The Arbatel, I’ve concluded, essentially is a treatise on how to live in harmony, ease, and intimacy with the energies of the Multiverse. It begins by saying that the Arbatel “Is made of nine Tomes of seven septenaries of Aphorisms.” (Et habet Tomos neouem Aphorismorum septies septenorum; Turner transliterates this phrase as “Containing nine Tomes, and seven Septenaries of Aphorisms.”) Although the Arbatel declares that is it a document that contains nine chapters that each contain seven sections of seven aphorisms (total 49 aphorisms per section), the only known, existing “tome” of the Arbatel is the first, called the Isagoge, which the author of the Arbatel says relates “the most general precepts of the whole Art” and means “Book of the Institutions of Magic.” It does read like an overview except for a portion (aphorism 17) that goes into some detail about the Olympic Spirits, leaving late Modern and post-Modern occultists fixated on just that and conflating information within the Arbatel with their own magical paradigms.

 Behind the Christian-based medieval piety is a spiritual paradigm that harkens to—not Solomonic or Cabalist magic or Rosicrucian mysticism (which the Arbatel likely predates)—but classical Roman paganism in which every conceivable thing had a tutelary spirit underlying its reason for being with the idea that harmony came through cooperative exchange. The treatise also can be categorized as “qualified nondualism,” in which it is acknowledged that all things have their source and existence within rather than in relation to God. This is inferred in aphorism 13:

 The Lord lives and all things that live do so in him.

 The Arbatel stands apart from other notable medieval grimoire. References to ceremonialism and Solomonic and Cabalistic trappings are marginal. Rather, the tract references Pythagorean, classical Hermetic, and classical Roman mysticism.

 Although I initially thought that Aphorism 27, which gives instructions about drawing the Seal of Secrets, referred to the Olympic Spirits, I later realized that, no; it is meant to be a floor plan of where various tutelary spirits reside according to the day, season, phase of the moon, moon mansion, month, and zodiac.  

 Last summer, while conducting dreamtime experiments related to the Olympic Spirits and Arbatel with three other persons, I—and others in the group—were confronted with cryptic messages about the Seal of Secrets being a gadget, a calendar, something to sort through, and also one’s own body. All these things are true, but we were so stuck on the Olympic-Spirit slant that we did not see the bigger picture. 

 ·         I believe that the Seal of Secrets is a Western yantra of the Multiverse, the meditation on which, for the initiated, reveals the structure and interconnectedness of the macrocosm and the microcosm.

 ·         Imagine the seal being multidimensional. The very center is a tiny sphere representing Phul, the elemental world, form, the body.

 ·         Eight radials emerge from it which are like cones forming the armature of the Cosmos, each connecting the micrcocosm to the macrocosm. This is the pillar or channel within which is found the so-called six-rayed star. It is Ophiel, the Azoth, serpent power, and secret fire.

 ·         Enclosing the small central orb is another orb. This is Hagith, the elemental sphere—the Earth, Earth Mother, and its sustaining energies. The sphere is guarded and buttressed by angelic entities related to the elemental humors: air, fire, water, and earth.  

 ·         Surrounding this is a cube that divides space into halves, representing duality, complementarities, oppositions, and tensions that move individual being into action and interaction. This is Phaleg.

 ·         Surrounding the cube is another sphere that is like a corona that vitalizes all within it. This is Och.

 ·         Boundlessly permeating all this and strung like a web on the armature is the Eros, Life Force, the World Soul, which is Bethor.

 ·         Enclosing it all and providing a Ground of Being, Limitation, and Intelligible Design is the Intellectual Principle, which is Aratron.

 The Seal also is a mnemonic, calendar-like device in which a person can place him or herself in a certain 23-hour or so time span (i.e., mansion of the moon) in a particular part of a week, month, astrological sign, and season  and then reflect on, accommodate, or use all of the tutelary entities associated with that particular time frame. The problem is that the paradigm used by the author of the Arbatel is not explicit. Clues suggest that it wasn’t the same paradigm used by, say, Robert Fludd (1574-1627) or Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), though.

 Aphorism 27 includes the following information:

 The Eastern secret is the study of all wisdom. The West is of Strength. The South, of cultivation. The North of a more rigid life . . . .  The use of this seal of secrets is that, through it, you may know when the spirits or angels are produced that may teach you secrets they receive from God . . . .

 This might place an angelic entity associated with Jupiter in the East, Sol in the West, Saturn in the South, and Luna in the North. We know that in Roman lore, Jupiter was associated with wisdom, Saturn with cultivation/agriculture, the sun with strength, and the moon with the natural and elemental world.  

 This section of aphorism 27 goes on to make references to the horsemen of the apocalypse (a Christian reworking of “the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.” [Zechariah 1:8-17, 6:1-8).

 But they have names taken from their offices and powers, according to the gift that God has given to each one. One has the power of the sword [war; red horse], another of pestilence [death; pale horse], and another of inflicting famine upon the people [black horse], according to the will of God. Some are destroyers of cities [conquest; white horse], as those two [Michael and Gabriel, according to lore] were who were sent to overthrow Sodom and Gomorrha and the places adjacent to them . . . Some watch over Kingdoms; others are the keepers of private persons . . . .[tutlelary and guardian angels]

 The author of the Arbatel continues, saying that persons and cultures have their own names for various angels—and also stresses elsewhere in the text—that spiritual entities, including the Olympic Spirits, are named after their offices and roles but may give more personal names and energy signatures to the people who enter into communication with them. In addition, the author states in the latter part of aphorism 27 that all that is needed is to address the angelic or tutelary entity “seriously, with a great mental desire, faith, constancy, and without doubt that what he asks he shall receive from God, the father of all Spirits. This faith surmounts all seals and brings them into subjection of the will of man. Calling angels through their characters follows this faith, which depends on divine revelation . . . .”

Io Saturnalia!

 “Never shall age destroy so holy a day! For how many years shall this festival abide!” Statius, 5^th Century CE (Silvae, I 698ff)

 And so it does, under another guise and paradigm.

