The Dawn of Aquarius

A Spider in the Glass

2011-06-24T06:36:00.001-07:00

The world is a golden veil of empty space, lost and found in a balloon of fairy seeds.
Sight in an empty world is a finger print in the mud.
An overturned drinking glass becomes my casket.
Manifestation of life is inevitable.
Experience spills into the reservoir of the unconscious
As death insults my mirror of progress.
Death is in vain.
Death wears a coat of many colors.
Time splinters into the endless realities of boredom.
Am I procrastinating or a slave to monotony?

-by Stephen Gulliford

Divide & Conquer

2011-06-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

Leave the System

2010-09-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Chant, sing, dance, forage, explore, breath, and be.

The Song of the Reed - Rumi

2010-06-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Listen to the song of the reed,
How it wails with the pain of separation:

“Ever since I was taken from my reed bed
My woeful song has caused men and women to weep.
I seek out those whose hearts are torn by separation
For only they understand the pain of this longing.
Whoever is taken away from his homeland
Yearns for the day he will return.
In every gathering, among those who are happy or sad,
I cry with the same lament.
Everyone hears according to his own understanding,
None has searched for the secrets within me.
My secret is found in my lament
But an eye or ear without light cannot know it..”

The sound of the reed comes from fire, not wind
What use is one’s life without this fire?
It is the fire of love that brings music to the reed.
It is the ferment of love that gives taste to the wine.
The song of the reed soothes the pain of lost love.
Its melody sweeps the veils from the heart.
Can there be a poison so bitter or a sugar so sweet
As the song of the reed?
To hear the song of the reed
everything you have ever known must be left behind.

– Version by Jonathan Star
“Rumi – In the Arms of the Beloved”
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

Reinventing Diet: Going Back to the Stone Age

2010-06-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

The human diet has been a huge topic of debate for hundreds of years. We have all the technology, methods, and harvesting to feed the entire world yet why can’t we figure out what to eat. A larger percentage of the problem can be attributed to misinformation and corporate interest in human consumption. Lets break down the body’s needs and the diet to fulfill it.

There are three components to our dietary make up. We receive calories from the holy trinity of food: carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

Our bodies are equipped with mechanisms that tell us when we have had enough of these two types of calorie but it has zero mechanism to tell us when we have had enough carbs. Carbs, including sugar, are nothing but raw energy that our body either uses immediately or turns directly into fat. Since our body can never tell us when we have had enough carbs, we will just keep eating and eating. This is why we see such a large percentage of obesity in Americans. We have been told, from a young age, to consume large amounts of grain carbohydrates as a part of our diet. Grains wreak havoc on the body’s processes and are mostly stored as fat.

The CARB Conspiracy

The body has many processors, timers, and mechanisms. You may wake up in the middle of the night to find you need to make an emergency trip to the bathroom. When you are frightened, your heart beat rises and your blood is flooded with chemicals that cause you to react. When you eat a meal, your stomach tells you when you are full (even though you may not listen!). The body also has a mechanism to tell you when you have eaten the required amount of certain types of food. There is a mechanism for fats and proteins…..but none for carbs! Your body will never tell you when you have had enough carbs and that is why you need to pay special attention to this energy source.

http://www.sleepwarrior.com/health-dangers-of-bread-pasta-and-rice
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/why-grains-are-unhealthy/
http://nourishedkitchen.com/against-the-grain-10-reasons-to-give-up-grains/

For the most part, this pyramid should be completely turned on its head. The largest part of the pyramid, the base, should either be completely eliminated or moved to the pinnacle. When humans were in the hunter/gatherer stage of development, they ate very little grains. When civilization began to develop agriculture, grains were very important for poor people to remain alive. Grains don’t run when you try to cut them down. They are cheap and readily available (and tasty, I know). If you must eat grains, avoid refined grains, white grains, and white potatoes. Sugar is the at the far end of the carb spectrum and can be considered the physical reincarnation of Satan. You can get your sugars from fruits and honey.
If you have a sweet tooth and find yourself gorging on fruits, be careful! The sugars (especially dried fruits) in fruit will rot your teeth and cause all sorts of problems in your body. Don’t overdo it!

Fruits and Vegetables

The largest portion of your carbs should come from fruits and vegetables. Anyway you can find to get more RAW fruits and vegetables, the better. I suggest getting 3 servings of raw greens a day (by all means, get as much as you can). Greens should always be eaten with FAT, as many of the vitamins and minerals they contain are fat soluble. Dense leafy green foods include kale, spinach, dandelion, collard greens, mustard greens, and chards. Green smoothies are a great way to get the greens down the hatch, especially if you are not a fan of vegetables. Get a blender, add water or milk (whole milk, coconut milk, or soy) about two cups. Try to add as much greens as you can with a high concentration of kale. Kale is extremely good for you and the fiber in kale absorbs many times its own weight in toxins. The next step is to add fruit. I use a blend of avocado, strawberries and bananas. Acidic fruits may not work so well. Berries are very friendly to the smoothie. Be weary of over-blending as it oxidizes and destroys valuable nutrients.

Green Smoothie Recipe:
• 1 Avocado
• 6 Strawberries
• 1 Banana
• 1 cup chopped fresh spinach
• 2 cups chopped fresh kale
• 2 cups whole milk
Blend until smooth and drinkable.

Proteins

The LORD has given us certain us every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. - Genesis 1:29

Protein can be somewhat of a complex subject as many people argue over the finer points of veganism and acidic blood levels caused by the consumption of animal protein. As with all your food, protein should be consumed from the widest variety of sources possible. Nuts and seeds in a wide variety provide many, if not all, of the essential fatty acids. They are usually high in omega fatty acids and contain a very high anti-oxidant and vitamin content. Some fruits and vegetables contain smaller amounts of protein and can assist in rounding out the diet plan. It is my personal belief that everyone should eat at least one animal source of protein a day. The body likes long chain, complex amino acids. Eating fish 3 times a week should be an absolute minimum for any vegetarian/vegan/etc (though I know you probably won’t), and for any meat eating heathen. This will eliminate the need for ingesting fish oil pills and is a much healthier solution. The fish oil industry is very suspicious and dirty. Don’t trust them, just eat real fish. Vegan enthusiast may argue that the consumption of animal proteins leads to an acidic PH of the bloodstream, but with enough raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts the body will be at the perfect PH. Taking 2 table spoon doses of apple cider vinegar with a large glass of water also helps with this.

Fats

Many people that believe in eating a healthy diet avoid this one component of food that they need the most: FAT! We use fat as direct energy and it also provides insulation to the cells of the body. Just like carbs and proteins, fats should be consumed from a wide variety of matter. Plant fats do not contain cholesterol and even saturated plant fats have been shown to decrease cholesterol. Coconut oil is a super food that should be a major part of everyone’s diets. High in lauric acid, it unarms fungus, bacteria, and viruses in the body and promotes healthy bodily functioning. It is also excellent for digestion and delivers a solid punch of energy with any small meal.

I recommend 1 tablespoon of coconut oil with meals to aid in digestion (may be unnecessary in high fat meals). Saturated animal fats are not the bad guys that they have been made out to me. The cholesterol contained in these fats is the back bone to the hormone molecule.

The French Paradox

“The French Paradox is the observation that Frenchmen suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.”

Did you know that Americans have some of the world’s highest rates of heart disease, obesity and diabetes? This has nothing to do with the consumption of fat! Consumed fats are not reformed into body fat. They are burned, used to insulate cells or passed out of the body. Consuming fat will not make you fat. That is the job of sugar and carbs.

With these things said I offer a sample daily diet:

Wake up:
1-2 large cups of luke warm->warm water to encourage regularity

Breakfast to slowly awaken the metabolism to a high rate of burn for the day(listen to the body, do not eat whole pieces of fruit if you are urged to slow down):
• 1 apple (wait until hungry and move on to next fruit)
• 1 banana (wait again until hunger returns)
• 1/2 grape fruit

2nd Breakfast (brunch)
• 2 hard boiled eggs
• ½ grapefruit

Lunch
• 4 celery stalks (for salt)
• Dense green salad
• 2 tablespoon Hemp seed
• Small bunch of grapes

Afternoon snack
• 2 table spoons of apple cider vinegar (raw, unfiltered, organic) with 2 teaspoons of raw/local/organic honey in half a cup of warm water
• Mixed raw nuts
• I cup of plain kefir

Dinner
• 12 ounces of grilled tilapia
• Large dense salad
• Steamed broccoli
• 1 sweet potato

Desert
• Pineapple
• Mixed raw nuts

This is a very loose example of a daily diet. Feel free to add smoothies, different salads, and other foods. Pay attention to your body’s dialogue. Eat slowly…listen…and enjoy.

Alejandro Jodorowsky: Psychomagic

2010-03-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

The shaman, Jodorowsky, expounds on his revolutionary psychological breakthrough. The symbol facilitates healing with depth.

