dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Artist, writer, and independent researcher

Visions of Magic and Mysticism in Art (http://www.deerapposelli.com) Fairy folk, mythical beasts, Your Magical Child, and the Lady Who Shines White Light.

Visions of Magic and Mysticism in Literature
(http://www.sorcerersandmagi.com) The Sorcerers and Magi fiction series             -- Harry P
otter for grownups, philosophers, mystics, and mages.  Plus Free PDF downloads of concise, illustrated booklets on magic and mysticism

Soror ZSD23 on YouTube
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Sofia La Maga: A Bedraggled Kitchen Witch? Excerpt from the fantasy novel La Maga



I am scheduled to speak at a Crowley Con conference this fall about my fiction writing--my Sorcerers and Magi series triology. It is metaphysical fiction that is meant to begin as a play on classic children's magical fantasy fiction but moves on to address concepts about the nature of self, will, transformation, and enlightenment. Political metaphor and issues related to the "Immanentization of the Eschaton" build as the series progresses. What is it to wake up from the idea of yourself? That is the koan-like question. My work is for adult fiction readers with authentic interest and literacy in the magical and mystical. Explore insights from the Western Mystery Tradition, Vedanta, and Buddhism through creative expression.
This short video is a character study of the heroine of the series, Sofia La Maga. Images are original art work. More of my art work can be viewed at http://www.deerapposelli.com More about the novel series is at http://www.sorcerersandmagi.com
*
Leonard (Junior) and his buddies, Anil, Cary, and Bertrand, had gotten a glimpse of Sofia La Maga the day before. They gloated like the spoiled-brat junior elitist patricians they were that the hype about the professor was nonsense. It was just as Leonard’s father had insisted. Professor La Maga was nothing but a bedraggled kitchen witch.
She didn’t seem at all like the stories told about her. In fact, she roamed through the secondary school’s second-floor corridor as if she were roller-skating with three left feet and had the mental disposition of a hedgehog.
She was a tall, slender but robust woman with the rough-and-tumble appearance of someone who had weathered hard climbs in exotic lands. Her clothes were rustic, quaintly worn, and embellished with savage jewelry: jangling bells and sashes of bone and fur, claws, shells, and spike-studded pods. Her Medusa-like mane was haphazardly plaited here and there and cluttered her face, blinding her as she toddled along.  She was gripping a mass of overstuffed folders, and from her arms dangled plastic bags filled with items that were heavy. The bags swung like pendulums in the wake of her clumsy pace. The heels of her worn leather lace-up boots alternately caught on the frayed hem of an ankle-length skirt. It caused her to wobble pathetically as the heavy bags alternately beat against her ribs.
No one offered assistance. They were busy gawking at her and probably thinking the same as Leonard and his pals were. This was the prodigy who had been gallivanting across exotic lands and speed-reading through mentorships with wild wizards, shamans, and hermits?
Leonard reported the observation to his father who smirked and lectured him about how the Inner Plane was going to the dogs. He blamed immigration and student exchange laws and especially the prohibition against the caste system—even though it had been nearly a century since the prohibition had been in effect.
As far as de Lux senior was concerned, the discontinuation of the system undercut the privilege of the privileged. It made for circumstances whereby the child of the lowliest peasant spell-caster (that is, Sofia La Maga) could become a prestigious mage—all because she had spent 12 years spelunking through some caves on the Inner Plane of Katmandu or Machu Picchu or . . . some place.


Leonard’s father repeated that Sofia La Maga was a fake. He said that the heroic tales about her were hoaxes. He stressed that she was the bastard spawn of a wayward woman who had died under suspicious circumstances. He reminded Leonard and his friends that this one Sofia La Maga also had been kicked out of the H. Trismegistus Mystical Arts Academy School of Graduate Studies in her junior year of college. She was a trouble-maker who almost took the school down because of her political extremism. A terrorist, Leonard’s father insisted. Furthermore, rather than applying herself to unusual scholarship in the Terra Mysticus as was claimed about her, she had been running some sort of silly “New Age” cult among the Commons in the Outer Plane for the past 15 years . . .
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Musings on the Nature of Self

Although I’ve spent the past several years delving into folk magic, Neopaganism, and the Western Mystery Tradition, my primary spiritual orientation has been Advaita Vedanta. Now, however, thanks to contact with the fellow behind the YouTube channel Metaphysical Reflections, I am more fully exploring a path I've had a long-time interest in: Neoplatonism. In presenting Western parallels of philosophical concepts about the nature of self and consciousness that I am already familiar with, I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz realizing that I don't really have to wander further than my own backyard to find the answers I seek. Over the years, I've become a bit saddened that the wisdom of the West has been so obfuscated, and the wisdom of the East, in turn, appropriated and sometimes mangled beyond recognition for Western consumption.