 Inspired by the Neoplatonist Plotinus and also the writing of Professor John Opsopaus, I have been commemorating Saturnalia for about 4 or so years now. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the opportunity to get naked and sing in the streets or take flight into bacchanalian reverie as some did in classical Roman times. I can’t even get a sympathetic friend or two to swing by to watch me perform my solemn, cobbled together, neopagan rite in honor of Saturn. In performing the rite alone, though, there is a presence and potency, as well as an intimacy that I would not be able to muster in the presence of spectators. Cult rites in antiquity were often private matters anyway, conducted by select initiates and priestly dignitaries behind the veil of the inner temple while the laity simply got into what was supposed to be a joyously festive spirit. Fortunately this year for me, unlike in years past, the days immediately following the one on which I will conduct my Saturnalia rite will be full of festivity as I hop from one Winter Solstice gathering or holiday party to another. So it will play out as it should.

 Saturnalia traditionally began on December 17^th—or at least it was set on the 17^th when the Julian calendar went into effect. A ritual and sacrifice was conducted in the temple of Saturn, the oldest Temple in Rome. The image of the deity was hollow and brimming with olive oil and it was bound, like sheaves of harvested wheat, in wool yarn, equating Saturn with the land, the seasons (Time), agriculture, and sustenance. At the conclusion of the ritual, the cry went out Io Saturnalia! and a massive public feast began. 

 The official holiday lasted 3 to 7 days depending on the whims of whoever was ruling at the time. We are told that homes and gardens were festively decorated with wreaths and garlands and that outdoor trees were festooned with garlands and ornaments in the shape of phalluses and other symbols of fertility and animal figurines. People fancifully dressed up, indulged children, allowed certain freedoms to their servants, and exchanged gifts of candles, cookies, and poppets or small images (siligium). They also sang in the streets and frolicked with abandon in the celebration of life and light. Oh, it all sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? But wait; there’s more. Who was being commemorated at this time but Old King Saturn, the most ancient of Roman deities, who was now living in retirement in the mythical uber north country of Hyperborea (perhaps in a McMansion a sleigh ride away from his alter ego, Santa Claus).

 Unlike in Greek culture, in which Kronos was more of a untouchable, curmudgeony Underworld deity—a maleficent of sorts—Roman Saturn, after being overthrown by his son Jupiter, was said to have amended his ways and to have become a wise old King who brought culture and technology to Italy. His rule was said to be a Golden Age in which peace, personal freedom, and abundance prevailed. 

 The name Saturn is derived from the word satus, which means sower. His consort, Ops, also commemorated at this time, is none other than Mother Earth. The name Ops comes from the word opus—great work. Here, I am reminded of that story of the Pentemychos that I have discussed before in this blog. Long before the classical Roman era, in the 5^th century BC, the philosopher Pherecydes of Syros penned a metaphorical creation story in which principle hypostatic deities Kronos (Saturn, that is), Zas (Zeus/Jupiter) and Chthonie (Prima Materia/Mother Earth) sort of have a 3-way, with Kronos bestowing the seed and Zas the vigor of insemination. From the union, the “offspring of the gods” are born.

 Writing a thousand years after Pherecydes, in about the 3^rd century CE, Plotinus pens this beautiful tract about Saturn in the 4^th passage of 1^st tractate of his 5^th Ennead.

 That archetypal world is the true Golden Age—the age of Kronos—who is the Intellectual-Principle, being the offspring or exuberance of God. All that is immortal is in this. Nothing is here but the Divine Mind; all is God. This is the place of every soul. Here is rest unbroken. For, how can change be sought in which all is well? What needs to be aspired to by that which holds all within itself? What more can be desired for that in which everything is utterly achieved? All its content, thus, is perfect such that it may be wholly perfect, possessing nothing that is less than divine and intellective. Its knowing is not by search but by possession; its blessedness is inherent, not acquired. . . . this is pure being in eternal actuality. Nowhere is there any future, for every then is a now; nor is there any past, for nothing there has ever ceased to be.”   Adapted from “The Three Initial Hypostases” by Plotinus translated by Stephen MacKenna

 In this, we see another side of so-called Paganism in which the focus is not on animistic polytheism or metaphors about the changing seasons or “earth-based” spirituality, but Cosmic spirituality in which one wrangles with the relationship between God and self, the Macrocosm and Microcosm, and aspires to alchemy and gnosis.

 Saturn is awareness in Time and Space in which everything exists in perfect, ideal potentiality. It is Cosmos that begets Logos (which Plotinus personifies as Zeus). Certain Gnostics and medieval mystics/mages, however, equated Saturn with bondage and chaos, because, like the Eastern Maya, Saturn is regarded as the limiting principle. However even Agrippa seems to have regarded Saturn with endearment similar to that of Plotinus, referring to the deity in his opus De Occulta Philosophia as “a great and wise lord, the begetter of silent contemplation.” He is a real Old One, an awesomely ambiguous deity at the root of phenomenological existence. As is implied in the works of medieval Gnostics such as Boehme and the philosophical alchemists of that era, he is the natural self whose destiny is to realize its true nature as the spiritual Self in a path of return. Indeed, I have begun to think Saturn is the Western equivalent of Mahamaya, which although described as the Great Nescience or Grand Illusion of Being, is, etymologically speaking, the measurement of the Cosmos. It is punched through via grace, which is the prize for at least aspiring to if not attaining “realization” of what it’s really all about.

 Even so, men are hurled into the whirlpool of attachment . . . through the power of Mahamaya who makes possible the existence of this world . . . She . . . forcibly affecting even the minds of the wise, throws beings into delusion. She creates this entire universe, both moving and unmoving. It is she who, when gracious, bestows boons on human beings so that they may achieve final liberation. She is the supreme knowledge, the cause of final liberation, and eternal. She is the cause of the bondage of transmigration of the soul and the sovereign over all lords. Devi Mahatmyam I.53-58

 On the one hand, we are stuck with the ruthlessness of the organism of material existence. On the other, we have the privilege of indulging in experiences—instead of not existing. And yet, there is a way out, we are told, to a fuller, original expression of Being.

 In working with Saturn consciousness in my work with the Arbatel, also discussed at length in this blog, the archetype that I generally experienced was that of a wise, old god figure—the proverbial old, white bearded man in the sky. Not a harsh authoritarian figure, but one of grave, protective, parental, and sincerely committed love—the kind that is both reassuring and runs the risk of being suffocating. Indeed, I document in one of my final notes on the matter during one round of workings that I was struck by this message: “It is the monster of time and space which you cling to for existence and to which you are in bondage.” I wrote: “I reasoned that it had 2 sides: time and timelessness, space and spaciousness. In its time/space aspect, it guards and sustains and also blocks and binds. We are attracted to it because we want to preserve our ego-personality in this structure but this structure binds us to the wheel of desire and misery. If we approach it, we must do so to conquer the limitations but we become something else entirely then. God may actually be the paradigm that oppresses us and yet it is the way beyond it. But this is what the Hindu Great Goddess is and what Hermeticists and Gnostics knew.”