"The psychological mechanism that transforms energy is the symbol."

-Carl Gustav Jung

We can use the symbol for many purposes. We use it to create the future, dicipher the present, and heal the past. When we have done the healing work, we become more centered in the present, giving us leverage on creating the future that we desire.

Jodorowsky makes a priceless contribution to the human understanding. I wish we had him sooner.

Pt. 1 of 6:

Stephen's Purple Drink - Sangre del Arbol

2010-03-16T09:39:00.001-07:00

The cabbage has been a staple in western diets for thousands of years. Packed with Vitamin C and K, it was seen as a commodity in fighting scurvy and hangovers on the turbulent sea. Its phytonutrient make up make it an excellent antioxidant and destroyer of cancers. Notice the fractal tree of life pattern in the manifestation of this beautiful spirit, concealing the secrets of immortality.

Cabbage can be consumed raw, cooked, dried, pickled, and salt cured. For those wishing to avoid the unpleasant side effects of digesting cabbage fiber (excessive wind), juicing may be a preferable method. Cabbage juice is high in chlorine and sulfur (secret element of the alchemist) which clean and heal the mucus membranes of the intestines. All healing in the body takes place from the inside out. By investing healing energy in the digestive tract, we can proactively fight disease and fatigue. I recommend drinking at least 2 glasses a day, 4-5 if you have poor intestinal health or ulcers. Purple cabbage is higher anthocyanin (found in all purple/red/blue plants) which makes its nutritional content higher than green cabbages.
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=19

Stephen's Purple Drink

Tools:
Blender
Fine mesh strainer (wide brimmed - you can find at target)
large bowl
small bowl

Ingredients
Shredded Purple Cabbage
handful of chopped carrots
2-3 celery stalks

Fill blender a little more than 3/4's of the way with shredded purple cabbage, add handful of cut carrots and celery. Fill blender 3/4's full of clean, fresh, unadulterated water (preferably blessed with loving intention). Blend on high for 1 min. Pour mesh into strainer and strain into bowl. Place small bowl onto cabbage mesh and slowly add pressure. The juice is ready to drink. May store for approximately 3 days.

This recipe can be modified into a powerful cheap pro-biotic formula. Just fill the blender full of cabbage, add 3/4's blender of water. Blend for 1 min and let the mix sit at room temperature for 3 days. Strain off the pulp and you have your formula. Consume 1/2 cup with equal parts water 2-3 times daily. Word to the wise, this stuff stinks! You might want to take mix outside when drinking and mixing. More formula can be made by adding a cup of pro-biotic juice to fresh juice and let it sit for 24 hours. Probiotic recipe taken from Chris Gupta: http://www.eregimens.com/therapies/Diet/Cultured%20Cabbage.htm

Prayer and the Co-creation of Reality

2009-04-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

Excerpt CXXIII from In Memoriam by Lord Alfred Tennyson

There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
But in my spirit will I dwell,
And dream my dream, and hold it true;
For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

This giant mound of land and water rolling through space finds no peace in the pitch of night. Round and round it goes, illuminated by a ball of burning hydrogen. The consciousness of earth, expressing itself through man, is entangled in a web of illusion. The financial crisis rounds the herd into a ghetto of depression. Rogue flu strains creep into every corridor of space. War looms on every edge of the earth. Every waking moment is spent in terror of what plague God will caste upon us next. What is taking place in minds and hearts of men is that which threatens to destroy us. We must take our attention back and direct it in any way that we can use it to create a future for ourselves that is independent of central control. We don’t need legislation or even an army to do this. All that we need is our hearts, minds, and the will to act.

I am regretful to hear people have given up on prayer. These scarred and tattered souls have lost touch with the mystical roots their ancestors had worked so hard to preserve for the future generations. There is a general lack of enthusiasm for the spiritual realms in pop culture. The old truths have lost relevancy in a routine of redundant work, errands, and stress. The minds of the youth are so dominated by popular media that one can often find the moral of last night’s South Park episode dictating the philosophical medium of the average high school teenager.

Some manage to break through the sphere of local consciousness and relate to the free thinkers of the day. “God is dead,” declared Nietzsche. Many people seem to take this as an exclamation of the vacancy of spirit in the physical experience. Darwin’s theory portrays a random sequence of events leading to an existential existence where instant gratification is purpose. Still, others attempt to explain God through the rational faculties of the intellect, citing prayer as a selfish endeavor: “ One could not possibly change the will of God through prayer.” If God knows every atom at every place at every time in the Universe, then how could the individual dictate their will to God (a philosophical contradiction)? Others tell me that they have no use for prayer any more. Maybe it was due to the fact that they did not achieve the results they were seeking.

There has been a loss of heart in our generation. Technology, modern comfort, and socializing have taken the place of contemplation, meditation, and the search for ultimate truth. We don’t even have time to think anymore. Families disintegrate all around me, including my own. Families that can maintain the congenial binding, have little time to pay attention to the development of the soul and creation of a loving community. Most of free time that we have falls prey to shallow entertainment and consumerism.

Enter stage right, the new paradigm: 2011, the year before the Mayan end date. According to late Ian Lungold, 2011 signals the beginning of our next great lesson in the classroom of cosmic consciousness: co-creation.

http://mayanmajix.com/lab_F1.html

The calendar can be visualized as a pyramid, with each cycle promoting an overall lesson. Each lesson is proportionally smaller than the proceeding lesson, forcing consciousness to experience the volume of the cycle in a smaller time frame. You can see by the diagram that we are currently in the Galactic Cycle in the lesson of “ethics”. Ethics is not a contract that you sign in school to guilt trip you out of cheating; it is the understanding of karma, unity, and civility. For the ruling Anglo-American civilization, this lesson will be an especially hard lesson to learn and will result in pain and upheaval. Not only will conspiracy come to light in this time period but the intentions of the controllers will be exposed and confronted. The ugliness and pain of this experience will be eclipsed in the year 2011 when man learns that he/she is a co-creator of the Universe; a living, breathing tapestry that responds and aligns to every thought and emotion we generate. Daniel Pinchbeck cites Rudolf Stiener in his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzecoatl, with the following prediction: the entire population of earth would be completely enlightened by the end of 2010. When I first read of this “prediction”, I was astounded. There is no way, even half of earth’s population could be anywhere near enlightenment by 2011. After researching the Mayan calendar, and having teachers such as Ian Lungold, I am beginning to think differently.

As the economy continues to collapse and the overlords make their final asset grabbing free for all, more and more people turn towards prayer. It is likely that most of the prayers whispered in the lonely night of material disintegration will be directed more toward intervention and less toward creation. One might say, “Oh Lord, Jesus, please pay my mortgage…I need a miracle. I will do anything if you get my mortgage paid this month. I’ll never stare at a woman’s ass again. I’ll never eat Twinkies. I’ll help my mom clean her garage…anything, Lord!!!” These sorts of people have a skewed vision of who or what God is and will have very little luck getting anyone to intercede on their behalf. The mystic understands that God is not a person that is there to throw us a bone in times of need or smite us under his thumb. Thankfully we have true champions of spirit such as Gregg Braden blazing the torch of enlightenment for us to follow suit and create a world of our own.

In his book, The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy, he explains the quantum connection between the self and the exterior world and that our thoughts and emotions play an important part in the experience that we create for ourselves. He also tells of his miraculous experiences such as witnessing the healing of physical wounds right before his eyes, missing space and time, and Native American rain dances.

We are literally connected with our external world. There is no difference between what is inside your head and what is going on around you. The mind is projecting a hologram of fluxuating energy that is designed to respond to every thought and emotion that the individual can create. Scientist have recently discovered that we can change reality by mere observation.

Dr. Quantum, The Double Slit Experiment
What the Bleep Do We Know!

Mr. Braden hypothesizes a new model of prayer. This model is new in a sense that it is unknown to the west, but in reality has slipped through the reflections of antiquity and safely landed in the present. The four suits of modern playing cards, the Tarot, and the four lettered name of God encompass this model for prayer. The formula follows as such:

THOUGHT + EMOTION = FEELING
FEELING + ACTION = DESIRED RESULT
(Thought + Emotion) + Action = Result

I have stated in earlier blogs the connection between Tarot and the ancient formula for prayer. Fire is thought, water is emotion, air is action, and earth is the final outcome

Gregg tells a story of traveling into the Himalayan mountains to find a monastery where he could learn secret teachings to bring back to the world. Finally arriving at the monastery, he begins to petition a meeting with the abbot. After winding down halls of chanting monks and wading through puddles of yak butter, he meets the abbot. He asks, “if you had one thing to tell the modern world, what would it be?” The abbot responded, “You must feel your prayers.” Feeling? Really? That’s it? That’s what I have been missing all this time? Yes.