In any case, Advaita Vedanta is a form of Hinduism that I was introduced to nearly 40 years ago. It is a system that dates
back to about the 7th century and is primarily founded in the Principle Upanishads, which began to emerge as written texts in about the 8th century BCE. The Upanishads are the philosophical portion of a set texts called the Vedas, the earliest written record of Hindu thought and praxis.
La Maga fantasy and occult fictionWhen I first began writing La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi in 2004, I was absorbed in Vedanta and related Eastern philosophies. And so concepts distilled from my then spiritual practice are represented in the work and intermingle with fanciful as well as some authentic motifs about magic.
The spiritual journey in Advaita Vedanta is, in part, about intimately realizing the connection between one’s own true nature and the Divine and also realizing that “the world is in the mind, like space in a jar”—as stated in a text called the Yoga-Vasishtha—which I worked into the very last chapter of La Maga. Advaita Vedantist philosophy is concerned with the idea of projection—the problem of not experiencing reality as it is but as dreamlike mental projections—colored by bias, fears, ignorance and automated habits and conditioning. For this reason, my characters sometimes contemplate the nature of reality and illusion. They also ask the question: What is it to wake up from the idea of yourself? To paraphrase thoughts I attributed to the antihero of the series, the sorcerer Leo de Lux:

Leo de Lux the antihero of the fantasy fiction novel La Maga
Becoming truly real, conscious, and capable of free will begins by realizing the whimsical and fabricated nature of one’s own being—the idea of self—and then detaching from the automaton (the robot) of its personality, habits, and conditioning. Then the person who is the life beneath the mask of selfhood opens his eyes and watches himself reveling through the motions of daily life like a dreamer reveling in lucidity and exercising free will in it.


Occult fiction, philosophy, and chaos magic The Savior at the End of Time
In the last published book in the series, The Savior at the End of Time (available in Kindle format), I have the main character of that story--a whacky Christlike figure who is a sorcerer named Aurelio Zosimo--deliver a sermon (below) that basically crystalizes, albeit in a thick way, what I’ve come away with from my exposure to Eastern spirituality and spirituality in general, including magical spirituality. :

character study of Leo de Lux
                                                                   
Excerpt from Chapter 20 of The Savior at the End of Time
Zosi began to be spotted in flamboyantly full ceremonial regalia within the Mercury Gardens. He would wear a tunic of thick raw silk and tightly fitted, black leggings that were made of tanned leather and full of straps and whips of lacings. Over this, he would wear high boots that matched a mottled, purple-black tanned leather cope embossed with images of ourobori, moondragons, and griffins. His hair was meticulously plaited and decorated with pins and ribbons. His head was topped with a black double-cone hat that was rakishly crimped and folded over so that the tips of the horn-like cones, embellished with opalescent jingle bells, menacingly flounced and jangled in front of his face. He wielded a rather large and tall staff, the core of which was made of slender poles of cedar and fennel stalks. It was wrapped in embossed leather that matched his ensemble. Like a sinister maypole, the staff’s leather sheath was itself wrapped in a filigreed design of cords and leather straps on which gadgets and flotsam were affixed. The cords and straps dangled, flail- and cat-o-nine-tails-like, from the staff’s finial, which was a gold spearhead in the shape of a fish with an acorn protruding from its mouth.

Like that, he would stroll about the Gardens and then stop here or there to deliver a sermon that attracted larger and larger crowds as word of the spectacle grew. He would begin the rant in a gentle voice with the words, “See the illumination at the center of being,” and materialize some small sparkly object that would fascinate and mesmerize onlookers.