 Io Saturnalia!

 I was asked to give brief comment on my view of Paganism and Samhain as part of the upcoming Sunday Service at the local Unitarian Universalist Society where I recently became the facilitator of the congregation’s Pagan fellowship. I struggled a bit with what I wanted to say and how to say it simply and succinctly, but then it came to me during the Friday drive home from work. A song from the early 70s by Rare Earth came on the radio: “I just want to celebrate another day of living. I just want to celebrate another day of life.” And I thought, That’s it. That is what both modern and ancient pagan festivals and rituals were meant to be—a cause to celebrate life here and now as it naturally is—the life cycle, the organism of Life.

I’m not sure whether I identify myself as a Pagan or if want to have any self-identifying labels at this point. I hold on to the concept of monism but I sometimes relate to spirituality as if a polytheist or an animist, and I don’t always know where archetype ends and deity begins. But as I go on, none of it matters. It’s all mindstuff and ultimately irrelevant in relation to what really is, which is just life in the present moment, with “religious” “faith” being the knowing that the next moment will be okay because it, too, is as things are.

 So, for Samhain, people will be self-identifying with this or that myth, grandmother story, or other regurgitation about what Paganism or Craft is. That’s nice. The morning after spending time with a close friend, hopefully making music and dancing around a small camp fire and sharing meaningful meditation and conversation—like I did last year on Samhain with another group of acquaintances—I intend to tell a congregation of Unitarian Universalists that I think of the observances and rituals of (post) modern Paganism not so much as a carryover of ancient pre-Christian religion but as a carry-forward of folk culture and spirituality. By folk culture, I mean life at the grassroots. What is natural, life affirming, spontaneous and also has a connection to the environment and natural life. It’s not based on a past paradigm; it’s based on how people really are, spiritually speaking, when free of thought police. And this grassroots spirituality also respects and validates the human need for metaphorical and magical thinking and transpersonal experiences.

 Forms and rituals practiced by modern Pagans began to develop in the 19^th century. They drew from folk culture—things passed on through clan or family, myth (including myths about what Paganism and witchcraft was, which some postmodern Pagans and historians have been in the process of deconstructing), and reinterpretation of medieval ceremonial magic, which was the domain of clerics and male intellectuals and was based in Hermetic Christian and Hebrew mysticism. We also know that modern Paganism (i.e., Wicca) also took inspiration from American Native Spirituality and the Naturalist Movement. All this—neopaganism” (initially used as a disparaging rather than self-referencing term) was, in part, a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the repression of Victorian Era.

 It is convention in (post) modern Pagan ritual to cast a circle and call the quarters. Frankly, I am not sure whether many of the Pagans or Wiccans I know are aware of why they are quarter calling or who/what they are addressing when they do so. I am not going to digress on that here or in my comment to the Unitarian Universalist congregation though.  Rather, I am going to tell the congregation that Pagan circle casting and quarter calling is not that different and is, in part, inspired by, what Hindus, Buddhists, and Native Americans (and Hermetic ceremonial magicians) do in religious ritual. They carve out sacred space, ritually purify that space, and then they reflect on their relationship to space and its contents, including Time: the directions, the seasons, phases of the sun and moon, the body and its senses and other constituents, and the lifespan. Space and person is ritually purified and honored through fumigation, aspersing, and initiatory sounds, words, and gestures. And in this, the elements—earth, water, fire, air, space—and their philosophical correspondences are acknowledged to, in turn, acknowledge what the physical self is and what the world is. The ritual is meant to honor and celebrate this and offer it –and ourselves as it—back to the source of being, which we are called to identify with as True Nature. 

Samhain has its origins as an Irish/Celtic festival that lasted for a few days at the cusp of October and November.  Because of how modern Paganism developed, focus is primarily placed on traditions within Celtic, Welsh, and Teutonic traditions rather than others. We think of them as Pagan holy days, but they were probably more like cultural traditions.

Samhain marked the last harvest and the preparation for the winter, including the slaughtering of livestock for meat. At these cusps of time (not only during Samhain but  also during festivals such as the late spring festival of Beltaine), the world was “unclean” possibly because of the preponderance of either birthing, which was dicey endeavor in days of yore, (during the Spring festivals) or death (during the late autumn festivals). It was thought that the doors between the worlds were thin and that both good and not so good spirits could come through. It was a time not only to bond as a community but with the generations, and so these festivals presented a different perspective of time and place than what is the norm in industrial modernity.

We are told that the community would extinguish their home hearths and fires on sacred hills and then relight the communal fire from which all the hearths would be relit as a gesture of purification and renewal. The community especially would gather around bonfires (that is, “bone fires” in which the bones of slaughtered animals were thrown) and jump them and pass livestock through them for good luck.

 We imagine that there was much feasting, frolicking, sensualism, and music-making at these times—a carnival atmosphere in which the daily cares of the world are put on hold. How is this different from a Saturday night out for some people or a Christmas party or 4^th of July barbeque? People will have different answers, I suppose, but what will separate how I celebrate Samhain this evening—or any meaningful holiday Pagan or otherwise—from mundane interactions is merely  mindfulness.

While most modern Pagans are in the afterglow of the Fall Equinox/Mabon and gearing up for Samhain, my mind is glossing on the Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated for at least 1000 years on the outskirts of Athens, Greece, in the month Boedromion (late September–early October).

 Allusions to Persephone arose for me during the group Arbatel Working that I have discussed previously in this blog. In retrospect while reviewing my notes, I wondered whether the Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries of Persephone and Dionysos Zagreus, lost to time but no doubt reverberating in archetypal consciousness, could be elicited through working with the Arbatel.

 I was not alone in receiving cryptic content about Persephone. The other woman in the Arbatel Working group, who I will refer to as SI, also received hints. I learned that she had long drawn great inspiration from the Persephone myth in her work as a professional artist and occultist.

