Margate

How Shell Grotto was discovered is as much a mystery as why it was built. The "official" story tells us that in 1835 Mr James Newlove lowered his young son Joshua into a hole in the ground that had appeared during the digging of a duck pond. However, there have been other stories appearing over the years. What we do know is that it was officially opened to the public in 1838.

Its walls are decorated with symbols mosaiced in millions of shells; cockles, whelks, mussels and oysters creating a swirling profusion of patterns and symbols, often interpreted as trees of life, phalluses, gods and goddesses.

I first came across reference to Shell Grotto when I was researching the goddess Nehalennia, a goddess who was appealed to and honoured for safe passage over the sea. (I will write more on Nehalennia in a seperate post.) Shell Grotto does not have the great age of the ancient altars dedicated to Nehalennia or any of the pagan gods and goddesses; it may have been inspired by ancient temples, or maybe created by pagans of the time for their own use. But this is all speculation, and its builders remain a mystery.

Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Aten – Similarities in the attributes and praises with Biblical parallels and Psalm 104 - Jaq White

Similarities in the attributes and praises given to the Aten, in prose and written by Pharaoh Akhenaten in approx. 1300 bce. with Biblical parallels and Psalm 104
For Akhenaten, the sun and its powers represented more than simply heat and light. For example, he credits the sun with giving air to an unborn chick inside and egg, and with creating a version of the Nile river in the sky in order to provide rain. With regard to the chick in the shell, the sun even ‘allotted to him his set time before the shell shall be broken’, so its powers even governed time. Everything in creation was fashioned by this one creator according to Akhenaten ‘O sole God, beside whom is no other!’

Also, ‘You are the One God, shining forth from your possible incarnations as Aton, the Living Sun, You create the numberless things of this world from yourself, who are One alone.’ From this we see that Akhenaten thought ‘the god’ so powerful that it was free to choose whatever form it wished, and that the creator power was manifest in the cosmos in its chosen form as the sun. The sun was his Father, and as with all pharaohs, Akhenaten was also ‘Divine’. Amenhotep III was merely his earthly father.

Alexander adopted this fashion when he proclaimed he was the son of the Egyptian god Amun; Philip was his earthly father. Yet despite Akhenaten’s god being his loving father, in-keeping with the later monotheist gods, “The theistic God was also presumed to be the explanation for that which was beyond rational understanding, a being capable of miraculous power who therefore needed to be supplicated, praised, obeyed and pleased.” (Author BA Robinson ‘How the concepts of God have developed over the ages’) And for Akhenaten, as for others in later times, this god was inherent in the light.

Cosmology was a hot topic amongst early philosophers. ‘Aristotle, the major source for Thales’s philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy. Thales was interested in almost everything, investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science, mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics. He proposed theories to explain many of the events of nature, the primary substance, the support of the earth, and the cause of change. Thales was much involved in the problems of astronomy and provided a number of explanations of cosmological events which traditionally involved supernatural entities. His questioning approach to the understanding of heavenly phenomena was the beginning of Greek astronomy. Thales’s hypotheses were new and bold, and in freeing phenomena from godly intervention, he paved the way towards scientific endeavour.’ (from the Internet encyclopaedia of philosophy)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/thales.htm

Yet at the same time, the early philosophers were also immensely influential in the development and advancement of spiritual theories.

Early commentaries on rival religious groups would be written by the favoured philosopher, carefully chosen to write for, or against the variety of beliefs on offer and circulating amongst the growing populations in major cities. Before the time of Akhenaten, the Ancient Egyptians (among other cultures) had believed that [the soul of] the deceased would travel to place of judgement, where it would have some form of a trial, with representatives among the entities present who would speak both for and against the deceased. We see places of torment for punishment of wrongdoing in the majority of belief systems of most cultures.

From Ancient Egypt we have forms of what is known as ‘The negative confession’ which has parallels with the Ten Commandments, and whereby the deceased proclaims a number of ‘declarations of innocence’ I have not caused pain, I have not caused tears. I have not killed, I have not ordered to kill, We see evidence of similar cosmological musings in the many texts discovered in recent history that date back to the last few centuries bce, one example being the texts known as the Pistis Sophia. At least half of the text describes the successive steps by which she ascends through all the Twelve Æons by the Saviour’s aid, and the confession she sings at each stage of her deliverance out of chaos. Early Christian writings, canonical and non-canonical, use cosmological allegory. We can see direct comparisons, similar to those used above by Akhenaten in the praise of his supposed creator. We see explorations of how man and cosmos are related, in complicated Egyptian texts and in later works like the Divine Poeimandres, The Apocryphon of John, and in the more familiar canonical works which attempt to describe what has become known as ‘the fall’ of man from the heavens. In the Apocryphon of John, this god is the monad. “The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. It is he who exists as God and Father of everything, the invisible One who is above everything, who exists as incorruption, which is in the pure light into which no eye can look

 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html

Because we can trace these explorations in monotheism, and the progression of ideas related to man’s place in the cosmos and to the fate of his immortal soul, I suggest that there can be no claim to ownership of any unique, correct ‘system’, and that what an individual accepts as true, or as having been inspired (according to those who were entrusted with advancing a particular philosophy) by ‘The Creator’ is entirely based on the amount/limit of this information they have been exposed to, and on their own intellectual interpretation of ‘experiences’ related to this stimulus.


The Question of Psalm 104 “During Akenaten’s reign, Egypt’s power significantly declined. When Akenaten died, his temples were destroyed. Among the few remains of his cult were hymns found written in the tombs of the proselytes at Amarna. The longest of these hymns to Aten is noted to be similar to the Psalm 104, written for the Bible hundreds of years later. There are a few possibilities for how this might have come about. It is fairly certain that, even previous to the time of Moses, fleeing slaves in groups of various sizes, had wondered into the Sinai Peninsula. As the emigrants walked, they sang to keep up their spirits. One of the songs they sang may have been Akenaten’s hymn to the Sun.

Oral tradition could have perpetuated the elements of his hymn for 600 years. For those who are unconvinced about the similarity of these two documents, Jacob’s descent into Egypt, described in the Bible, recalls the Hyksos dynasties, where the Iron age Canaanites conquered Egypt and ruled for several generations as Pharaohs. When the descendants of the original rulers regrouped and repelled the Hyksos, both the conquerors and the large Semitic population that had entered as migrant workers before and during the foreign dynasty were either driven out or placed in bondage. This was the beginning of the 400 years of slavery. Through those who were driven out, Hymns to the Sun were introduced into Canaan. Probably due to this, worship of the Sun is forbidden in the Bible.