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. " Mark 11:24

Usually, our prayers consist of thoughts assigned to some arbitrary emotion. We may unknowingly couple our prayers with fear, worry, anxiety, etc. These emotions consist of lower vibrations and even though they do strengthen the power of the prayer, we may be unknowingly attracting outcomes that inconsistent with our desires. The single most powerful emotion that one can attach to any prayer is gratitude. The vibration emitted by the emotion of gratitude signals the universal energy to shape into the picture that we have formulated. It is like creating a mold for the future, and the Universal energy flows into the mold, solidifying into your own creative intention. In everything we do, we must be grateful. When we wake up in the morning, we must be grateful to live to see another day unfold. We must be grateful when we put on our cloths, grateful when we eat our breakfast, and when we get into our cars.

When we practice prayer and gratitude, the aura is bathed in light streaming from the chakras opening crown, heart, and root chakras to create a flow. When our energy flows, we are healthy, happy, and content. Stagnation causes disease and emotional problems. The ability to maintain a center of gratitude will also increase our ability to manifest destiny. Some may have difficulties maintaining any level of gratitude due to the severing of the emotional body from waking consciousness.

Connecting to the emotional body is easier said than done. From the time we are born, we learn to repress our emotions just to be able to function. Bright lights, cold air, strange people, being ripped from our mother and smacked on the ass violate everything we have known to be. These catastrophic events are repressed in the psyche, initiating a cycle of habitually detaching from emotion; debilitating our ability to see the self as it is. We live in a patriarchal paradigm that values pride, patriotism, sacrifice, and the masculine display of power. By reconnecting to our emotions in a healthy way, we change the paradigm from within, manifesting a world in balance of male and female.

http://www.formfunctionemotion.net/archives/2004/11/27/the-end-of-usability-culture.html

Reconnecting to the right brain is embracing the feminine aspect of our being. Honoring the feminine has more to do with being nice women and girls. It is an acknowledgement to the female within, the right side of the brain, the emotional experience. The Return of the Divine Feminine prophesied by so many indigenous tribes and pagan systems of faith is none other than the return of right brain thinking, balancing the dominating left half and initiating an understanding of co-creating reality.

Though many people say “grace” over their food, they neglect the single most important element to our survival: water. Why say grace over water? Water is a symbol of the feminine, emotional energy. The Star card from Crowley’s Thoth deck depicts the energy of the star spiraling energy out as water flows from a cup. This card is representative of the Aquarian age, a water sign with water as its identifying symbol. Maybe this indicates that the study of emotion and how it affects our future time lines may become very important in the years to follow as we enter the Aquarian age. Understanding water as a metaphor for emotional energy, we can visualize the thought of our prayers as the form into which the liquid emotion flows and solidifies.

According to Dr. Emoto, water is the most receptive of the elements. He conducted a study on the effects of thought/emotion on water. Water that is structured well forms hexagonal liquid crystals. Dr. Emoto found from hundreds of trials of independent experimentation that when the crystal freezes, the form developed is dependent on the thought/emotion projected onto it.

The structure of water dictates your body’s ability to use it in ways that benefit normal functioning and longevity. Danny Vitalis and Dr. Leonard Horowitz give much more background to this science and the practical application. ( http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com/watch?v=V_hvLvS2dgY, http://www.drlenhorowitz.com/) Connecting to water is to connect to the emotional body. “As above, so below. As within, so without.” –Hermes “Thoth” Trismegestis

Dr. Phil says, “The Universe rewards action!” (Don’t persecute me for quoting Dr. Phil, he’s not half bad) When we act on our prayers, the Universe (the inner self) will go out of its way to bring us opportunities and situations that will manifest our desired result. Although the outcome is usually different than we imagined, it will more often than not, exceed our expectations doing everything it can to bring us abundance and prosperity. The Universe doesn’t want us to be miserable, living in a day to day struggle to feed our children. It wants us to be full of joy and wonder at creation. We live in heaven, but our collective psychological underdevelopment perpetuates a living hell: a prison. Our technology continues to advance at an exponential rate enabling us to travel into space, yet we cannot solve the riddle of unhappiness.

Taking all of these points into consideration, a simple prayer would go something like this, “Thank you (Jesus, God, Allah, the Universe, self) for my new job. I am thankful for the ability to maintain financial independence, care for my family, and purchase a new house”. Repeat the prayer often so that it sinks deep into the unconscious. I am not the type to formulate my prayers into words, so experiment, research, and gather your results. It only takes a few successes to convince the subconscious of a new reality pattern and open the flood gates of personal creation. Now take action! Your new job could very well land on your lap, but it would have a much better chance if you search for the job, schedule an interview, and then show up. Baby steps…baby steps…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattijn/192130947/

Accessing the 5th Dimension

As far out as this may seem, it is not impossible. In fact, you access the 5th dimension on a regular basis in your dreams and day dreams. We live in a three dimensional world and perceive a fourth dimension of time so that we may pinpoint a place in space-time with four coordinates: x, y, z axis’s and time. The fifth dimension lies right outside of time: the realm of thought. This mind is a powerful template of creation, communication, and problem solving. How many times have you been trying to solve a problem, or remember the name of a particular someone and you just can’t seem to grasp that which is just beyond the reach of your cognition? Then during some completely unrelated activity, the thought suddenly jumps into your head with no effort. This is because the mind works in a non-linear (outside of time) fashion as a hologram of information and experience. It is much more than it seems being that the unconscious (that functioning that you are unaware of) makes up for 99% of the total mind.

This exercise was written by Dr. Bruce Goldberg as a relaxation technique (functioning no different from shamans and wizards of old) and can be found on his website: http://www.drbrucegoldberg.com/Exercise1.htm .

Dr. Goldberg is one of the world’s leading authorities on past and future life regression, time travel, and the super conscious mind tap. All of his books are excellent and available on the website. You may use this exercise by reading through and quickly memorizing the major points to the technique and then meditating in silence or to some soft music. If you are not comfortable doing this, you can record yourself reading the script on the computer and play it back to yourself in a meditative state.

http://www.trwelch.com/pubs.html

Sanctuary Exercise

Sit back, breathe deeply, and send a warm feeling into your toes and feet. Let this feeling break up any strain or tension, and as you exhale let the tension drain away. Breathe deeply and send this warm feeling into your ankles. It will break up any strain or tension, and as you exhale let the tension drain away. Breathe deeply and send this feeling into your knees, let it break up any strain or tension there, and as you exhale let the tension drain away. Send this warm sensation into your thighs so any strain or tension is draining away. Breathe deeply and send this warm feeling into your genitals and drain away any tension.

Send this warm feeling into your abdomen now; all your internal organs are soothed and relaxed and any strain or tension is draining away. Let this energy flow into your chest and breasts; let it soothe you and as you exhale any tension is draining away. Send this energy into your back now. This feeling is breaking up any strain or tension and as you exhale the tension is draining away. The deep, relaxing energy is flowing through your back, into each vertebra, as each vertebra assumes its proper alignment. The healing energy is flowing into all your muscles and tendons, and you are relaxed, very fully relaxed. Send this energy into your shoulders and neck; this energy is breaking up any strain or tension and as you exhale the tension is draining away. Your shoulders and neck are fully relaxed. And the deep relaxing energy is flowing into your arms; your upper arms, your elbows, your forearms, your wrists, your hands, your fingers are fully relaxed.

Let this relaxing energy wash up over your throat, and your lips, your jaw, your cheeks are fully relaxed. Send this energy into your face, the muscles around your eyes, your forehead, your scalp are relaxed. Any strain or tension is draining away. You are relaxed, most completely relaxed.And now float to your space, leave your physical body and move between dimensions and travel to your space, a meadow, a mountain, a forest, the seashore, wherever your mind is safe and free. Go to that space now. And you are in your space, the space you have created, a space sacred and apart. Here in this space you are free from all tension and in touch with the calm, expansive power within you. Here in this space you have access to spiritual information and energy. Here is the space where you can communicate with your spirit guides. Your flow is in harmony with the flow of the universe. Because you are part of the whole creation you have access to the power of the whole of creation. Here you are pure and free. This is your personal sanctuary.

Creating Reality from the Sanctuary

The sanctuary is now your access point to a stable environment in the 5th dimension. This sanctuary is as every bit as real as the world around you. The more practice you put into accessing this space, the more the energy will stabilize and create a conduit of spiritual power for you to use at your disposal.

New age philosophy has been making mainstream ripples with the publication of The Secret. The Secret suggest that if you want something bad enough, you will physically attract the like. Although this is a good start to understanding the mechanics of intention, it is not an absolute formula for success.

The book explains the phenomenon as the Law of Attraction. Although there is a spiritual law that says, “Like attracts like”, there is no such Law of Attraction. This pseudo-law is actually part of a broader concept called the Law of Abundance, which takes more than whimsical wishes into account. Karma, literally translated as action, has an equal and opposite reaction (thank you Newton). By creating good karma, one can start a flow of positivity in their direction. The more good karma is created, the stronger and speedier the flow of abundance. Remember, once this flow is created, bad karma flows back just as fast and sharp. You can create good karma by having grace on people less fortunate than yourself. This includes volunteer work, donating to a charity or church (I would suggest you make sure you know exactly how your money is being used), or just helping someone in need. Helping people without telling them where the help came from can also be a very rewarding pursuit. If you are worried about doing good deeds for the sake of good karma, get over yourself. Just start helping out the people around you without expecting anything in return (money, recognition, or even a thank you) and let your new positive emotions do the work for you.