 My own major exposure to the Persephone myth came the year previously—2009—when I had become immersed in a project that consisted of the development of a ritual play about the myth of the abduction of Persephone. My initial vision was simple and more of an oratory, keeping in mind that ritual plays are ancient forms of devotion. The material was inspired by Orphic hymns and the work of Alfred Lord Tennyson. The project, however, was taken over by another person whose vision was a more elaborate theatrical performance based on the exoteric Homeric hymn of Demeter. The ritual play was supposed to be presented at a large, annual fall event by members of a Wiccan coven, but by the time the event rolled around, I as well as virtually all of the coven members had been shut out of the project. The play was performed as theater by amateur-actor contacts of the coven leader.  

 The disenfranchised coven members and I ultimately regrouped, forming what is now more of a magical study group: New Aeon Lodge—small but strong and approaching a year’s resilience.

 I have flown out of the Circle of Heavy Grief and stepped swift-footed onto the Circle of Joy. I have made straight for the Breast of the Mistress, the Queen of the Underworld.

And now I come as a supplicant to Holy Persephone, that by Her Grace, She sends me to the Seats of the Hallowed. [Saying,] “Happy and Blessed One, you shall be god instead of mortal.” –Bacchic/Orphic gold tablets, Thurii, Southern Italy, 4th century BCE

 In late April 2010, I was invited to collaborate with three other persons, two men and another woman, on a project related to decoding and integrating the mysteries of the Arbatel. The first phase of this group Working took place in May 2010. The others in the Cohort, who were more experienced in Hermetic ceremonial magic and grimoire-focused work than me, concentrated on a part of the Arbatel that I had summarily overlooked in my first pass with the text: The Seal of Secrets described in Aphorism 27.

 Because the lead facilitator of the Cohort had long been dedicated to dreamwork, we decided to contact the Olympic Spirits through this method. Before retiring, we would acknowledge the moon mansion of the day and its corresponding ruling planet/Olympic Spirit and perform whatever preparatory ritual we each saw fit to do. Then, as we were drifting into sleep, we were to visualize the sigil of the appropriate Olympic Spirit in a certain way. We then kept a group dream log on a secure, on-line site and also kept a lively discussion going through a Wave application.

The most pertinent information I received did not come during dream sequences but while falling asleep or in periods of contemplation during the day. Deciphering number codes within the Arbatel and the geometric shapes I had been envisioning the month before (April 2010) occupied my days. As for dream content, a recurrent theme had to do with properly sorting items that represented the Olympic Spirits and visualizing parts of the Seal. I often dreamed that I was talking to people about the Seal. SI had similar recurring dreams related to handling and deconstructing gadgets that represented the Seal or the Olympic Spirits and of receiving discussion-format teachings about the Seal from entities. Messages related to Pythagorean and Orphic mysticism also were prominent for us. The following notes concern Persephone.

 On the night of Wednesday May 12, 2010 (4th mansion of the moon EST, Aldebaran, “The Follower,” Ophiel [Mercury]). I recorded that, although I didn’t experience a narrative dream, I kept envisioning a sphere-like shape made of 8 orange radials—a  shape and color that I associated with Ophiel. Images of the ibis, the zoomorphic form of Egyptian Thoth (quasi cognate of Mercury/Hermes), also recurred. The relevancy here is that during my previous solo Arbatel Working in April, I made contact with an entity during my first Ophiel evocation who introduced himself as Thoth and sometimes appeared thereafter as an ibis. 

 But also that night, in the period in which I get to the brink of sleep, I was startled back into full consciousness by this message:

 “How do we mold ourselves into spiritual powers?” (And the answer:) “For this reason, ask Persephone.”

 On the very night that I received this message, SI had a dream, recorded the following morning in our group dream diary, in which two old men were sadly reminiscing and gazing in anxiety at a large brown satchel that had belonged to a woman they once knew. As SI explained it, the two men were both in love with the woman who distanced herself from both of them so as not to ruin their friendship. The men were trying to trick each other into opening the satchel. Finally, one of the men addressed the other, saying, “Why are we torturing ourselves like this. Why don’t we make her open it. She has the key.” At which, he pointed directly to SI.

 This got me thinking about material I came across months previously while researching an article that included discussion about the pentagram. I stumbled upon information about the doctrine of the Pentemychos, a philosophy told as creation mythology and attributed to the 6^th century BC pre-Socratic philosopher Pherecydes of Syros, the legendary teacher of Pythagoras. (See the brief  Pherecydes of Syros. http://pediaview.com/openpedia/Pherecydes_of_Syros#Creation_of_the_world and the chapter on the Heptamychos in the book Ancilla to the Pre-Socratics by Kathleen Freeman here http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/app/app09.htm .)

 In the Pentemychos, the interplay between pre-cosmic Time (Chronos), Being/Eros (Zas), and “That Which Underlies the Earth” (Chthonie) results in the creation of the Cosmos. Chronos as pre-Cosmic Time (i.e., Time and Timelessness) is related to Kronos (ordered Time). Zas is thought to be synonymous with Zeus as the Life Principle. Chthonie is the prima materia who becomes Gaia (Earth) through marital union with Zas. Note that Gaia and Demeter (Earth Mother), among other goddesses such as Rhea and Hekate—and also Isis and the Phrygian Cybele (Magna Mater), were regarded as cognates and that an epithet of Demeter is Chthonia.

 In brief, a structure made of five recesses (a pente-mychos), which may be or be in Chthonie, is inseminated by Chronos, who provides the semen/seed, and by Zas, who represents the activity and potency of insemination, giving rise to the “offspring of the gods”; that is, Creation. This event, however, occurs in the midst of an archetypal drama that pits light and dark and order and chaos against each other. The agents of chaos are ultimately overcome and cast down into Tartarus, the lowest and most dismal plane of existence, a Hell lower than Hades.

 Although most of the doctrine of the Pentemychos is lost, it is thought that within it were wisdoms about the nature of life, enlightenment, reincarnation, and the afterlife.  

 When I read SI’s dream record for the night of May 12, I imagined that the two men were Kronos and Zeus sadly and anxiously pondering what had become of the world fashioned from their liaison with their beloved but lost Chthonie (a large brown leather satchel, being a mychos—a recess or receptacle—and indicative of earth).

 Where is the solution/resolution—or key—to the anxiety of these entities—in the mortal soul—product of Earth and Spirit—aspiring toward enlightenment, as SI has been doing. Also note that Hekate, the crone form of Persephone, bears the key that unlocks the mysteries in her iconography.