Another possibility stems from the evidence of Persian names in residence at Amarna. These were literate people who may have transcribed Akenaten’s poems. This would have placed the essence of this poem in Babylon, a world center for literature, by 600BC when the Jews were in exile, and the early Hebrew bible was assembled. Dr. H. Brugsch collected quite a few epithets and quotes from Egyptian scripture around fifty years ago and published them in his work, ‘Religion and Mythology’.

Much of Psalm 104 is vaguely similar to Egyptian Hymns, such as the following hymn to Ra from the Papyrus of Hu-nefer: ( Copyright©Alden Bacuzmo) read more here http://www.seanet.com/~realistic/psalm104.html  

The Eight points of comparison: Psalm 104 and the Hymn to Aten The following text in [--] is from Psalm 104 while the remainder is quoted translation by J.H.Breasted, from Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. II, Chapters 5 & 6.. and “The Rock Tombs of Tell el Armarna”, Archeological Survey, Egyptian Exploration Society (6vol, 1903) N. de G. Davis. PSALM 104 [20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night, Wherein all the beasts of the forest creep forth. 21. The young Lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God.] The tradition of Egyptian, Hindu, and Hebrew cultures starts the day at sunset. Today the day normally starts at sunrise.  

AKENATEN’S THE HYMN TO THE SUN

When thou settest in the western horizon of the sky, [1st comparison, verse 20] The earth is in darkness like the dead. They sleep in their chambers Their heads are wrapped up. Their nostrils are stopped And none see the other. While all their things are stolen Which are under their heads And they know it not Every Lion cometh forth from his den [2nd comparison, verse 21] All Serpents they sting Darkness The world is in silence. He that made them resteth in his horizon. [22. The Sun riseth, they get them away, and lay them down in their dens. 23. Man goeth forth unto his work And to his labor until the evening.] Bright is the earth when thou riseth in the horizon. [3rd , 22] When thou shinest as Aten by day Thou drivest away the darkness. When thou sendest forth thy rays The two lands (Egypt) are in daily festivity. Awake and standing upon their feet When thou has raised them up. Their limbs bathed they take their clothing Their arms uplifted in adoration to thy dawning Then in all the world they do their work.. [4th, 23] All cattle rest upon their pasturage The trees and the plants flourish [12. By them the birds of the heavens have their habitation. They sing among the branches.] The birds flutter in their marshes, [5th, 12] Their wings uplifted in adoration to thee. All sheep dance on their feet. All winged things fly, They live when thou hast shone upon them. [25. Yonder is the sea great and wide. Wherein are things creeping innumerable. Both small and great beasts. 26. There go the ships.] The barges sail upstream and downstream alike. [6th, 26] Every highway is open because thou dawnest. The fish in the river leap before thee. Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea. Creator of the germ in woman Maker of the seed in man Giving life to the son in the body of his mother Soothing him that he may not weep. Nurse (even) in the womb. [29. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath and they die. And return to their dust.] Giver of breath to animals, every one that he maketh When he cometh forth from the womb [7th, 29] On the day of their birth Thou openest his mouth in speech [27. These wait all for thee. That thou may give them food in due season.] Thou suppliest his necessities.[8th, 27] When the fledgling in the egg chirps in the shell Thou givest him breath there-in to preserve him alive. When thou hast brought him together to (the point of) bursting it in the egg To chirp with all his might, He goeth about on his two feet When he hath come forth therefrom. How manifold are thy works, They are hidden from before (us) O Sole God, whose powers no other possesseth. Thou didst create the earth according to thy heart While thou wast alone Man, all cattle, large and small All that are upon the earth That go about on their feet (All) That are on high That fly with their wings The foreign countries, Syria and Kush, The land of Egypt Thou settest every man into his place Thou suppliest their necessities Everyone has his possessions And his days are reckoned The tongues are divers in speech Their forms likewise and their skins are distinguished (For) thou makest different the strangers. And here is a comparison of the Hymn to the Aten with other Biblical and LDS parallels