Here, we will learn how to create the “like” in the fifth dimension and let the Universe attract the physical equivalent while sowing good karma in this dimension.

Before entering a meditative state and journeying into the sanctuary, list a few adjectives and characteristics of the person/place/thing that you wish to attract into your life. This could be physical appearances, personality traits, job descriptions, pay range, color, shape, etc. Now that you have an idea of exactly what you want to attract, you may enter the dimension of the spirit world. It is not necessary to go through the deep relaxation techniques on every visit to the sanctuary. Your mind will become familiar with the routine and automatically go into a relaxed alpha wave state with little effort after practicing the relaxation technique a few times. Just begin meditating, take a few deep breaths , go to your sacred space of peace and meditate there for a few minutes.

Journey to your shamanic sanctuary and proceed with the following. Begin to visualize the physical appearance of your desired object. Try to really bring out the details of all the senses, how does it feel, how does it smell, etc.? Imagine this object as having all the attributes that you desire. After you have built the form of the desired object, fill the form with an emotion of gratitude. Feel gratitude for having this special object in your life and how it has enhanced your health and happiness. Really try to feel the energy flowing from your heart and surrounding the object. Hold this sensation/visual for a moment or two. Now shrink down this image and place it in your heart. Imagine the object in your heart turn to light and then slowly seep into every cell of your heart. and begin to radiate throughout your body. It encompasses your whole body, then bleeding into the aura and then the entirety of the Universe. The light is now radiating from your heart out to the furthest corners of the Universe, pulsating and breathing with life. After a moment or two of pulsing light from your heart, slowly return to the sanctuary. Thank your guides (God, Jesus, Allah, Universe) for helping you manifest your desires and guiding you through the dense earth plane.

Stay here for a few minutes and when you are ready let yourself drift up and back to your usual waking reality. You will return relaxed, refreshed, and filled with energy. And you will return now, gently and easily. Open your eyes.

This is a new day in your life. You can take control. You can change the channel. You are creating reality.

Dalet Part 2: Mega Memory

2009-03-18T10:11:00.001-07:00

The visual cortex of the brain is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful tools that we have been given in this life. It amazes me that I did not have even one class on how to use this potentially enlightening gift in any of my classes in preschool. If you want to make your child smart, you would introduce them to this side of their intelligence as early as possible. Crowley said that children should be instructed in the symbolism of Tarot as early as possible, and for good reason.
Linking visualization with memory is the key to hyper expansion of the memory. Anything that you are trying to memorize (names, directions, study sheets) can be compacted into series of pictures, animations, or symbols. It has been theorized that the Occipital Lobe can receive information directly from the pineal gland, and that we are realizing hidden dimensions of awareness inside the mind when utilizing this phenomenon. Many of us in the in the ever growing circle of mystics, understand the all pervading energy of the symbol. By awakening the mind to the language of symbols, you automatically begin to awaken dormant patterns of observation and integration. Memory becomes expanded and information in the nether regions of the mind comes to light with ease never before imagined.

I remember engaging this forgotten asset of the mind for the first time in middle school. My English teacher was submerging us into the world of poetry. Gently guided into a meditative state, we were told to visualize our minds as a chalk board. The board is full of everything that is buzzing in our lives: jumbled emotions, worries, hopes, etc. We were instructed to wipe the board clean with a few giant sweeps of an imaginary eraser. I remember breaching the familiar feeling of clarity, though I had not experienced it at this intensity. From this primordial stepping stone, we ventured into a shamanic journey of colors, sounds, and textures. We were told to just let images regarding these sensations to fill our minds. She spoke the color BLUE, and I was overwhelmed by the smell of the ocean, the sand at my feet and the cool breeze of the water on my face. Eventually, these images given to me by my own mind would become my first poem.

This powerful lesson was to become a jumping point for my research later in life.
Jumping ahead to my first band….

I have not always been a very versatile musician. Most people who have tried to play heavy metal understand that it can be quite confrontational. Jazz musicians usually don’t have a hard time picking it up, but I barley played guitar and was 17 at the time and had not been playing for more than a few years. I was having trouble remembering a particular rift, when my good friend and past band mate, Alex Bois, gave me a very thoughtful suggestion. He said, “See the riff as an airplane.” What the hell was he talking about?! Eventually, I saw that the shape of the riff on the guitar fret board and it really did take the form of an airplane. From that point on, I was able to visualize all the riffs as different shapes and symbols and never had a problem remembering anything.

Jumping forward again to the present, I came across the work of Kevin Trudeau. I purchased his tapes on Mega Memory for 1 cent off Amazon.com and I’m sure it is still cheaply available. Kevin’s system depends mostly on the development of an exaggerated analogous narrative. He walks the individual through a guided meditation of a ridiculous story that seems to have no relativity unto itself. It becomes undeniably clear after several repetitions of the narrative, that the eccentricity of the story is the mechanism for memory. According to Kevin’s method, the more exaggerated you can visualize your metaphor, the easier it will be to remember. Kevin’s guided visualization was something along the lines of:

[You are climbing the Statue of Liberty. You walk to the top and step the edge of the crown and throw a hundred purple pennies down to the ground. You jump from the statue and land on the back of a red bus. The bus spins around the corner and runs over an old man dressed as a ring master...etc]

Though the narrative was longer and more detailed but you get the point. The visualization was repeated about 3 times and then we were asked to remember specific details of the journey. The details are much easier to remember when you can SEE them, as if they were a past experience.

The mind cannot perceive the difference between what is imagined and what real.

I employed this technique throughout the remainder of my college experience and saved countless hours memorizing mundane facts about whatnot, and who done it. I remember memorizing the 7 step problem solving model by creating a cartoon character in my head that went through a series of exaggerated metaphorical actions. Worked like a charm.

Here is a graphic representation of my visualized narrative for the problem solving method in a simpler form. In reality, the narrative would be much more colorful, detailed, and animated:

Match the visuals to the corresponding number on the problem solving model:

Define and Identify the Problem
Analyze the Problem
Identifying Possible Solutions
Selecting the Best Solutions
Evaluating Solutions
Develop an Action Plan
Implement the Solution

The development of the narrative with several walkthroughs of the visualization is all it takes for memorizing mundane facts in accordance to the educational curriculum. There are countless other applications for this technique. So get out there and do some exploring!

VISUALIZE REALITY AS YOU EXPERIENCE IT. And be creative.

Channeling the Beyond

2009-03-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

I am an IT professional by day. There is no need to let my coworkers have a glimpse into my world. It is a bit frustrating not being able to share my experiences, findings, and wonders with the people in my general vicinity. I feel like I am learning so much every day and there is really no one to tell, so I’ll keeps it tight with the blog and forum community. ‘Big ups’ to Red Ice Creations and the Synchromysticism Forum for doing their part in contributing to the great awakening and integrating the network of mystics and researchers.

The story begins with the end…of an evening that is. I had just come home from an enlightening Kabala class where I managed to gain some rewarding insights and tie together some angelic symbolism. I got home around ten o’clock and promptly medicated myself. I was feeling the inspiration and decided to hang out in my room and think about the events of the day. My recent musical purchase of Ragas by Ravi Shankar was dancing about my room with unique melodic phrases and rhythm counts of other worldly timing. The CD has instruction and lecture by Ravi on what exactly Ragas are, how to count them, and the phrasing concepts; a great purchase for any student of music. He then demonstrates these techniques in long story telling bouts of Indian musical tradition.

I was walking about the room; maybe even thinking of finding another activity to wind me down, when I heard the most curious suggestion coming from the voice of the sitar. With elegant and beautiful tonality, the sitar was coaxing me to take a seat on the floor and invest my time in some meditational exploration. Now the sitar was not metaphorically or intuitively giving me suggestions; it was literally giving me explicit instructions. The melody had become a voice, or what I was interpreting as voice and speech. Of course, the thought crossed my mind that this could be an illusion, maybe even part of my own psyche breaking through to me or my higher self finding a mode to guide me. Whatever this voice was, I decided to go with the program.

In earlier days, I would have never given a second thought to meditating while under the influence. How can you focus, when your mind is flowing in several directions at once? However, I had just finished reading A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley by Martin Booth. Crowley had used drugs religiously in conjunction with meditation and magical ritual, even contacting the ‘secret chiefs’. This is not something that I suggest anyone should practice unsupervised, especially trying to contact any ‘secret chiefs’. Marijuana is a hallucinogen and therefore visualization is heightened under the influence. Visualization is the key to accessing the wisdom of the ‘third eye’ so all hallucinogens play an important part in my personal development; I do, however, stress moderation and balance.