I will add that this was one of many cryptic dream interludes in which the Olympic Spirits seemed to be trying to “reach us”; as if they were just as frustrated about the most efficient way to connect with us as we with them. I recall a dream on the night of May 15 (\in which we were in the 7^th mansion of the moon, ruled by Aratron (Saturn). In the dream, I was walking in a woodland park with Aratron and a woman. Aratron was a tall, thin, aged, and grey, but attractive fellow. He did not acknowledge me. The woman was earthy, dowdy, pudgy, with short straight brown hair and thick, feral bucked teeth. She turned to me while he continued walking and said, “We have to go figure something out. Bye.” The sense was that she and Aratron were parting company with me because they needed to walk ahead to discuss how better to “reach” us Cohort members because we were not quite “getting” what the Olympic Spirits were trying to impart.

 Interestingly, when I awoke that next morning, the sigil of Aratron was very present to me. Its image lingered in my mind for hours that day along with an intense feeling of being in love or loved—loved by Saturn—as if he were vying for my affection with Jupiter.

 The Persephone theme also leaked into the nocturnal communications on one of the intervening nights, May 13th (5th mansion of the moon, ruled by Bethor  [Jupiter]).

 The falling-to-sleep message was the number 169, which resolves to 7—the number of the classical planets. The number may also be an allusion to the central pillar of the Cabalist Tree of Life: Kether (1)-Tiphareth (6)-Yeshod (9).

 Shortly after this, an image of bright, vivid flames and the words (a man’s voice speaking), “She is my sister!” startled me awake. The brother of Persephone would be Plutus (son of Demeter and the mortal Iason) or Dionysos Zagreus (son of Demeter and Zeus), both or either possibly related to Iachos/Brimos—the divine son born during the mysteries of Eleusis.

In revisiting this in my editing of the raw notes, I am thinking that the message refers to the Secret Fire/Kundalini and transformational processes described through metaphor.

 In Cabala, the name of God: Yod Heh Vau Heh, we are told, signifies Father-Mother-Son-Daughter and the sefiroh Chokmah (2), Binah (3), Tiphareth (6), and Malkuth (10). Chokmah and Binah (Wisdom and Understanding) are Father-Mother through whose emanation duality and the manifest universe emerge. Tiphareth and Malkuth (Beauty and Kingdom) are Son and Daughter, the reflection of the Macrocosm in the Microcosm, with the Son being the intermediary in the path of return. The placement of these sefiroh forms a Tau cross.

 Aleister Crowley equates the Son with the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA, a construct discussed in the 14^th century grimoire The Book of Abramelin and earlier defined and called the Augoeides by the Neoplatonist Porphyry [3^rd century] ). According to Crowley, the Father refers to the highest spiritual attainment (union with the divine principle, equated with the sphere of Kether in the Cabalist Tree of Life); the Son—also called the Younger Brother—refers to the HGA, which is the ideal Self. The union of the HGA with the natural soul—the Daughter—self-actualizes the soul so that it realizes its divine nature, becoming the Mother that joins with the Father. (See Crowley et al’s Book 4 and Book 418 [Liber CDXVIII]).  The idea is that the natural soul is transformed through a spiritual spark or intercessor—sometimes also called the secret fire or serpent power—so that it overcomes its animal nature and realizes its spiritual nature and all its benefits.

 Jump to the night of July 11^th (9^th mansion of the moon, Algebha, ruled by Phul [Luna]), during a second phase of the group Working. (The Cohort had taken a month hiatus and then decided to do a second round of dreamwork for the month of July 2010.) During this period, I had been having dreams about comparing and correcting lists and documents about the Olympic Spirits and also about pairing the Olympic Spirits or dividing them into pairs.

 On this night, I first dreamed that I was reviewing a list of Greco-Roman and Greco-Egyptian God-names that included the planets. The list was supposed to be studied or reworked for accuracy. The second round of this dream (as if I was dreaming it on and off) had to do with the Prince and Nobles of the quarters of the Seal of Secrets. The prince and each of the 6 flanking nobles were to be divided in halves, making “12” parts (not 14). This information was to be studied with another person(s) to confirm or expand the information.  

I recorded this dream sometime around 5 AM and fell back into a light sleep. I heard this message:

“In some more common traditions, the Prince is as it is in the Arbatel, but She is the personification of death and anger, which must be thrown off.”  The sense was that when death and anger are thrown off, “Her” real nature (which is our real nature) is known. My immediate thought was to go back to the subject of Persephone, who represents Death (Persephone means She Who Destroys [perse] the Light [phone]) and whose mother Demeter  represents anger  under the epithet Erynis [“furious”], described in the Persephone-Demeter myth as wrecking havoc in enraged response to what Zeus, Hades, and the other gods did regarding the abduction of her daughter).

 I am also thinking about the parallels between Demeter and the Hindu goddess Durga, who is called Chandi –Ferocious, Angry—because she ferociously slays demons, which are, in actuality, one’s faults, vices, and neurotic conditioning. A dark form of Durga is Kali, who is called “She Who Turns All Forms to Ashes.” In this way, Kali perhaps bears some similarity to Persephone in that both goddesses have an edge and their contemplation holds the key to understanding and transcending the brutality of life and the wheel of fate.

  -- Soror ZSD23

Deconstructing Karma—and Debunking It

                        --Soror ZSD23

He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
- George Orwell

Karma is a Sanskrit term that means “activity” or “work.” It is derived from the word root kri: to do or to act. It originally referred to attending to religious observances (making offerings to the gods in the appropriate way) and being diligent about one’s culturally defined responsibilities. In this way, it was somewhat conflated with ideas about destiny. It became a term applied to a somewhat scientific observation of cause and effect or action and reaction, and it also came to be used in relation to the idea of merit and demerit, sin and punishment, or punishment and vindication. Parallel ideas existed in the West, and we need to look no further than the Bible for corroboration in coming upon tales in which people mull over what unwitting grievance they or someone else –or some ancestor of theirs—had committed that was the root cause of their lousy luck. We find a treatment of this, in fact, in the Book of Job, in which the idea of “karma” as the modern world now bandies about, is debunked.