“The body and all phenomena arise causally and provisionally within absolute being,” he would continue, yet still in a very meek and quiet voice. It would be trembling and barely audible despite his ferocious appearance. “There is no time and no dimension to space, both being mere adaptive projections of mind. The personality is an interdependently arising construction of circumstances and experiences, driven by reactivity bred by conditioning devoid of awareness or true will. What is it to wake up from the idea of yourself? Heaven, hell, God, the Adversary, pleasure, pain, and all the pairs of opposites are projections of your own consciousness. You project ideas out of yourself. Treating them as independent entities, you go into them, fear them, and allow them to have power over you although they are your own creations. No one is there to deliver you; you must deliver yourself. Glimpse self-effacement and the root of your existence. Reality is silent, blissful, self-composed Being. This is the Redemptive Principle, the Christos, the Ground, and the Life beneath the mechanism."
Aurelio Zosimo, from occult fantasy novel The Savior at the End of Time. illustrator copyright Dee Rapposelli












Character study of Aurelio Zosimo
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Repurposing the Azoth of the Philosophers

                                                                                                     

Azoth of the Philosophers copyright Dee Rapposelli http://www.deerapposelli.com



I am in the process of making low tables and bomos (altar tables) with my  digital art. This image is a intended to become a bomos and is an adaption of an alchemical mandala that has long fascinated me and many others. That mandala is the 12th plate of an alchemical picture book called The Azoth of the Philosophers. It depicts the process of alchemy--both as a laboratory exercise and as spiritual pathwork via ascension through the planetary spheres (the Western equivalent of "chakras").


                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                           
                                                                                                             

    As I have explained in the book The Seal of Secrets of theWorld Adventures in Planetary Magic, which addresses my work with the Arbatel, Western magical mandala and seals are similar to Eastern mandalas and yantras in that they are mnemonic instruments made of symbols that are understood by and/or provide revelatory contemplative experiences for the initiated.

The term Azoth is thought to be derived from the Arabic al za’uq : “the mercury.” It may also be meant to suggest “A-to-Z” –the totality of name and form, as is meant in the terms Alpha-Omega and A-U-Mg (popularly written as Om). It is said to be the life principle.

The sun, moon, and cube of salt in the image represent sulfur, mercury, and salt and also soul, spirit, and body. I refer the reader to thispost by art curator Johnes Ruta for more insight on the meaning of the sulfur, mercury, salt triad.
On the left of the image stands the red king (sulfur) who dies to be reborn as the Philosopher's Stone (Enlightened). On the right is the melusine white queen (mercury), who is the source of life and also revelation of spiritual identity. As in Eastern Tantric lore, in which spiritual integration and enlightenment in a path of return is symbolized by the union (and dissolution) of male and female polarities, so too does the union of the alchemical king and queen result in transfiguration into the Divine Self.

This image, and philosophical alchemy in general inspired the second book in a series of cross-genrre fantasy/metaphysical/occult fiction that I wrote a few years ago and self-published.  The second book in the series is called The Fallen Fairy (originally titled The Sex Lives of Sorcerers and I think an old, not as tightly edited print version of the novel is still out there on amazon). Ostensibly about what happens when sorcerers from an alternate plane of existence vie to catch and control a human incarnation of a fairy, it, like all of my novels, is about the nature of self, transformation, and redemption.

Excerpt from the novel The Fallen Fairy
“There is a saying in the alchemical texts that goes like this,” Michael murmured. “The dragon only dies when he is killed by his brother and sister at once; not by one alone, but by both at once. That is, by the sun and moon.’ You and me,” he said.
. . .
“In creation mythology, we talk about the world forming from chaos and void by the will of a conscious entity—God. But the chaos—the so-called prima materia—is not matter, nature, or the world; it is the human psyche full of convoluted impressions, habituations, and the conditioning of nature and nurture. This is the seven-headed dragon that must be slain by the hero who is none other than the divine spirit within asserting itself. It rescues the damsel-in-distress, which is the soul.”The path of inner alchemy and of mysticism in all the great traditions founded in gnosis, Michael said, was to transform the human creature, who was nothing more than a helpless gear of the world machine, into a real person with real will, intention, and creative abilities.
“Some persons call this enlightenment; some call it ‘being like unto God’; some call it the Great Work, which is magic,” he said.
                                                                                                                   