After making these virtual check points in my mind and deciding to engage the voice coming from the other end of the line, I assumed the half lotus position and began to relax. All the while, the voice is instructing me on my posture and breathing speaking in beautiful rhythmic patterns, weaving a tapestry of love and comfort. The voice sang, “Six deep breaths. Now we begin, with three breaths in and three out.” The first gift of the creator was the breath, and so we can connect to the life force through yogic breathing, learning to coordinate the diaphragm with the upper chest. It can be compared to filling a glass of water and then emptying the glass of water in the same fashion. In my practice, yogic or circular breathing is used as a warm up to settle the mind and connect with the inner self. So there was no surprise that the voice was asking me to begin this way.

Even while I was taking the breaths, the voice was encouraging me every step of the way. On completion of the six breath, the voice exclaimed the emotion of joy and the music coincided with a raise in vibration and speed of the tabla player.

The next step given to me was a fascinating technique for the illumination of the third eye. I had worked with the chakras before, but this technique was a little different. I was instructed to imagine a small flame in the center of my head or even the symbol of a flame. Still, my posture was under constant ‘observation’ by this disincarnate entity, and I made several adjustments or alignments during the course of the experience. Each time, the adjustments were to make my spine straighter, shoulders back, navel in, and move the legs around to support the structure. I even stretched my back muscles periodically then returned to the straightest posture I could manifest.

Now that I was fully illuminating the third eye, I received my next instruction. While holding the flame or symbol (whichever is easier, I found the symbol easier while I was focusing on other things) in position, I was told to pulse sheets of white light down my body. Starting at the crown, let the light paint your body from all directions, going all the way down to the root. This process was repeated a multiple of times. Each time, bliss and ecstasy beamed from my heart and mind and brought me closer to the true nature of being.

At this point, I was beginning to catch glimpses of movement in this light world I had created from the depths of my mind. One can always think that they will remain brave in the face of other worldly events, but until you are right there standing at the doorway, you have no idea how you are going to react. I remind you, I was a little high. The anxiety was starting to hit me and I had to back down. I was assured that this was ok, and even expected. While I sat for a moment and contemplated the events that had transpired, the voice was in constant communication with me, sending words of encouragement and joy.

During my little break, I had the idea to try some of my long distance healing work. The thought sparked a reaction of glee from the sitar and the tablas let out a trilling drum roll to initiate the next lesson. I began to visualize a friend of mine, who had been put on a kidney transplant list due to the fact that her body had gone auto-immune and attacked her kidneys, leading them to cease function. My idea was to rub the kidneys between my fingers (of my chi body), infusing them with light. I thought that maybe I could ignite them, like the spark of an engine, to get them to ‘turn over’. As I began feeding light into the kidneys, the suddenly turned to mush, and then a sand like substance, slipping right through my hands.

I was surprised and perplexed. Did this mean that there was nothing I could do for her? The voice grabbed my attention and addressed the situation in my heart, “Love is the center of all healing”. I was then instructed in a mudra for the heart chakra, “Fold the hands over the heart.” Later, my brother told me that this was ‘the mudra’ for the hearth chakra. My lessons in Peruvian shamanism had given me an understanding of the role unconditional love plays in healing. There are multiple healing modalities that do not utilize unconditional love at all, and that’s ok. It is not necessary. For my path, I believe that unconditional love will come into play with a lot of my work and that my guides want me to make a habit of accessing that vibration.

I do not live in unconditional love. I shift moods. I am sometimes cynical, dark, and/or brooding. The lesson is to access unconditional love in the moment. No matter what you think or feel about the person you are working with, you must find a way to unconditionally love them in that period that you are working with them. *(thanks to my teacher Maya Phoenix for making that clear)

At one point, I had an emotional rift with the friend of mine that I was working on, and needed to reset my energy if I was going to address her situation. I found the green center of glowing light deep in my chest and began to expand upon the feeling. Love is a vibration that you can tune in on at any time. Just imagine you are holding a small pet (puppy or kitten) or an infant closely to your chest. Do you feel that? Expand!

From here on, I started to lose my concentration. The length of my day and the intense focus had left me exhausted. I wrote down my experience in my magical journal and tried to go about the rest of my night. My problem was….I had left the phone off the hook. If you ever encounter an unexpected channeling session, be sure to close it out properly. I heard voices for the rest of the night that were quite annoying. I assumed that my ego had taken over. This had happened to me before many years ago on a mushroom trip. I tried to animate a voice in my head, give it a life of its own and it proceeded to fuck with me relentlessly. I would compare the post channeling experience to this. So remember to ‘hang up the phone’ to establish personal boundaries with disincarnate entities.

I am not going to try to actively channel beings. The experience was great, but not something I want to make a habit of. I will take the techniques that I learned and continue to practice them. I was a little freaked out to even listen to the Ravi Shankar CD again. Thankfully, I enjoyed it without any recognition of other worldly voices.

Tarot Deck 2: The Minor Arcana

2009-03-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rose_Cross_Lamen.svg

In my personal studies of the Tarot, I have found the Minor Arcana to be the hardest to translate into meaningful interpretations. The symbolism is complex and vague all at the same time. The Rider-Waite deck is the hardest for me to translate as most decks give a one word summary of the meaning and the Rider-Waite uses only pictures. What I believe Waite was trying to accomplish (though I have not read his Tarot research), was to use certain scenes from daily life, medieval times, and mythology to describe the broad meanings of the card based on a specific formula. Anyone who owns other esoteric decks such as Crowley’s Thoth Deck or The Golden Dawn Magickal Tarot will notice that the cards of the Minor Arcana contain astrological symbols. These symbols may even confuse the reader as they do not always seem to correspond with the written interpretations of the card. I have written on this subject previously in my blog but I will go through all the symbol systems involved to clarify.

The Minor Arcana is the second deck of the Tarot, the court royal cards being a separate deck all together. There are 40 cards in the deck all together. The number 40 has a long history of symbolism found throughout the Bible and ancient cultures. The great flood was accompanied by 40 days and nights of rain, Jesus walked the desert for 40 days and nights, and the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years. According to Ernest Busenbark in his book, Sex, Symbols and the Stars, the number 40 may had been attributed to turmoil and hardships followed by a renewal as it coincides with the cycle of human gestation being 40 weeks or 10 twenty eight day months (18).

The tetragrammaton is the four lettered name kept sacred to Judaism and paganism across the world and is encrypted into various components of the Tarot. This ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ name has often been described as a representation of the four elements. The four fold nature of being, as articulated by Carl Jung’s quaternary, are intellect, intuition, emotion, and sensation (http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=1722). This can be seen as we think thoughts, feel emotions, use instinctive decision making combining thought and emotion, and sense the world around us. The four suits of the Tarot, the four elements (fire, water, air, earth), and the four fold nature of being are all symbolically equal. The Tarot in conjunction with Kabala, describes each of these natures further by inscribing the Tree of Life in each of the four worlds. The Tarot is graphically and symbolically describing what the written tradition of Kabala has been teaching at least since the 10th century.

The symbolism is completely holographic with the existence of each of the four worlds in each separate world:

This allows for many levels of information to be encoded into the symbolism as we apply Kabala to Tarot, as it was meant to be. There are other symbolic relationships engrained into the tree itself, such as pillars, triangles, paths, etc. Any understanding of these will further advance your study of Tarot and your ability to draw information from the spreads.

SYMBOL KEYS

Each card of the Minor Arcana contains a NUMBER that represents the SPHERE on the Tree and a SUIT which represents the mode of being or ELEMENT. There is one more system of information added to the Minor Arcana that is not easily perceived. It contains the entire Zodiac, though in a different format than the Major Arcana.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/heritage/egyptians2.html

Each house of the Zodiac contains 3 sub houses called decans or decantes. Decan means ‘division or ruler of ten’ as the whole Zodiac is 360 degrees and each decan is 10 degrees making 36 decans. Extracting the 4 aces from the 40 cards gives us 36 (40-4=36). The ace of each suit is not represented in the wheel because the ace is considered to be the pure emanation of that element. For example: the ace of cups can be seen as the pure emanation of emotion (water) in its highest form; love. It is rather simple. As we move into the 2 or Chockmah, the card takes on the symbols of the decan and house.

Venus in Cancer with Chockmah in Briah is a very balanced energy. It is the love that we can understand as we live in a dualistic reality. Venus represents love, art, the mother, and the divine feminine. We know that Cancer is a water sign, making it compatible with Venus (love, female, water). Cancer is a motherly, protective shell as illustrated by the crab. Chockmah is the first split off of Kether, and it still holds stability of divine energy. Combining all of these concepts, love is weighed as a balanced force, not like the duality of good and evil but the idea of active and passive.