I sat through an interesting sermon/lecture about 2 weeks ago at the local Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Stamford, CT). The readings and sermon were delivered by a guest speaker, the Reverent Deb Morra who is affiliated with UU congregations in nearby White Plains, NY, and is a social worker and mental health professional and an activist for the underserved, disadvantaged, and groups challenged by discriminatory public policies. She spoke at length about the Book of Job, about “why bad things happen to good people,” and about the pleasure/pain principle that we, as humans, struggle with and interpret. In conclusion, she reminded us that, in the grand scheme of things, pleasure is not a reward and pain is not a punishment. In life, people don’t “get what they deserve”; they just get to be alive and live.

We find the idea of “karma” or the adage, “you reap what you sow,” solacing, especially when we reflect on it in relation to people who have wronged us. (ie, they will “pay” for it—if not in this life, then in the next). The doctrine of karma, however, is more subtle and complex than this. It needs to be understood if one is to understand and make peace with oneself and have compassion for others.

I once found myself being strongly chided by a Buddhist lama because I questioned his teaching about karma. The lama’s approach seemed to be a very simplistic, black and white. In his view, a person could expect to get back an exact reflection of whatever he or she did and was wholly responsible for whatever ills befell him or her. This caused some people in his sangha to be concerned and meticulously neurotic about their treatment of such things as insects lest obliterating one result in their own reincarnation and demise as a lowly bug. (Indeed, I find such attentiveness—and most pop-jabber on karma from any front—the height of narcissism and self-involvement.)

The lama did not like my argument about how that didn't make sense in the context of interdependent arising—or perhaps he didn’t like my impudence. The next day, I went on a retreat at a Vedantist ashram. Serendipitously, the theme of retreat was the meaning of karma. In the first lecture of the day, the swami who was facilitating the retreat told us basically what I had told the lama the day before and what I am going to tell you here in this essay. It is also the gist of Job that Rev Morra eloquently related that Sunday morning a few weeks ago.

 Life is full of ups and downs, gains and losses, and hurts and regrets. You know the adage: Shit happens.  And what happens is often a matter of interpretation and perception. The Reverend paraphrased the American Buddhist monk Pema Chodron from the book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times: If someone turns to you and says, “You’re old,” you might either be very proud (as, say a 5-year-old graduating kindergarten or a 98-year-old who is alive and kicking) or insulted (as, say, a 50-year-old woman, like myself).

Although we reap the consequences of our actions in one way or another (actions lead to reactions), it is presumptuous to make judgments about the quality and the root causes of those consequences. Sometimes things that seem “bad” only seem so because of our self-centered perspective. We judge everything by whether it is a pleasant or painful experience. If it is painful, we say it is “evil” and may draw the conclusion that it happened because we “deserved it.” But if we subject ourselves to transformational processes and take refuge in the mystic energies of those processes, we can be sure to experience pain and upheaval. This is called catharsis. It is what is meant by being purified in the Spirit, and it is a natural consequence of processes related to ego dissolution in the interests of gnosis attained through spiritual practice.

When “bad things happen to ‘good’ people,” the question should not be “why me?” especially in an age in which pressing a button on a remote control or gliding your finger across a pad on an electronic device gives you access to minute-by-minute, blow-by-blows about how really bad millions of other people in the world have it. Because the answer will always be, “Why not you?” And this is sort of what God ended up telling Job in the Biblical fable. “Shut up and take it like a man,” is what he basically told the guy—as if Job had unwittingly been drafted into the Marine Corp, and this is indeed a metaphor for Life.

It is self-defeating to blame misfortune on something done in the past, particularly if we think that whatever was done occurred in a speculative previous existence. Other persons (such as family members, friends, and others populating our environment) have a strong effect on how we behave and the choices we make such that we cannot be solely at fault for our choices. We are often led into them by the nose like stupid animals who don’t know any better. Indeed, our very selves in the form of ego-personalities are, in part, the epitome and the consequential effect of the persons who surround and influence us, who are themselves the hapless consequences of other hapless influences.

In light of this, the point of life is to become more aware and compassionate, and we often can only do this by making mistakes, having regrets, and going through trials.

In the Book of Job, Job asks a bunch of wise friends and God why bad things happened to him despite that he did all the right things to stay in favor with the Divine. The friends tell him to search his soul because he must’ve f--ked up somewhere along the way and is getting what he deserved. God, on the other hand, tells Job that God, being who/what he is, can do anything he God-damn pleases arbitrarily and with impunity, and who are puny humans to question him about it. His reasons are mysterious. “Resistance is futile,” and “cleanse your bottoms; it’s going to be bumpy ride.” In this, Job is left with feeling guilt and remorse—not for unknown actions that may have led to current misfortune—but for second-guessing God and presupposing what life is really supposed to be about.

But is God a meany then and is life that precarious and grueling? These questions and the Biblical fable of Job cause me to make the leap to two other Biblical passages. I am impelled to read them in a way I’ve never done before. It takes me out of the realm of glossy sentimentality and into an “ah-hah” experience about the nature of God, self, and the circumstance of being alive. Indeed, it is as if all the pious and pretty jargon written around the lines I will cite are blinds like the flowery piety that fills heretical steganographic Medieval magical grimoire. That is, there is something more, something quite deeper to extract and integrate from the prose.

The Biblical passages are the First Letter of John 4:16 and Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 13.7. In John 4:16, we are told that "God is love, and he who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him." Note that it does not say that God is an old man in the sky; it says that God is love and that we can live “in” it and it in us. For people who have any sense of religious philosophy or history or of how to put things in context, they would know that when 1^st century CE people talk about Love or Beauty or Order in a philosophical way, they are talking about what God is—Cosmos—Life with a capital L—Manifest Reality. (Uh . . . “qualified nondualism,” “panentheism.”) In Corinthians 13.7, we are told that “[Love] is always ready to forgive, trust, and endure whatever comes.”

Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. The knowledge I have now is imperfect; then I will know as fully as I am known. --I Corinthians 13:12.

Think about it. 

(This article is a reworked version of an earlier piece called “Karma” that my be floating around on the Web.)

 


                   
The Seal of Secrets of the World:
Decoding the Arbatel De Magia Veterum

 Soror ZSD23

 Make a circle, with A at the center, which is BCDE. At the East is BC. A square. At the North CD. At the West DE . At the South EB . Divide [each of] these quadrants into 7 parts so that there may be 28 parts total. Then divide [each of the 28 parts] into 4, so that there will be 112 parts of the circle, as so many are the true secrets to be revealed. This circle divided in this manner is the Seal of Secrets of the World. These secrets are solely drawn from the center, which is A; that is, [they are drawn] from the invisible God unto the entire creature. The Prince of the Eastern secrets is in the middle [of the Eastern quadrant] and has 6 Nobles, 3 on each side. Each of them, including the Prince, has 4 Nobles under him. In the same way, the Princes and Nobles have their quadrants of secrets, with their four secrets.