http://james.jlcarroll.net/egypt/texts/aten_hymn.html

And the Hymn to the Aten in full:
Let your holy Light shine from the height of heaven, O living Aton, source of all life! From estern horizon risen and streaming, you have flooded the world with your beauty. You are majestic, awesome, bedazzling, exalted, overlord over all earth, yet your rays, they touch lightly, compass the lands to the limits of all your creation.
There in the Sun, you reach to the farthest of those you would gather in for your Son, whom you love;
Though you are far, your light is wide upon earth; and you shine in the faces of all who turn to follow your journeying.
When you sink to rest below western horizon earth lies in darkness like death,
Sleepers are still in bedchambers, heads veiled, eye cannot spy a companion;
All their goods could be stolen away, heads heavy there, and they never knowing!
Lions come out from the deeps of their caves, snakes bite and sting;
Darkness muffles, and earth is silent he who created all things lies low in his tomb.
Earth-dawning mounts the horizon, glows in the sun-disk as day:
You drive away darkness, offer your arrows of shining, and the Two Lands are lively with morningsong.
Sun’s children awaken and stand, for you, golden light, have upraised the sleepers;
Bathed are their bodies, who dress in clean linen, their arms held high to praise your Return.
Across the face of the earth they go to their crafts and profession he herds are at peace in their pastures, trees and the vegetation grow green;
Birds start from their nests, wings wide spread to worship your Person;
Small beasts frisk and gambol, and all who mount into flight or settle to rest live, once you have shone upon them;
Ships float downstream or sail for the south, each path lies open because of your rising; Fish in the River leap in your sight, and your rays strike deep in the Great Green It is you [who] create the new creature in Woman, shape the life-giving drops into Man,
Foster the son in the womb of his mother, soothe him, ending his tears;
Nurse through the long generations of women to those given Air, you ensure that your handiwork prosper.
When the new one descends from the womb to draw breath the day of his birth,
You open his mouth, you shape his nature, and you supply all his necessities.
Hark to the chick in the egg, he who speaks in the shell!
You give him air within to save and prosper him;
And you have allotted to him his set time before the shell shall be broken;
Then out from the egg he comes, from the egg to peep at his natal hour!
And up on his own two feet goes he when at last he struts forth therefrom. How various is the world you have created, each thing mysterious, sacred to sight, O sole God, beside whom is no other!
You fashioned earth to your heart’s desire, while you were still alone,
Filled it with man and the family of creatures, each kind on the ground, those who go upon feet, he on high soaring on wings,
The far lands of Khor and Kush, and the rich Black Land of Egypt.
And you place each one in his proper station, where you minister to his needs;
Each has his portions of food, and the years of life are reckoned him,
Tongues are divided by words, natures made diverse as well,
Even men’s skins are different that you might distinguish the nations.
You make Hapy, the Nile, stream through the underworld, and bring him, with whatever fullness you will,
To preserve and nourish the People in the same skilled way you fashion them.
You are Lord of each one, who wearies himself in their service,
Yet Lord of all earth, who shines for them all,
Sun-disk of day, holy Light!
All of the far foreign contries– you are the cause they live,
For you have put a Nile in the sky that he might descend upon them in rain–
He makes waves on the very mountains like waves on the Great Green Sea to water their fields and their villages.
How splendidly ordered are they, your purposes for this world, O Lord of Eternity,
Hapy in heaven!
Although you belong to the distant peoples, to the small, shy beasts who travel the deserts and uplands,
Yet Hapy, he comes from Below for the dear Land of Egypt as well.
And your Sunlight nurses each field and meadow:
when you shine, they live, they grow sturdy and prosper through you.
You set seasons to let the world flower and flourish– winter to rest and refresh it, the hot blast of summer to ripen;
And you have made heaven far off in order to shine down therefrom, in order to watch over all your creation.
You are the One God, shining forth from your possible incarnations as Aton, the Living Sun,
Revealed like a king in glory, risen in light, now distant, now bending nearby.
You create the numberless things of this world from yourself, who are One alone– cities, towns, fields, the roadway, the River;
And each eye looks back and beholds you to learn from the day’s light perfection. O God, you are in the Sun disk of Day,
Over-Seer of all creation –your legacy passed on to all who shall every be;
For you fashioned their sight, who perceive your universe, that they praise with one voice all your labors.
And you are in my heart; there is no other who truly knows you but for your son, Akhenaten.
May you make him wise with your inmost counsels, wise with your power, that earth may aspire to your godhead, its creatures fine as the day you made them.
Once you rose into shining, they lived; when you sink to rest, they shall die.
For it is you who are Time itself, the span of the world; life is by means of you.
Eyes are filled with beauty until you go to your rest;
All work is laid aside as you sink down the western horizon.
Then, Shine reborn!
Rise splendidly! my Lord, let life thrive for the King
Who has kept peace with your every footstep since you first measured ground for the world.
Lift up the creatures of earth for your Son who came forth from your Body of Fire! Pharaoh Akhenaten 1300 BCE

Hermes and the Heap of Stones

In his book ‘The Old Straight Track’ , which is one of the first studies into what are now more often referred to as Ley Lines, Alfred Watkins has a chapter dedicated to Hermes and Hermits. Watkins writes of how the straight tracks (or leys) were used by man since the earliest times as a means of crossing the country, with strategic markers placed as a guide, these being ‘sighted’ by specialists (hermits) who have been commemorated in folklore as being able “see” through hills or to tunnel through the earth. He quotes another writer, Sir John Lubbock, as remarking on all of the different activities associated with Hermes, but who reached the conclusion that they all follow from the custom of marking boundries by upright stones. Watkins believes the word ‘trackways’ should be substituted for ‘boundries’. Lockyer, among others has spoken of the Egyptian god Thoth becoming Hermes in Greece and Mercury among the Romans. Stone heaps with pillars were sacred to Hermes. These could be found at crossroads, or paths that traders or merchants would use, and he became associated with the Roman god Mercurius as a patron to tradesfolk in this manner. He was also seen as a shepherd with a crook, eventually becoming the messenger of the gods with his staff or caduceus. Watkins quotes from a book named ‘History of Hampshire’ in which the author, Shore, has collected records of hermits and hermitages, and says that ideas concerning hermits are very different from the truth. The hermit did live a solitary life, but it was not just for the sake of seclusion; rather, they received means of support for the role they played in guiding travellers on their way. There were 8 in Hampshire, all of whom were employed in this way – guiding travellers across dangerous waterways or through Ancient Forests. Similar hermits are recorded in Cornwall, and those recorded all have archaeological evidence to support that they lived on ley ‘sighting’ points. These sighting points on leys are often marked with an upright stone or mound. The majority of mounds are sited on the highest point the eye can see, and in-between, the paths regularly go out of sight, though another mound will mark the direction needed to be followed. If this was not the case, then I'm wondering if there would always have been a hermitage, with the guide taking travellers, traders etc. to the next point where a mound could be viewed? Did such 'hermits' exist in other countries, performing the same duty - might the priests of Thoth have been employed in this capacity? Would hermits (in Britain for instance) also have been seen as performing a 'priestly' duty when guiding travellers? And would the travellers have known they were following the earth's own 'map', and considered the paths sacred in some way, or have just known it was the simplest way to get from A to B without getting lost? Would these same people then have trusted the hermit to be able to guide them in the Otherworld - would all hermits have also been Shamans? Paul Devereux has suggested that the straight lines/leys were used by shamans to guide the spirits of the deceased from one sacred place to another, using the paths and mounds as landmarks. There is an alchemical illustration 'Snakes Among The Hills' included in one of the most famous of all Alchemical books entitled, The Book of Abraham the Jew – who is purported to have been met by - and who influenced - the legendary alchemist, Nicolas Flamel, in the 14th century as he made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. It shows the Earth’s landscape littered with shimmering snakes or serpents in between mounds. It seems that the artist was trying to convey that the Earth’s landscape is littered with “snakes” and “serpents” - which we might now interpret to be twisting, spiralling and snaking lines of positive and negative energy . http://www.levity.com/alchemy/flamimag.html Mercurius meets with Saturn Planetary dragons on a hill The workers in the garden The massacre of the innocents The winged caduceus of Mercurius The crucified snake Snakes among the hills Watkins compares Thoth and the Celtic God Tout (Romanised as Toutates) as guides over pathways. Caesar wrote of the Gods of the Druids that ‘Mercury, whom they regard as the guide of their journeys and marches, also had influence over mercantile transactions and was their chief divinity.’ The God’s name was inscribed on a Romano-British altar. He draws attention to the fact that many mounds are called Tot, Toot, Tout, Tute and Twt. This is pronounced Toot (places like Tottenham and Tooting in London get their names from this root). Watkins speaks of how easily it would be to associate these stones with spirits; I would imagine the next step, would be towards actually associating them with ‘personalities’ – maybe as the origin of deities. The most interesting thing for me is that a collection of real people - who were 'sighting' the land, and invaluable to travellers, may have eventually evolved into deities - spiritual guides as well as practical guides.