THE FORUMULA

For you math majors:
(Decan + House) + (Element + Modality) = Minor Arcana

A great site to get to initiate an understanding the role Kabala plays in Tarot is:
Raven’s Tarot Site
http://www.corax.com/tarot/

I believe this book is essential to beginning Tarot studies, especially to those people serious about studying Crowley’s Thoth Deck:
Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot
By Lon Milo Duquette

The Book of Thoth
By Aleister Crowley

Good Reading:
http://www.alphaorion.com/MinorArcana.pdf

And Some Message on the Way

2009-02-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

This is a poem by Sohrab Sehperi
A brilliant Persian poet and painter

And Some Message on the Way

Some day I shall come and bring a message.
I shall cast light into veins.
And I shall call out: "O you whose baskets are full of dreams!
I have brought you an apple, the red apple of the sun."

I shall come to offer the begger a lilac flower.
I shall bestow on the lovely lepros lady a pair of earings.
To the blindman I shall exclaim:
"What a sight the garden is to behold!"
I shall become a peddler, roam the alleyways crying out,
"O dews, dews, dews."
A passerby will remark: "It is indeed a dark night."
To him I shall give a galaxy.
On the bridge there is a little legless lass.
Round her neck I shall hang the great bear.

From the lips I shall remove all obscenities.
From the root, I shall pull out all walls.
I shall inform the bandits: "A caravan is arriving carrying a load of smile."
I shall tear up the clouds.
I shall graft the eyes onto the sun, the hearts onto love,
the shadows onto water, and the branches onto wind.
I shall graft infant`s dreams to the murmur of crickets.

I shall fly kites.
I shall water flowerpots.
I shall go to horses and cows, putting the green grass of caress before them.
For a thirsty mare, I shall bring a pail of dews.
There is a decrepit donkey on the way I shall scare the flies off its body.

I shall come to plant a carnation on each wall.
I shall chant a verse to every window.
I shall bestow on each crow a pine tree.
I shall tell the snake: "How glorious is the frog!"
I shall reconcile.
I shall familirise.
I shall walk on.
I shall eat light.
I shall love.

All Hail the Goddess!

2009-02-11T07:18:00.001-08:00

Atalanta Rising By Keith Stillwagon

Queue John Lennons Verse on A Day in the Life:

Woke up, got out of bed

Dragged a comb across my head

Found my way downstairs and drank a cup

And looking up…..

I promptly flipped the fuck out! Now, it was my choice to lose my cool. I didn’t have to, but I did. Maybe it was the fact that I really didn’t want to get up out of bed, and I definitely didn’t want to go to work this morning. I’m drinking my morning cup of water, and my mother is listening to her usual Christian fundamentalist programming. What made this morning different from any other morning was the message permeating the consciousness of thousands of sheeple across the country.

Today, the message was for women. The preacher fervently exclaimed the women’s place in the Christian household. They must submit to the will of their husbands, live to serve and protect, and be humble in their role in the marriage. He then went on to condemn ‘self-opinionated women’, and at this point the rage began to overtake my early morning haze. What do you mean ‘self-opinionated’? A woman who has an independent approach to thinking? A woman who is her own person, separate from the construct of marriage?

I did calm down a bit as the preacher taught the men that they could learn a thing or two from the compassion of women…just breath, it’s going to be ok. But by this time, my mother and I were getting into a first-thing-in-the-morning-philosophical-argument-on-the-dogma-of-Christianity, which is not good for anybody. She told me that the Bible says that the man is the leader of the house, and that since I had not accepted the teachings of the Word of God in my heart, I could not understand. Gee, I guess getting the ‘Word of God’ hammered into my head since I could breath doesn’t classify as accepting the Word in my heart. The fact of the matter is I had accepted everything that my parents taught me in my heart as a child. Who, as a child, could conceive of the possibility that their parents could possibly not have a clue of what they were talking about?! Nobody! I accepted everything that they taught me whole heartedly. Yes, there is an invisible man in the sky that I must obey and love with all my heart, or I will be cast down into the abyss of hell to be burned alive for the rest of eternity…but….HE LOVES ME! (R.I.P. George Carlin).

I’m not going to get into what this did to me as I entered the society of lunatics known as elementary school, or when this world view lost any relevance in middle school, or when I embraced the antithesis in high school. Needless to say, that I eventually lost my mind with no compass to guide my soul on the journey of life. My twisted rationality ruled the way that I experienced my reality. And since I did not address my inner situation of turmoil and distress, it appeared outside of me as fate.

Through certain traumatic experiences that lead me in the direction that was my ultimate purpose, I began to understand that rational, linear thinking was the bane of society. Our masculine paradigm is a corruption of the inner self. We are taught from birth that our environment is there for our benefit, to manipulate and destroy in the name of technological advancement; we know nothing of our symbiotic relationship to our surroundings. It is an eternal dance of give and take, a forever evolving experience of creation.

At this point, I began to understand that the way to personal balance and ascension was through a completely different modality of expression: the divine feminine.

The High Priestess Tarot card illustrates everything I could say in one picture. She, alone, guards the entrance to the Temple of Solomon in between the two pillars Joaquin and Boaz. We are each a living, breathing temple of the divine spirit. At her feet is the moon, the symbol of the unconscious which makes up the greater part of our minds. The cross on her chest does not endorse the message of Christianity, but the mastery of the four fold nature of being as understood by the matriarchy of the past. Inside the temple, we see a ‘garden of pomegranates’. For those of you familiar with Israel Regardie’s work and the Order of Golden Dawn might recognize this as a symbol for the kabalistic Tree of Life and indeed the shape is also suggestive.

The crown of the High Priestess is an ancient symbol for the female goddess consisting by a waxing and a waning moon flanking a full moon:

The full moon highlights the ‘third eye’ on the High Priestess which is directly aligned with the sphere of Daath on the Tree of Life. Daath is a very interesting study all on its own. Being the 11th sphere of the tree, it represents knowledge that comes about as the fruit of the feminine path. Coincidently, I was about to write something about 11:11 and it is now 11:11 on my computer screen and a message popped up from an application called ‘Magic’ telling me that the time is now 11:11 am and asking if I would like to continue my session. YES!

I digress. 11 is also know as the number of magick according to Aliester Crowley. Other researchers have connected the number 11 with the collapse of the twin towers, awakening divinity, and knowledge of the holy spirit.

Maynard James Keenan expresses his sentiments of the number 11 in the song Jimmy by Tool off the album Aenema:

Hold,

Your light,

Eleven lead me through each gentle step,

By step,

By inch by loaded memory 'till,

One,And one are one, Eleven.

So glow, Child, Glow.

I'm heading back home...

He is saying that until the ONE and ONE ( or the 11, or the two pillars Joaquin and Boaz, or the two pillars of the Tree of Life, ) become one (the middle pillar) represented by the High Priestess herself, only then will he be able to reunite with the missing aspects of his consciousness.

The last symbol of this card is held in the hands of the High Priestess as she guards the gate to the unconscious. If you can read the letters on the scroll, you see T O R A. From this we can assume that she is holding the Torah. Michael Tsarion has pointed out that in older times consonants remained the same but the vowels were often switched around so that Torah gives us Tarot. If we can define the Tarot as a set of symbolic archetypes in which we can use to interface with our own consciousness, then we may be able to apply the same definition to the Torah. The Torah is packed full of archetypes: Moses, Joshua, Enoch, Adam & Eve, etc. Each character represents an aspect of our own consciousness. We might be able to awaken these archetypes in our own life when we need to draw on their energy. The same goes for the archetypes of the Major Arcana: the Magician, the Emperor, the Universe. How often do we interact with the mental constructs under the guise of the unconscious? Constantly!

There are many prophecies of our times that speak of worldwide calamity and hostility. These are just symptoms or birth pangs of a dying age. As we leave behind the dogma of the Piscean age and slide into the Aquarian age, we will be experiencing the a renewal of the mind. It is very traumatic to leave behind everything you have ever known and could ever comprehend, but the fruit of this venture will be the evolution of the entire planet. The greatest prophecy of the new age is the “Return of the Divine Femine”. This simply means that we will cease to view the world from the left, masculine, logical side of the brain and come into balance with the right, feminine, intuitive side of the brain.

Here we will experience a rebirth. We will realize our connection to our brothers and sisters, and the great mother goddess, Gaia. One will not be able to harm another without being aware of harming themselves. We enter this world through the sacred portal of experience, to evolve the density of the 4th dimension Earth. Only from a woman can life come foward. The great mother goddess is the foundation of all experience and the path to enlightenment.

There are those that wish to capture complete control of the human race before we slip into enlightenment. They would like to lock us into this paradigm through the use of technology and hypnosis. Many have already fallen into their hands to live as robots, scrambling for material possessions; they are comforted by the security of financial slavery. There will be a ‘New World Order’, the question is: will we take control or will play into the hands of the overseers.

ALL HAIL THE GODDESS!