                                                                                                 –from Aphorism 27

If the Seal of Secrets is thought of as a schematic of the Archetypal Cosmos, the numbers codes in Aphorisms 16,17, and 27 define its anatomy as if the Olympic Spirits are the organs. They exist multidimensionally and interpenetratingly, and—as is propounded in Hermetic philosophy—the microcosm of the individual self is the hologram of the Macrocosm.

 In conjunction with dreamwork conducted with three other persons during the month of May 2010, I would receive insights about geometry and also about numbers, primarily those in Aphorisms 16 and 17, which reveal the scope of each Olympic Spirit.  I do not doubt that more erudite interpretations of the numbers can be put forth by others, but the following is how my reasoning worked after playing with a series of numbers and equations that appeared to me in half sleep on about May 24, 2010. I also realized that the “wisdoms” defined in Aphorism 9 referred to the hierarchy of the planetary archons:

 The repetition of the number 7, in which numbers are multiplied by 7, suggests the interpenetrating, expanding, and multidimensional relationships of the Olympic Spirits, as does the multiplying of number codes by either 100 or 1000. In Aphorism 16, there are said to be a total “196 provinces in the whole Universe.” (Note that the Turner translation incorrectly says “186”). 196 is 1+9+6=7, perhaps suggesting The All in the One.

 Phul (Luna)

“Seventhly the [wisdom of the] Pigmies [ie, elemental beings] pertains to the lowest place, including they who inhabit the elements and things related to them.” –from Aphorism 9 (note that Turner’s translation reads “”the Pigmies do not possess the lowest place,” but the word “not” doesn’t appear in the Latin text.]

 Phul is said to rule 7 Provinces. This translates into the equation 7x1, making its value 1. Its geometric form is the point and its placement is the center of the diagram. The dimensionless point (or “infinite sphere, which is “God”) according to the preSocratic philosopher Empedocles is “the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” (The saying and variations of it are also attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, Voltaire, Pascal, Nicolas of Cusa, and very many  other people.)

 Content within the Arbatel suggests that, in addition to representing God, the center of the Seal—as Phul –represents the body, elemental beings, and the microcosm, which is the reflection of the macrocosm.

 No information is given about its “legions” in Aphorism 17, although the number 8 plays a significant role in deciphering the numbers related to legions and how this relates to the lines and planes in the Seal of Secrets. 

 Phul is said to “make men to live 300 years.” I believe that 300 years suggests the triangle (3), which here represents the elements. Three is multiplied by 100 to suggest its multidimensional quality.

Arbatel Working Followup

 Soror ZSD23

A few weeks have passed since performing a month-long Arbatel Working. Since then, I have secured a job (the job I received an inquiry about while finishing up my notes on Ophiel). This comes after 14 months of unemployment. I am adjusting to my new schedule and the return to a life where the bulk of my time is leased to someone else. The wage-slave blues. But I am doing exactly what I like to do as a medical writer in this new position, and although I am earning more than $17,000 less than what I used to without benefits or job security, I can at least pay my bills and spend money w/o living at a deficit for now. Further, I received an email yesterday suggesting the possibility of getting a job offer from another company I had interviewed with in February and very much wanted to work at.

 In addition, a large majority of my sigil work is coming to fruition. At some point, I will digress on what I suppose I will call my Jupiter working. It seems to still be playing itself out. Yesterday, late afternoon I was doing some “work” in a wooded area near my home. I began to invoke Jupiter/Bethor and repeatedly drew a sigil via automatic writing in a sigil related to Venus/Haggith that I had drawn in the dirt. That evening, members of New Aeon Lodge arrived at my house for our first major group Working. We were working with a servitor that one of the members had created. He had formed the sigil using the name of our group. When he showed us 2 sigil patterns used to make the main sigil, one of the 2 was the sigil I had been tracing in the ground hours earlier. During the group working, everyone received a beatific impression. I received a strong visualization of a white angelic entity and was given the name Iophiel. The connection to the Lodge and to Jupiter was related to me. I have little to no experience in angelology. I “Googled” Iophiel  and the content was strikingly relevant. I also learned that Iophiel is the ruler of Jupiter when Jupiter is in Pisces or Sagitarrius. Jupiter is 34 degrees Pisces at the moment.

Interest in my Arbatel posts was taken up by persons in the Web-based occult community and led to greater readership of my Live Journal page. I must especially thank The Scribbler at http://magianrumination.blogspot.com/  and Frater POS at http://doingmagick.blogspot.com/ for this. 

 I was asked to collaborate with 3 other persons on a project related to decoding and integrating the mysteries of the Arbatel. We have just about completed the first week of the group Working.

 When I first approached the Arbatel--specifically the Isagoge tractate (the other books of the Arbatel may be extant), I did so naively—as a person who had little experience with grimoire or planetary magic. It all seemed to be pious medieval Christian rhetoric within which was couched mystical meandering about the classical planets.  In my work with what I will refer to here as the Arbatel Collaborative Working Group (ACWG)—in the style of medical researchers who collaborate with each other, I quickly realized the near unfathomable depth and complexity of the Arbatel. Of note and with discretion, it seems that the material I received last month, particularly the visualizations of geometric shapes, is very relevant to understanding the diagram described in the text and called the Seal of Secrets. In the contemplation of the Seal in conjunction with encrypted clues about it within the Arbatel, one may find the key to the Mysterium Tremendum.

 I will say that I currently find myself in an amazing undertaking that is sure to leave me and my cohorts quite changed in beliefs, abilities, and associations. As a medical writer/editor with background in neurology and neuropsychiatry and as a person who has exposed herself to and integrated information from many spiritual traditions, I had become rather pragmatic, quasi-atheistic, and mechanistic—jaded perhaps. I reduced all experience to the play of archetypal forms in a provisional reality. Although my panentheistic orientation is reinforced through my current work, I realize that something very mystical and very profound is at play. Objectifiable, non-corporeal intelligences and planes of being may well be “out there.” Moreover, I am again awed and put point-black with the perennial message of wise ones that the puny and ephemeral personal sensate world that we each are elegantly driven to cling to and fill with dramas in the brief time allotted is trivial.

 shariram svarganarakhau bhandamokshau

bhayam tatha kalpanamatram

evai tat kim karyam chidatmanah

The body, heaven, hell, bondage, liberation, and fear a mere illusions.