The Goose Game - linked to Santiago de Compostela?

(with thanks to blogger Poemas del rio Wang http://riowang.blogspot.com/2009/12/goose-game.html)

This is the first known board with a trail of 63 boxes, a number which would thereafter be fixed as canonical. The wooden board is preserved in good condition in the  Monastery of Valldemossa, in Mallorca.

From wiki:

"The Game Of The Goose is a board game with uncertain origins. Some people connect the game with the Phaistos Disc (because its spiral shape), others claim that it was originally a gift from Francesco I de' Medici of Florence to King Philip II of Spain sometime between 1574 and 1587,[1] while the latest theories attribute to the Templars the creation of the game.[2] According to these theories the Templars, possibly inspired by other games or discs (as the Phaistos Disc) from the Holy Land, developed a game and a secret or encrypted guide to the Way of St. James, representing each numbered space in the game a different stage in this journey. Furthermore, the hidden messages would not be just in the game but in the monuments, cathedrals and churches along the Way to Santiago de Compostela.[3][4]
In June 1597 John Wolfe had attested that the game existed in London. It is thought to be the prototype for many of the commercial European racing board games of recent centuries. The game is mostly played in Europe and seen as family entertainment. Commercial versions of the game appeared in the 1880s and 1890s, and feature typical old European characteristics such as an old well and kids in clothes from the period. In the 1960s, the game company CO-5 marketed a variant called Gooses Wild. "
More at wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_the_Goose

Cubeer Burr, the Great Banyan Tree, and the Gymnosophists

 (painting of Cubeer Burr The Great Banyan Tree by James Phillips)

A famed Banyan tree called in India "Cubeer Burr" was found on an island in the river
Nerbedda, "ten miles from the city of Baroach, in the province of Guzzurat,
a flourishing settlement formerly in possession of the East India Company,
but ceded by the government of Bengal at the treaty of peace concluded
with the Mahrattas in 1783, to Mahadjee, a Mahratta chief.

_Cubeer Burr_ is famed throughout Hindostan for its prodigious extent,
antiquity and great beauty. The Indian armies often encamp around it; and,
at certain seasons, solemn Jattras or Hindoo festivals are held here, to
which thousands of votaries repair from various parts of the Mogul empire.
Seven thousand persons, it is said, may easily repose under its shade.
There is a tradition among the natives, that this tree is three thousand
years old; and there is great reason to believe it, and that it is this
amazing tree that Arrian describes when speaking of the gymosophists in
his book of Indian affairs. These people, he says, in summer wear no
clothing. In winter they enjoy the benefit of the sun's rays in the open
air; and in summer, when the heat becomes excessive, they pass their time
in moist and marshy places under large trees, which according to Nearchus,
cover a circumference of five acres, and extend their branches so far that
ten thousand men may easily find shelter under them" 

(from Cultus Arborum by Anonymous published privately in 1890, sourced from Project Gutenberg 

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=2214966&pageno=14

The Banyan as Temple to the Gymnosophists

1825. -- "Near this village was the finest banyan-tree which I had ever seen, literally a grove rising from a single primary stem, whose massive secondary trunks, with their straightness, orderly arrangement, and evident connexion with the parent stock, gave the general effect of a vast vegetable organ. The first impression which I felt on coming under its shade was, 'What a noble place of worship!'" -- Heber, ii. 93 (ed. 1844).

Kristen Szumyn in her article "The Barbarian wisdom of the 'theoi andres' : a study of the relationship between spatial marginality and social alterity" writes (after Clement of Alexandria): "Herodotus associates the possession of 'wisdom' (sophias) and 'knowledge' (philosopheon) with one who has extensively 'travelled' (planes) to foreign lands. Such a person is counted amongst the saphistai, the wise men or teachers. The Greek philosopher's visit to foreign countries was a doxographical and biographical topos specifically associated with the attainment of wisdom. The philosophical and religious wisdom attained by such travellers was essentially 'barbarian'. As Diogenes Laertius noted, the later Neoplatonic tradition held that 'the study of philosophy had its beginning among the barbarians... the Persians have their Magi, the Babylonians or Assyrians their Chaldeans, and the Indians their Gymosophists; and among the Celts and Gauls there are the people called Druids or Holy Ones. These marginalised religious teachers and transmitters of spiritual wisdom are associated with the geographical and social periphery of society. This geographical marginality of the wise man is particularly evident in the Neoplatonic tradition of late antiquity; however this notion of the association between the sage and oriental or barbarian wisdom was a concept well established even in early Greek thought."

"

Gymnosophists is the name (meaning "naked philosophers") given by the Greeks to certain ancient Indian philosophers who pursued asceticism to the point of regarding food and clothing as detrimental to purity of thought (sadhus or yogis).