Dalet: A Crash Course to Operating the Third Eye Part 1

2009-01-30T11:23:00.000-08:00

The pineal gland has been the center topic of concern for many mystical circles of discussion. It is known as the ancient ‘third eye’ used by the masters to reach enlightenment. In David Wilcock’s presentation on the pineal gland, he explained that this gland found in the center of our brain receives more blood flow than any other gland in our brain. It is our own personal water gateway into the nether worlds. Lined with optical cells, David made the observation that maybe we actually use this gland to visualize our outer world in the inner sanctum of our experience. The pictures and shapes that we dream may come directly as a function of this gland.

The avatar name that I have been using for a while around the internet is Dalet. This is a Hebrew letter that can be literally translated as door. When I was taking Hebrew a few years ago, the rabbi explained to me that I could meditate on this letter to open channels of communication with the higher self. I have heard many teachers talk about this idea of the door, so the concept intrigued me.

We hear so much about the pineal gland as the third eye and how it is revered by all cultures. We even see its symbolism in our government, our secret societies, and the Vatican. But why is it so important? What are its uses? How can I use it to further my own spiritual evolution? I want to go over a few different uses in this blog and explore even more, further down the line. The truth is there are many ways to use the pineal gland, none of them are wrong.

We use the pineal gland everyday and don’t even consider it. Do you ever day dream? Do you think I pictures? These operations are governed by the pineal gland. Its innate function is to regulate the chemicals that produce our sleep cycles. One of the chemicals administered by the gland to regulate sleep cycles is the most powerful hallucinogen on earth called dimethyltryptamine (DMT). DMT is also pumped into the blood stream during the time of death creating the death experience as a hallucinogenic trip.

One of the ways that we can stimulate the pineal gland and our third eye chakra is with the use of hallucinogens. I never advise people to experiment with hallucinogens on their own but to find someone who knows what they are doing and follow are set of guidelines to produce a healthy trip. They are not for partying! They are for self discovery and cosmic awareness. If you do choose to go down the road of the hallucinogen, recommend finding some mushrooms (use discretion), or purchase some Salvia over the internet (its legal!). Psilocybin mushrooms make for a nice trip, but they last much longer than a salvia trip which last about 10 minutes as opposed to 4 hours. Its very important to pay attention to setting. I recommend getting out doors, making a camp fire, starting a drum circle, surrounding yourself with your favorite symbols, pick out some high quality vibrations for music, etc. For your first time, you probably want to have a ‘baby sitter’: someone who takes a much smaller dose so they can have one foot in your world in order to communicate but most of their body in the real world to maintain stability. This person will make sure that you don’t do things like run onto your local highway or do somersaults into the fire. I haven’t heard of these things happening, but its safety first when it comes to Mother Nature. There are much better guides out there for this sort of thing, hope this gives you a little guidance. Try http://www.shroomery.org/ its packed full of great information.

There are other, safer, slower avenues of stimulation such as yoga, meditation, anytime you study something with a sacred connotation. I believe that all of these things open the third eye and allow the wisdom of God to flow through your being.

Finding your personal Spirit Guide.

Everyone has a spirit guide. I believe that we have many spirit guides. There is a whole entourage of guides and angels that surround you at every moment. It takes a lot of work to incarnate on earth and you are watched over from the second you enter until the second you leave. All of these guides serve their purpose, but they guide that you will be meeting will be a part of yourself: an extension of your dormant cosmic wisdom.

This exercise was given to me by Dr. Lindsey Daniels during a presentation on a comparison of western psychology and Peruvian shamanism at the Mystikal Voyage. You can visit Dr. Daniels website at http://synchronisticalchemy.webnode.com/ and you can visit the Mystikal Voyage at http://www.mystickalvoyage.com/ . This is a journey to find your center, and the guide that awaits there for you.

Close your eyes and take several deep breaths. Breathing in slowly and deeply through the nose and out slowly through the nose. Relax. Be calm.

Imagine that you are a walking down a path; it can be anywhere, in any setting that brings you peace. You are walking down the path and you come to an opening. In this opening there are many paths, and you may choose anyone of them to follow. There is no wrong choice. You walk down the path and it winds back and forth a bit. Eventually, you come to a place that you determine to be your center. You go there and explore. What does your center look like? Is it the top of a mountain, a beach, a cave, a hole in the ground?

After coming to your center, ask with humility and respect to meet your guide. Wait at your center and whatever the first thing to come to you is your guide. It could be a sheep, or a cardboard box, or a snake, a grandparent. Whatever the first thing is that comes to you is your guide. Don’t second guess, take your first vision. This is your spirit guide; ask the name of your spirit guide. Now that you have met your guide you need to devise a stopping point called a dead canary.

Miners used a canary at the mouth of the mine to tell if air in the mine was ok to breath. If the canary was dead, then the air was not fit to breath. There are answers to questions that you are not ready to understand and your guide will gently let you in on what you need to know.

Ask your guide what the stopping point will be. After the guide has established the stopping point, tell him/her/it that you honor its wisdom and you will respect the dead canary. At this point, feel free to ask your guide some questions, you can make them simple and vague like, “how do I look better at work”, “why does my father act this way, when this happens”, “what about my childhood is affecting my behavior”, “why doesn’t my husband help around the house”, etc.

If you should happen to come across the dead cananry, feel free to ask the question differently. If “why does my father act this way” gets you the dead canary, ask “what can I do to help my father avoid this sort of behavior.”

Play with it, have fun. After you are done, thank your guide and leave your center. It is very important that you don’t second guess yourself. Go with your first impressions.

My guide is a red headed giant named Andre (go figure).

Today was a Jazz day.

2009-01-15T11:00:00.001-08:00

Poem by Stephen Gulliford

Today was a Jazz day.

Cool blue nights rise and fall in the alley where the moon plays,
smackling off the brick and steel burrows of gods.
Spirits conjured in nostalgia of Lester Young.
Black and blue, blue and blue.

Today was a Jazz day, not unlike any other day.

The Duke puts a hitch in my get up.
I swing down the corridor, poppin jive and smokin cats.
Maids and home mama's catch my vibe.
Breakn bottles with sewing pins, the Jazz Messangers master the chi of Bebop.

Yes, it was a Jazz day.

A reefer smoke sets my stride.
The city is buzzing.
The mission looses its shine.
Lady Day holds my hand by the shade of the pear tree.

Today was Jazz day, night light eyes.

Lindy hoppin, rock droppin, hot mama's at every turn.
Sweet sweat and smoke lingering in the hall.
Don't dance a square to this jam.
I snap a finger, dreaming of a Love Supreme.

It was just a Jazz day, like any other day.

The morning is young, the night is cold.
My swing comes to sway.
I reach into my dreams,
praying that tomorrow would remember today
and maybe I would wake to find
that today, is a Jazz day.

Astrological Associations of The Major Arcana

2009-01-12T10:50:00.000-08:00

This is a simple astrological breakdown according to The Golden Dawn. This system helps us draw more meaning from the pictoral forms of these astrological associations. It is also important in determining significators of the person involved in the reading. If someone you are reading is a Capricorn and The Devil comes up in the reading, you may draw an extra level of information out of the spread. There are many significators for every person in the deck that I will cover in more time.

Urine Therapy vs. Apple Cider Vinegar

2009-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. (The Book of Proverbs 5:15)*

But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? (Isaiah 36:12)* (See also 2 Kings 18:27)

(http://skepdic.com/urine.html)

There is a new disturbing trend arising out of the ashes of the pharmaceutical monopolies. Drinking one’s own urine seems to provide a wide spectrum of health benefits as a cure all. Many civilizations and times have promoted the medicinal use of urine. I have no doubt that this is a great method for disease prevention and personal nutrition….BUT! Come on…. I don’t want to drink piss. That sucks. What if there was another way? A middle path. Eureka! I believe I have found a solution.

There is another trend that is making a strong come back in our current age, raw Apple Cider Vinegar. I have been using this product for the last couple of months to heal myself of a persistent stomach ulcer. Now that the ulcer is gone, I was wondering if there was a good reason to keep this practice in my routine. I’m not one to usually get sick, but I have noticed that through these long cold bitter winter months, I haven’t had a sniffle, cough, fever, not a thing. What’s going on with this apple cider vinegar anyway?

Surprise, ACV has never even been studied by the FDA or any other profiting organization. This is because it is a natural occurring phenomenon and therefore cannot be patented; so no one can make any drug money on it. It is believed that ACV causes the body to balance its PH to the perfect level of slightly alkaline. Disease cannot live in the body with the correct PH. ACV is also acid and makes a great antiseptic. Here is a small list of the healing properties of ACV:

· ARTHRITIS
· ASTHMA
· BLOOD LOSS
· COLITIS
· COUGHS
· DIARRHEA
· DIZZINESS
· EAR DISCHARGE
· ECZEMA
· EYES (TIRED AND SORE)
· FATIGUE
· FOOD POISONING
· HAIR LOSS
· HAYFEVER
· HEADACHES
· HEARING
· HEARTBURN
· HEMORRHAGES
· HICCOUGHS (HICCUPS)
· HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
· INSOMNIA
· KIDNEYS AND BLADDER

The list goes on and on. This site has a list of hundreds of aliments with personal testimonies for each problem cured: http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/acvinegar.html

Tarot Hierarchy: Deck 1 symbols

2009-01-02T11:34:00.001-08:00

This will be an outline of the basic understanding of the tarot symbolism so that we may ultimately become more intuitive readers.