What then needs to be done by me, being that I am pure consciousness.

 Ashtavakra Gita II:20

Och

Sol/Och: “There is no entity; there is only Self.” ~ Christos- Apollo-The Dying and Resurrecting God
Be open. See the illumination and the root of self-effacement. 

I worked with Och every Sunday from March 28 to April 18. The incense was frankincense with a bit of copol and honey amber, juniper, spikenard, patchouli, and vetiver. It burned very well and I used most of the remainder of the incense on the Eve of May Day for what became an energetically potent Gnostic Beltaine ceremony and fire ritual with my group, New Aeon Lodge. 

When I sat, I first immediately got and impression of Apollo as a young, androgynous man but there wasn’t much communication. I was “hearing” him refer to Athena as the offshoot of Zeus but there wasn’t much elaboration on it except that Athena (Greek Minerva) was also related to Sol energy.

 The meditative feeling of expressing light began to emerge. It was especially “felt” in my hands and chest. I contemplated the godform of Sophia. Then the words came to mind: sacrifice, hubris, atonement, and words related to struggle toward self-integration. I reflected on images of dying and resurrecting deities and their pathos, of mythic figures like Prometheus, Icarus—and the Valentinian Gnostic Sophia who falls and then spends her energy in atonement and integration. I also thought: consciousness, timeliness. It seemed that Och/Sol was associated with something painful and transformational. There was an aloneness in it. I began to think of the sun as something bare or turned inside out. Its flame was uncontained like a fruit that had been peeled and was now exposed. I also reflecting on Time and ephemerality  and that what needs to be known or accomplished is precious and elusive because time is limited .

 Before closing the meditation, the inner vision of Apollo appeared again. I asked for teaching. I again “felt like” Sophia and reflected on the idea that I had to go it alone in life and draw on strength and sublimated energy.

 From this experience, I was led to look up information of Apollo and Minerva. Apollo: a god of light, healing, music, prophecy. The etymology of the name may refer to redemption and purification.

 Engraved on his temple at Delphi : "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess." 

 He is associated with wolves (because of their howling songs), the golden mean, and order. Although he was seen as a Christ-like God of Light and reason, his mythology is rather lusty and violent, with people being killed for passion and revenge. His Celtic cognate is Belenos, the deity that may have been celebrated at Beltaine. His consort Belisama was sometimes associated with Minerva.

 As for Minerva/Athena, having been born from Zeus’ head, she is thought of as the mind of God. Her mother, according to myth, was Metis (“cunning intelligence”), Zeus’ first wife, who he swallowed (like Saturn swallowed his children) to keep her from giving birth to a child who would overthrow him. Some researchers say that the mythology is metaphor for Athenian absorption of surrounding cultures and their goddesses.

 The second Sunday of this Working fell on Easter, April 4, 2010. The meditation was initially quiet and imageless. If I gazed at the sigil, I would get the impression of bright sunlight in my mind’s eye. If I meditated with eyes open gazing lightly outward, I would envision a slit of pure white light. If I closed my eyes, I had no impressions. In time, I had the impression of clear light reflected in clear water and reflected on the idea of the slit of light being like a rend in the veil of the illusion of provisional existence. Clear light. Empty of other. Oddly, this sun energy had more of a Binah quality to it than a Tiphareth quality, which to me was a Hagith characteristic. I reflected on the idea of baptism, clear light water symbolically washing away the illusion of self. The light of the logos both makes and breaks the illusion. It is the light of this life of experience and it is the light behind the illusion—the black sun. The light beyond the darkness. The occult light. I thought about why I didn’t feel presence and the words came. “There is no entity; there is only Self.” And then I reflected on the Biblical passage “You are the light of the world.”

 On the third Sunday of this Working, I found myself reflecting on the Buddhist entity Vajrasattva. The message was to transform anger into magic. I reflected on how this was somewhat done in Tibetan Buddhist work with wrathful deities.

 Images of the Ace of Swords and also the Hanged Man of the Tarot came to mind.

 In meditating on Och, I sat with impressions—not about enlightenment or thriving—but about burning up, being torn up, repentance, self-effacement, sacrifice. I reflected on the godform of Christos. The sacrificial victim and contemptible harbinger of gnosis.

 I saw a geometric image like an hourglass but more like a funnel w/o top or bottom 



                                                                             


I “heard”: “In That there is obliteration.” Dispersion in selflessness.

 Now when I look at it, it seems like a broken cross, blasted out from the core. It is like the analogy I wrote of in my last novel about the ourobouros:. 

 He started drawing circles again until he had constructed an ouroboros—a serpent swallowing its own tail. 
            “If you really want to find peace and make peace, you have to kill this thing,” he said.

 and

 “I’ve given lots of teachings about circles,” he finally said. “It is formed out of a serpent called the ouroboros, which is the karmic wheel. You’re always in the loop of the circle but you have to think about the space inside of it and the space around it. One is contained, the other is infinite. Then you have to pull the tail out of the mouth of the serpent or else hack it in two so that the enclosed space and the all-around space are the same. There is no finitude there, no boundaries and so there are no thoughts, judgments, or expectations. Then things are just as they are.”

Finally, I began to contemplate semen as sacrifice, the male pleasure principle and depletion through ejaculation and that there is something metaphorical about this that perhaps a man might “get” better than I.

 On that last Sunday of the Working, the name Apollo was my first impression. I looked at the scrying orb that I had been working with that last week. In it, I saw impressions of the face of Christ from the Shroud of Turin. It became the face of a bearded man, a man with halo and then lion face with wings and a crown. Then it seemed to transform into the face of a wolf—all symbols of the sun, sun-god, or Apollo. I sat holding that same bittersweet feeling about the sun. It is interesting that the Sun represents the ego-personality but the message in my meditation is about ego-dissolution. “I am complete Openness” was the message. I did not sit for that long. The thoughts that came while I was closing weres that I should be happy to be free of doing this ritual daily and that I should go on to focus on presence and the unique feelings of each of the planets I experienced when needed.