The Digambar Jain monks in India even now remain unclothed; they have been identified as the gymnosophists by several researchers,.Xuanzang mentions having come across Digambar Jain monks in Taxila during his 7th century CE visit to India in the same Punjab region where Alexander encountered the gymnosophists." (from wiki)

Plutartch wrote of Alexander's meeting in the First Century with 10 Gymnosophists in the Punjab:

"He (Alexander) captured ten of the Gymnosophists who had done most to get Sabbas to revolt, and had made the most trouble for the Macedonians. These philosophers were reputed to be clever and concise in answering questions, and Alexander therefore put difficult questions to them, declaring that he would put to death him who first made an incorrect answer, and then the rest, in an order determined in like manner; and he commanded one of them, the oldest, to be the judge in the contest. The first one, accordingly, being asked which, in his opinion, were more numerous, the living or the dead, said that the living were, since the dead no longer existed. The second, being asked whether the earth or the sea produced larger animals, said the earth did, since the sea was but a part of the earth. The third, being asked what animal was the most cunning, said: "That which up to this time man has not discovered." The fourth, when asked why he had induced Sabbas to revolt, replied: "Because I wished him either to live nobly or to die nobly." The fifth, being asked which, in his opinion, was older, day or night, replied: "Day, by one day"; and he added, upon the king expressing amazement, that hard questions must have hard answers. Passing on, then, to the sixth, Alexander asked how a man could be most loved; "If," said the philosopher, "he is most powerful, and yet does not inspire fear." Of the three remaining, he who was asked how one might become a god instead of man, replied: "By doing something which a man cannot do"; the one who was asked which was the stronger, life or death, answered: "Life, since it supports so many ills." And the last, asked how long it were well for a man to live, answered: "Until he does not regard death as better than life." So, then, turning to the judge, Alexander bade him give his opinion. The judge declared that they had answered one worse than another. "Well, then," said Alexander, "thou shalt die first for giving such a verdict." "That cannot be, O King," said the judge, "unless thou falsely saidst that thou wouldst put to death first him who answered worst."

—Plutarch, Life of Alexander, "The parallel lives," 64.,

A selection of references to the Banyan tree:

c. A.D. 70. -- "First and foremost, there is a Fig -- tree there (in India) which beareth very small and slender figges. The propertie of this Tree, is to plant and set it selfe without mans helpe. For it spreadeth out with mightie armes, and the lowest water-boughes underneath, do bend so downeward to the very earth, that they touch it againe, and lie upon it: whereby, within one years space they will take fast root in the ground, and put foorth a new Spring round about the Mother-tree: so as these braunches, thus growing, seeme like a traile or border of arbours most curiously and artificially made," &c. -- Plinies Nat. Historie, by Philemon Holland, i. 360.

1624.-
" . . . The goodly bole being got
To certain cubits' height, from every side
The boughs decline, which, taking root afresh,
Spring up new boles, and these spring new, and newer,
Till the whole tree become a porticus,
Or arched arbour, able to receive
A numerous troop."
Ben Jonson, Neptune's Triumph.

c. 1650. -- "Near to the City of Ormus was a Bannians tree, being the only tree that grew in the Island." -- Tavernier, Eng. Tr. i. 255.

1667.-
"The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd;
But such as at this day, to Indians known,
In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade
High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between. " Paradise Lost, ix. 1101.


1691. -- "About a (Dutch) mile from Gamron . . . stands a tree, heretofore described by Mandelslo and others. . . . Beside this tree is an idol temple where the Banyans do their worship." -- Valentijn, v. 267-8.

1717.-
"The fair descendants of thy sacred bed
Wide -- branching o'er the Western World shall spread,
Like the fam'd Banian Tree, whose pliant shoot
To earth ward bending of itself takes root,
Till like their mother plant ten thousand stand
In verdant arches on the fertile land;
Beneath her shade the tawny Indians rove,
Or hunt at large through the wide-echoing grove."
Tickell, Epistle from a Lady in England tò a Lady in Avignon.

1771. -- ". . . being employed to con- struct a military work at the fort of Triplasore (afterwards called Marsden's Bastion) it was necessary to cut down a banyan-tree which so incensed the brahmans of that place, that they found means to poison him" (i.e. Thomas Marsden of the Madras Engineers). -- Mem. of W. Marsden, 7-8.

1810.-
"In the midst an aged Banian grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,
For o'er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propt its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to strike its root,
Straight like a plummet grew towards the ground,
Some on the lower boughs which crost their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound;
Some to the passing wind at times, with sway
Of gentle motion swung;
Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung
Like stone-drops from the cavern's fretted height."
Southey, Curse of Kehama, xiii. 51. [Southey takes his account from Williamson, Orient. Field Sports, ii. 113.]

1834. -- "Cast forth thy word into the everliving, everworking universe; it is a seed -- grain that cannot die; unnoticed today, it will be found flourishing as a banyangrove -- (perhaps alas! as a hemlock forest) after a thousand years." -- Sartor Resartus.

1856.-
". . . its pendant branches, rooting in the air,
Yearn to the parent earth and grappling fast,
Grow up huge stems again, which shooting forth
In massy branches, these again despatch
Their drooping heralds, till a labyrinth
Of root and stem and branch commingling, forms
A great cathedral, aisled and choired in wood."
The Banyan Tree, a Poem.

Stairs of Gold - Giorgio Tavaglione

"I would do nothing else but pick flowers, and wander through meadows and gardens, gathering all the beautiful and most coloured my eyes and my spirit could see…but it happened that when I picked the first coloured diamonds, my curiosity flew up and I would “know” and I would “learn”.  And while at first my questions were limited only to their aspect, and I would know many Petal-Facets had the Diamond-Flowers I was picking, later I would know their Inmost Secret Light, their Why.

As I could not study all the Flowers my eyes took in, I devoted myself to the nearest ones, trying to understand with them, all the others, seeking inside them the Key that would permit me to open every other Door.

And then I realized that the more I penetrated the “Particular”, the more I descended to the “Depth”, the more I rose to the “General”.  So to understand that infinity of the Flowers around me, I began to study, with great care, One of Them, that could mean the most to me, the nearest one: myself.

And I tried to discover how many facets had that Flower-Diamond; its Cut, its Axis, it’s Colours, its Transparency, its Scent, to penetrate its innermost recesses, the “Secret Rooms” where are preserved the Most Intimate Values, the Hidden Treasures concealed by Veils.

To reach them I found it was anything but simple, because still before entering, I should curb the Beast that guarded them, the Animality always excluded from any Architecture, and any Rationality of Thought, bestial and resentful, because of its inferiority, it must be subdued by Fight and physical Strength or by Command and Moral Strength: once curbed it will be a tractable companion, but like every subdued wild beast, it will always assault us, when hesitating.

After the Beast, there is the Labrynth, consisting of 78 rooms, and 3x7 = 21 Gates; in every Room there are Prizes and Traps, Traps playing on what remained inside us, of the false ideas or the mental distortions that follow us from the preceding rooms, with which we must do away, and the Prizes playing on our Intuition and Illuminations that let us know, on the grounds of what we have learnt till now, what awaits us in the next room and that will be clear only in the future.