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Scrying the Olympic Spirits

I have decided to return to my Live Journal page and share my art and literature with the community again. I left off with notes about my Arbatel project and so I will begin my new postings with this video, created a few years ago that concisely, contemplatively, and poetically relates my experience.

dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

The Seal of Secrets of the World Adventures in Astral Magic

Arbatel pic
The Seal of Secrets of the World is a diagram described in a medieval magical book called the Arbatel. The Arbatel is a treatise on how to live in harmony, ease, and intimacy with the energies of the Multiverse. Behind the Christian piety is a more ancient, Pythagoric and Neoplatonic spiritual paradigm that views the world as a multilayered place full of spiritual beings: some elemental, some celestial, some angelic, and some demi-godlike, archonic, or patriarchal. In the spring and summer of 2010, the author, Soror ZSD23, in the context of solitary and group workings, explored the content of the Arbatel and evoked the so-called Olympic Spirits described in the text. The Seal of Secrets of the World Adventures in Astral Magic notes the author’s experiences and insights in working with the Arbatel, provides guidance on practicing and simplifying evocation magic and provides links to important related texts. The book also includes auxiliary essays related to her studies in magic and mysticism, such as discussion on meditation, the holy guardian angel, and the Azoth.
Available in Kindle format.
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

The Savior at the End of Time --3rd in Sorcerers and Magi series--now available in Kindle format

Chaos Magic meets Jesus Christ Superstar. the savior at the end of time, the third book in the Sorcerers and Magi series, is a veiled take on the Christ-story in which the unassuming and disheveled but oddly charismatic iconoclast, Professor Aurelio Zosimo, introduced in book one, is haplessly rendered into a new messiah for the Lions of Light agenda and the “Immanentization of the Eschaton.” The novel references the post-modern magical counterculture current of Chaos Magic. In this installment of the series, Leo de Lux and Sofia La Maga are at odds about their designs regarding Aurelio Zosimo. Both find themselves in over their heads as plot line of the series progresses toward an apocalyptic showdown and the revelation of portentous secrets.
cover study

The Sorcerers and Magi series offers thought-provoking ideas about finding oneself and one’s true purpose in the context of mystical magical fantasy and will be interest to adult fiction readers drawn to magia, mysticism, and spiritual philosophy. Book 1 in the series, La Maga A Story about Sorcerers and Magi, introduces us to the Inner Plane and its fragmented society of sorcerers, magi, and folk practitioners. There, the binding quality of love, transforms a father and son, shifts a paradigm, and gives a jump start to a utopian movement The Lions of Light. Magical fantasy is deftly woven with Eastern mysticism. In Book 2, The Sex Lives of Sorcerers, a hapless fairy incarnates as a woman in the world of “Commons” in the Outer Plane. Sorcerers from the Inner Plane swoop in to vie for her affections in the interests of love and occult power and opportunism. . As savior, a redeemer, and a siren, the story’s heroine circumspectly aids the Lions of Light and sets the stage for radical and illuminating transformations of all who come into contact with her. References to alchemy, medieval occultism, steganography, and sex magic permeate the text.
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Penultimate Post on the Arbatel and the Seal of Secrets


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 . . . .”

Update 6-21-13.  I plan to publish a book (e-book and print although the print will be costly in 4-color) about my experiences with the Arbatel and hope to have it ready by August of this year. It will include update material for this and my other blog and more.  Also visit http:sorcerersandmagi.blogspot.com. I also have a Rizzoma (closed chat) site where discussion on the Arbatel can take place. It is set up but the original lot of people invited to participate have mostly all not followed through. email me at sororzsd23@gmail.com for info.Arbatel pic
dionesia rapposelli, soror zsd23, dee rapposelli

Io Saturnalia


Io Saturnalia!

 “Never shall age destroy so holy a day! For how many years shall this festival abide!” Statius, 5th 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 17th—or at least it was set on the 17th 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 5th 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 3rd century CE, Plotinus pens this beautiful tract about Saturn in the 4th passage of 1st tractate of his 5th 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!