The 21 Gates are unforeseen gleams on the future and though one can find some difficult ties to reach and pass them, he has the Certitude of his Growth and the Consciousness of his accomplished conquest, that instill new life into his desire to go on Knowing and infuse him with new courage to face future difficulties.

The Utmost Gate, that closes the Utmost Room, the Sancta Sanctorum, is the Gate of Totality, the Conclusion that leads to our Essence, complete of everything Spiritual and Material.  When we will overcome that Utmost Barrier, we will be Ourselves, at the height of our Beings conscious of our Liberty, both as Individuals and Part of the Whole, Then behind the Veil, stretched between the Two Colums, the Black one and the Red, we will foresee the Roots of the Tree, that through its 10 points, will lead us up to heights where neither the most presumptuous of men can imagine, because those heights are not conceivable or comprehensible by minds not completely free."

- Giorgio Tavaglione: Introduction to Stairs of Gold Tarot Deck.

A lecture given by Alfred Watkins to Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 1921

A Lecture given to the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, at Hereford,
September, 1921, by ALFRED WATKINS, Fellow and Progress
Medallist (for 1910), of the Royal Photographic Society; Past
President (1919) of the Woolhope Club. With illustrations by the
Author, and much added matter.

http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.u​k/alfredwatkinslecture.pdf

The Cosmic Cycle and the Black Madonna - by Nebankh (Jaq White)

Here's the content of the article I wrote that was published in Astraea magazine a few years ago. Copyright Jaq White.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In this article Jaq White examines the alchemical
symbolism in the ancient phenomena of the Black Madonna.

The Cosmic Cycle and the Black Madonna
Jaq White
“Nature comprehends the visible and invisible Creatures of the Whole universe. What we call Nature especially, is the universal fire or Anima Mundi, filling the whole system of the Universe, and therefore is a Universal Agent, omnipresent, and endowed with an unerring instinct, and manifests itself in fire and Light. It is the First creature of Divine Omnipotence.” (The Golden Chain of Homer Of the Generation of things, Part I Chapter 1 - What Nature is.)

The alchemists and medieval philosophers sought to imitate Nature and the Divine, and expressed the various stages of inner transmutation that leads to enlightenment and the “Philosopher’s Stone”, known as Spiritual Alchemy, through art and symbols. In paintings and illustrations there are depictions of a snake biting its own tail in a circular symbol known as the Ouroboros. In alchemic symbolism this represents, among other things, the final unifying stage of our dual nature, and becoming one with the Divine. It is the symbol of the All, the One. Another way of demonstrating the work needed to attain this inner unity is the image of two serpents apparently devouring one another. In some, the upper serpent is winged, which signifies the Universal World Spirit - the lower serpent signifies matter, the Virgin Earth, the earthly state. The upper winged snake is the Cosmic spirit that brings everything to life, that kills everything and takes all the forms of nature. It is at the same time everything and nothing. When the two serpents are united, they are said to have “devoured one another” and the result is the Ouroboros; one single serpent, devouring its own tail, to express the continuous cycle through the aspect of time.

The word alchemy is thought to originate from the Ancient name for Egypt (Khem), the Black Land. The Ancient Egyptians were skilful workers in metals - there are scenes of metal-working found at Thebes and other locations, and the best known metals have identifiable hieroglyphic symbols that are defined by the determinative “of the earth/ground”. The Egyptians knew to employ quicksilver (Mercury) in the process of separating gold and silver from the native matrix, and the resulting (black) oxide was thought, allegedly, to possess powers. This black powder was identified with the underworld form of Osiris – those in the underworld are often depicted with black face and hands - and credited with similar magical properties. Alchemy is related to the black of Osiris through the connection of the black (fertile) earth, the belief that all light comes out of the dark, and all life comes out of the black; the colour black is associated with the source of creation. The alchemists were obsessed with the prima materia. They called it the black virgin, because its colour was black and it was virginal in the sense that no alchemical transmutation had been performed on the material.
2
The alchemist Nicolas Flamel wrote that the lower snake is the fixed and constant masculine element, and that the upper snake is the volatile and the black or dark woman. In alchemic terms, the first is linked with sulphur, warm and dry. The other is linked with quicksilver or the cold and moist. This employment of the quicksilver in practical metal-working has been referred to above, with regard to the Egyptians, and the same ideas are at work on the spiritual level, with the two snakes.

In what is believed to be the earliest known alchemical text – attributed to one Kleopatra of 4th Century Alexandria, there is an image of an Ouroboros with its head and upper half portrayed as black, and its tail and lower half shown as a speckled white. This correlates with the upper half or upper, winged snake as the Cosmic Spirit that takes all forms of nature, and is the volatile, black feminine aspect, while the lower half, or lower snake, can be identified with the fixed and constant masculine, the earthly state and matter.

Many well-known medieval alchemists were Christians, and some of the most beautiful illustrations involved symbolism representing well known Christian icons, such as Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Mother Mary, and Adam. They also included Gnostic figures such as Sofia, the female aspect of the divinity, also known as Wisdom. It is pertinent at this point, to mention that in Gnostic beliefs, the Holy Spirit is female.

Many of the grand medieval cathedrals and churches in Europe keep unusual statues of the Virgin and Child - a black-skinned Mary nursing a black-skinned infant Jesus. These are known as the “Black Madonnas”, or “Black Virgins” and tend to be kept in the crypt or some other underground vault.
There are many known examples of statues and paintings of the Black Madonna, perhaps as many as 300 in France alone, and a surprising amount of the paintings and statues have an association with St. Luke, the patron Saint of painters – he is attributed with painting them whilst in the presence of the Virgin Mary, who revealed her mysteries to him during the sitting. He has also been credited with carving at least one of the statues - the wooden statue of Montserrat which, legend has it, was hidden in the Holy Grotto to hide it from the Moors. However, carbon dating suggests the statue originated in the 12th or 13th Century. Hiding the statue to keep it safe is the main reason given for these Madonnas being found in crypts and grottos. The unusual colouring of the Madonna is often explained as due to decay. There are claims that some of the statues were made from a black stone, probably obsidian, that was then given a pale skin-coloured covering to depict the recognised image of the Madonna and Child. As the pale skin colour wore off and the black base was exposed, this Madonna was then relegated to the crypt. In some churches (for example in Poland and Russia) there are iconic paintings of Mary and the Infant Jesus, also claimed to be by the hand of St. Luke, where the blackened skin has been attributed to smoke from candles, or ageing.

Comparisons have been made of the image of the Christian Madonna and Child with almost identical depictions of Isis, Goddess of Ancient Egypt, nursing her infant son, Horus. The Mother Goddess was also widely venerated by Europeans, albeit under many different guises. Nowadays, many of these goddesses are linked with Isis and, in some cases, temples in France have been attributed to Isis; for example, the town of Issoudun is so named because it is believed there was a Temple of Isis under the main hill. If so, the goddess might easily have been assimilated by Europeans into their pantheon of deities due to the similarity with Earth and Mother Goddesses such as Nertha. Pagan temples to Isis and other Mother/Earth Goddesses would in time be replaced by Christian churches, and images of the various Goddesses of the Earth were replaced by images of the Virgin Mary, Mother Mary, or Mary in other guises (Queen of Heaven etc.) Symbolically, caves, grottos and crypts have been associated with the womb – a cave representing the womb of Mother Earth in mythology. There are goddesses connected with the Cave-Mother symbolism, and among these Cave-Mothers we might include Mary, who gave birth in a rock-cut shelter.

Some believe that these statues of the Black Madonna are not Christian in origin; rather, they are representations of Isis and Horus that when discovered, were wrongly identified as the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus – if so, this would certainly create the need for explanations as to why the statues were originally hidden. However, there is another possibility; the Black Madonna might never have depicted Isis but might well be an esoteric - possibly medieval - Christian symbol.

3

The link with medieval alchemy and esoteric or Gnostic Christianity has been demonstrated, and the use of the symbol of the Ouroboros shows an understanding of the Cosmic Cycle, as in the coupling of the above and the below, of matter and spirit in earthly man. The circular motion of the snake eating its own tail illustrates the continuity of time, and endless development.

This Cosmic Cycle is incorporated in the Christian Holy Trinity; albeit in completely masculine terms, with God as heavenly father, heavenly Holy Spirit and the divine son made of earthly matter. This was enabled through the coupling of the male Holy Spirit and the “living” Virgin Mary. In Egyptian mythology, the living Isis only conceives her son Horus after the death of Osiris. He procreates from the spiritual world, when he becomes God of the Underworld. This can be explained in alchemical terms, with the masculine Osiris, the black virginal prima materia and fixed male, uniting with the black, volatile, female, spirit of Isis his wife, conceiving and producing the Divine child Horus,
the Earthly representative of his father Osiris. The serpents have devoured one another, the Ouroboros is realised and so the Cycle continues.

The serpent has long been perceived as an enemy of Christians, and the use of serpent symbolism in Christian iconography is generally to portray sinfulness, temptation, and the fall of mankind. The serpent as a symbol of the Divine state of man would not have been acceptable, and is still not acceptable to many Christians. However, in the “Black Madonna” we have the same trinity expressed. The Black Virgin is, like Osiris, the father and the divine, male essence. The Black Mother is, like Isis, the mother and the divine, female essence, and the product of their union is the Ouroboros, Horus - the Christ.

The Black Madonna could be another representation of the All, the trinity – and an esoteric Christian symbol of the Cosmic Cycle.

What do the Daimon/Eidolon, Shai the Egyptian god of fate, and the Golden Child of Alchemy have in common? by Nebankh

" Zeus has placed by every man a guardian, every man a daemon, to whom he has committed the care of the man; a guardian who never sleeps , is never deceived. (Epictetus, Dissertation I 14,12)

God is with in, and your daemon is with in." (Epictetus Dissertation I 14, 14)

Heraclitus states "Character is your daemon," in one of his fragments.

Pythagoras:

"Father Zeus, O free them all from suffering so great or show unto each the daimon, who is their guide." (Pythagorean Golden Verse 36)

The paper I'm referring to is here: http://www.theandros.com/daemon.html

"The focus of this paper will be to explore origins and various ideas concerning the Daemon as recorded in works of Philosophers, mythographers and astrologers. The time frame of our search will span almost two thousand years.

The Greek Philosopher Plotinus (205-270C.E.) is located almost right in the middle of this search for understanding of the Daemon. Homer and Hesiod would be at the beginning and we find Proclus, Michael Psellus and George Gemistos known as Plethon near the end of this search.

Plotinus starts his discussion of the guardian daemon in Ennead 3.4. He is concerned in resolving an immanence-transcendence dilemma. Is the daemon operating in man’s innermost mind like conscience or is the daemon as a transcendent being and in no sense as a force innate in and the property of the human soul. Plotinus’ solution rests on Unity, upon the principal that the soul contains the whole intelligible world- in fact that we are "each of us an intelligible cosmos (ordered whole)." From the perspective of Unity we are our own daemon which may be us at a more refined level. The contrast that Plotinus is writing about is between Plato’s Phaedo 107d where the daemon is represented as an individual entity:

For after death, as they say the daemon of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in which the dead are gathered together, whence after judgement has been given they pass into the world below, following the guide, who is appointed to conduct them from this world to the other: and when they have received their due and remained their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages. (Phaedo 107d)

In Timeaus 90A of Plato it is identified with the highest part of the human soul. Somewhat implying that our guardian daemon is the level in the hierarchy of being next above that on which we habitually operate on. Hence, though immanent within us, it is yet transcendent to our normal life."

(end of quote)

Shai (Shay, Schai, Schay) was the ancient Egyptian god of fate and destiny. He was both a personification of these concepts as well as a deity - the Egyptians believed that he was 'born' with each individual, yet he was also a god. During the New Kingdom he appeared in the Book of the Dead, shown in the judgement scene in the Halls of Ma'ati. He was a god related to birth in the world and rebirth in the underworld.

The name of the god - shay shaay - comes from the ancient Egyptian word for 'appoint' or 'command'. The word shay shaay could mean 'extent' or 'bulk'. He was the god of the allotted life-span of a human being, relating Shai to the extent - the length - of their life. Another translation of his name could be 'that which is ordained'. Thus, the Egyptians believed that Shai was also related to the 'destiny' or 'fate' or even the 'luck' of a human being. The Turkish word kismet can closely describe the concept of the god Shai.

Shai first appeared in the 18th Dynasty and continued through Egyptian history even under the reign of Akenaten. He was even sometimes given the name Shait - shaayt - and was depicted as female rather than male! He was often partnered with three specific goddesses - Meskhenet, goddess of the birth brick and fate, and Renenutet, the goddess who would give a child his or her true name and Shepset, a hippopotamus goddess of childbirth. He was depicted as a man, a cobra or Shai as a man snake and even as a human-headed birth brick, and most often shown in funeral papyri, near his female partners.

As a god of destiny and fortune, Shai could be a positive or negative influence. He could protect an individual, or he could bring misfortune down on the individual. He could be an ambivalent deity, and the Egyptians believed that he followed a person from the moment of birth through to the judgement in the afterlife. His presence at the weighing of the heart could be either one of helping or hindering the deceased, or even as an unbiased party telling the court what has happened in the life of the deceased. But as Meskhenet and Renenutet were there to help with rebirth of the individual into the afterlife, Shai may also have had a similar protective purpose, rather than being a witness against the deceased. An interesting ancient Egyptian greeting was "Shai and Renenutet are with you."

Shai was originally the deity who "decreed" what should happen to a man, and Renenutet, as may be seen from the pyramid texts, was the goddess of plenty, good fortune, and the like; subsequently no distinction was made between these deities and the abstract ideas which they represented.

But it was not only mortals who had to contend with Shai. It was believed that both he and Renenutet are in the hands of Thoth. To emphasise his divinity, Ramesses II claimed to be "the Lord of Shai and the creator of Renenutet". Yet in the temple of Opet in Ipet-Isut (Karnak), he is mentioned as "Shai of all gods" - the destiny and fate of all gods seemed to also be in Shai's hands. In the Instructions of Amenemope, the scribe suggests that no-one could ignore Shai. Akenaten tried to link Shai with the Aten when he stated that "the Aten is the Shai who gives life". Even Akenaten, who was not the monotheist that people believe him to be (as Assmann and Hornung point out), could not ignore Shai.

Do not set your heart upon seeking riches,
For there is no one who can ignore Shai;
do not set your thought on external matters:
for every man there is his appointed time.


Some here already know I couldn't ignore Shay..

(My research into this subject began on New Year's Day 2000 when I awoke hearing a voice repeating the phrase "The Shay Shay are the people who live life the way it shoud be lived" - I'm not in the habit of hearing voices...)

After researching this I came across author Anthony Peake and his wonderful books on the Daemon / Eidolon. http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=4606

It got me thinking...

In familar alchemical illustrations we see two serpents devouring one another. The winged serpent signifies the Universal World Spirit; the bottom serpent signifies our Matter, the Virgin Earth. The crowned, winged serpent is the Cosmic spirit which brings everything to life, which also kills everything and takes all the forms of nature. It is everything and nothing. This upper serpent has the material serpent by the tail. The lower serpent of matter also has the winged serpent by the tail.

These two serpents also represent the fixed state and the volatile state.

"Through the art of separation one makes One into Two….It is the most volatile and also the most fixed…it is a fire that consumes everything, and opens and closes everything. Cook with this fire until it stops, and you have the most fixed thing that penetrates all things - and one has eaten the other, and this figure [the ouroburos wearing the crown] comes out."
This then symbolises the continuous process of the union of the internal world and the external world, the eternal 'now' with the present 'now'.


Now without going into Alchemy too much, the 'fusion' of the two serpents - the fixed and the volatile - is an inner (spiritual) process; part of the Great Work on the Self, one of the aims of which is the unification of (inner) opposites eg Light and Dark, Moist and Dry, Masculine and Feminine etc etc. One of the symbols for successful completion of this inner work is the Ouroboros, another is the Phoenix and still another is The Golden Child.

Some here may have seen my article in Astraea Magazine (Vol.1) on The Cosmic Cycle and The Black Madonna, where I proposed that the symbol of the Black Madonna and Child was a portrayal of exactly the same process depicted in the Ouroboros, but one step further, in that it also depicted the Golden Child (as does the same imagery of Isis and the child Horus, - Divine Son of the Union of the 'material' Isis and the 'god of the underworld' Osiris) and hence could be interpreted as a gnostic/alchemical symbol going back to the time of the days of very early Christianity.

I am wondering if the union of the Daemon and the Eidolon also falls into this category, with the Daemon Ultimate Life of Tony's books being a version of the Golden Child - something we can attain through the Work on the Self, with the assistance of the Daemon making this possible.... The Upper Winged serpent of the Universal World Spirit being associated with the Daemon, and the lower serpent of matter being the Eidolon.
The way I see it is that when the Eidolon and the Daemon are working together as a fully functioning single unit, they become the third 'self', like the ouroboros, or the golden child, or the united Eidolon/Daemonic ultimate life. To live a life as it should be lived.



In all the methods of working on the self, this is the aim, and it's by discovering and listening to the higher self, allowing it to be the guide and to govern the way we behave, rather than the lower self, that this is achieved.

The Crowned Dragon

The Golden Ass - Lucius Apuleius

"The Golden Ass is simultaneously a blend of erotic adventure, romantic comedy, and religious fable, it is one of the truly seminal works of early European literature, with a distinctly Eastern flavouring and a very modern feel. There are very few works with the pleasurable impact of the Golden Ass. Apuleius's images retain their vitality from almost 2000 years ago, losing nothing of their colour and magic. Indeed, the promise of the closing words of the Prologue: Lector, intende: laetaberis - 'Lend me your ear, reader: you shall enjoy yourself' are amply fulfilled. Over the centuries, the Golden Ass has brought pleasure and inspiration to generations of readers and writers, from Shakespeare to Salman Rushdie. A copy of the Golden Ass was one of the few things T.E. Lawrence ('of Arabia') carried in his saddle-bags throughout the Arab Revolt."

The above paragraph is take from a great site dedicated to studying the wonderful book written by Apuleius 2000 years ago, The Golden Ass, a humorous tale still very relevant today  http://www.jnanam.net/golden-ass/
For a free download ebook version of Lucius Apuleius' The Golden Ass, see here:
http://manybooks.net/titles/apuleiusetext99gldns10.html