We know that the Tarot deck is broken down into three different decks. I would like to further break down each symbol archetype in each deck. The first deck is consisted of three elements, seven planets, and twelve zodiac signs. Each card represents a path on the tree of life, with negative and positive attributes. The elements are easy enough, the planets are a little harder, and the zodiac sings can be broken down into sign, element, modality, and planetary ruler. The complexity of the symbolism builds as we go from element to planet to sign and each I will explain how each component contributes to the personality of the overall symbolism.

The Elements

Fire is represented by the Aeon or Judgment card. A basic understanding of fire says that it is a purging energy. Represented by the letter Shin, which embodies the spiritual life force of the Universe, fire can be thought of as thought, spirit, insight, and new beginnings.

Water is represented by the Hanged Man and the letter Mem. This card represents the end of a cycle, baptism, the feminine, emotion, intuition, peace, and tranquility.

Air is represented by the Fool. What symbolic associations can you think of for air? What takes place in the air? Communication, spirit, action, relationships, intellectual reasoning.

Earth is not represented in the Hebrew aleph-bet, but is considered to be represented in the combination of the other three elements. Symbols commonly associated with the earth in Tarot are materialism, money, stability, and final outcomes.

The Planets

From here on out I would recommend the card interpretations of Michael Tsarion:
http://www.taroscopes.com/tocardmeanings.html

He includes positive, negative and reversed interpretations in the cards and I can’t find any that compare.

The Sun
The Sun is considered one of the strongest symbols in the Tarot, and for good reason. Anyone involved in synchromystics or conspiracy study knows the prominence of solar symbolism in our society. Representing ego, Sun Card and everything that comes with waking consciousness, we can compare the sun symbol to fire representing creativity, will power, clarity, success and purpose.

The Moon
The Moon represents the unconscious as a whole and is associated with Cancer and the 4th House. This symbol can be associated with The High Priestess Card, water and represents emotions, habits, intuition, and sensitivity .

Mercury
Mercury represents our communication and mediums for that communication, associated with Virgo and Gemini in the 3rd and 6th houses. Mercury is represented by logic, reasoning, thinking and communication. Mercury is represented by the Magician in Tarot and the element air.

Venus
Venus represents the goddess of love and is associated with Taurus and Libra and the 2nd and 7th Houses. We find Venus in the Goddess Card and can also represent love and relationships, family, compassion and heart and is associated with water and earth.

Mars
Mars is the pure masculine energy and represented by war with Aries and Scorpio and the 1st and 8th houses. The fiery Tower Card is the representative of Mars as a chaotic, brave, confident and cataclysmic change associated with air and fire.

Jupiter
Jupiter is the objective perspective with Sagittarius and the 9th house. Jupiter symbolizes expansion, growth, luck, revolution and good will and can be associated with the fire and earth energies.

Saturn
Saturn represents the material world with Capricorn and Pisces and the 10th and 12 houses. Saturn represents structure, duty, and rules associated with water and earth.

The Signs of the Zodiac

I will not be listing all of the meanings of the zodiac signs but I will just show a few examples to show how the symbols interact to come about with stronger, broader meanings.
The meaning for the zodiac signs follows a general formula:
Meaning = sign (element + modality) + planetary ruler
The sign itself holds a personality that is not completely derived from, but majorly influenced by the element and modality of the sign. Other components of the card can add further complexities to the meaning. I’m just trying to outline the basic understandings and you can go on to add at your own discretion: Hebrew letter, number, color, etc.

Lets take my sign for instance: Sagittarius

Represented by the Art Card, ruled by Jupiter with the element of fire and mode of mutable. According to the formula, the sign or card represents an objective yet flexible energy that is on the move and strives for higher thinking.

One of the tricks is to learn how the symbols play together, and to see how the different cards play together in the spread. You will be able to objectively see patterns in the layouts that will add to the information you can intuitively pull during the reading.

A basic understanding of astrological signs and symbols is pertinent to tarot, and the two systems work beautifully together. MacGregor Mathers, Michael Tsarion, Aliester Crowley, Dione Fortune, the Ciceros, and one of my new favorites, the Raven have been documenting the correlation between divinatory systems, painting a new picture for understanding the inner workings of the mind. I would recommend learning how each planet reacts in each sign and this will help with your Tarot work tremendously.

This concludes my summary of the symbolism of the first deck.

Avocado: The "Buttery Pear" of Eternal Life

2008-12-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

Have you ever gasped in awe at the beauty, flavor and aroma of the avocado? It resembles a dark pear with tough skin. Pull the skin back to reveal a soft, green glowing fruit that promises the sun, moon, and stars in the palm of your hand. It has seen a growing trend amongst shoppers in America in the last ten years. Vegans, vegetarians, and raw dieters praise the avocado for its protein, fat and whole nutrient content, but what about it is so special about it? First of all, if you haven’t partaken of this holy food of the Peruvian “Testical Tree” (because you live under a rock), go and buy one immediately. When choosing avocados, check for firmness as they ripen off the vine. If you want to eat one immediately, they should be moderately soft but not mushy. I recommend cutting it in half, a little salt and pepper mix it together in the skin and eat with a fork. I can only describe the taste as “nature’s ice cream”. In fact, the shape and fat content of the avocado can be likened to that of an egg, and can be used in ways that the egg would be used: ice cream, sauces, flavor, fat.

An avocado is actually a green fruit, and not only is it a fruit, it is an oily berry. The oil of the fruit is mostly monounsaturated fat and easy to digest and burns slowly. The fat content allows the individual to absorb five to ten times the amount of carotenoids out of a salad than without. Carotenoids are fat soluble nutrients such as beta carotene and lycopene. Without the presence of fat, we absorb these nutrients in a much less efficient manner. The fat is also known to lower bad cholesterol, clearing the arteries of the heart and lowering the chance for disease. (http://www.healthymuslim.com/articles/kdgzz-adding-avocados-to-salads-aids-absorption-of-nutrients.cfm)

Most nutritionists state that Americans do not get enough green foods in their diet. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the number one leading cause of death in America for men and women. The link between green foods and a decrease in heart disease has been established by many medical researchers. "The mechanisms through which vegetables and fruits protect against heart disease are likely multiple," says Dr. Kaumudi J. Joshipura of Harvard University (http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Eat-greens-to-have-a-ever-green-heart-235-1/). Green foods are high potassium, vitamin K, folate, fiber and other nutrients that are known to have a direct effect on heart disease and multiple types of cancer.

The research of others, and my own observations, have brought me to the conclusion that foods are much more than fiber and vitamins. I believe their shape, color, and feeling tell much more about their symbiotic relationship with humans. For my final project in college I was to build a website that demonstrated everything that we had learned in our web design class. My web page was going to be dedicated to foods and learning how they relate to and support various energy flows in the chakras.

The information that I gathered would be based completely on speculation, without much evidence. I found that this task was much larger than I had anticipated since there was so much to understand about the vibrational nature of the fruits and vegetables on our planet. I was pleased to find some discoveries over at Ezra Sandzer-Bell’s blog, HOWMusick (www.quantumlodge.org/ezra), which again sparked my interest in the pseudo-subject. Here is an example of one of Ezra’s Illustrations:

This is an excellent example of practical synchromysticism at work. Nature is speaking to us from every corner of our perception. My theory is that the colors of foods speak for which chakra they support. We know that the heart chakra is green, and we need green foods as a major part of maintaining a healthy heart. What other foods with specific color have an effect on the chakras?

Goji Berries are raging onto the health food scene. They originate in the Himalayas and art known to contain some of the highest amounts of anti-oxidants known to any fruit, surpassing blue berries, pomegranate, oranges, etc.

Upon first observation, the berry appears a deep red. This would tell us that it supports the base chakra and everything that energy is used for. The red chakra grounds or roots us in this reality, so that we may maintain stability. The goji berry contains 19 amino acids including the 8 essential proteins needed for life. It is packed with trace minerals and vitamins and a good candidate to cover all the needs of the physical self in this reality. Anyone who has ever soaked goji berries in water will notice that they start to bleed orange. I would guess this is because they are a greater source for beta carotene than carrots. If you have ever enjoyed a glass of raw, unfiltered goji juice, you might have noticed the similar taste to a strong carrot juice. What does this say for the sacral chakra? Many venders rave goji as the new Viagra. While these claims are unproven, my personal experience is that they improve overall sexual function and libido. I already have a somewhat high libido, so I’m not the best test subject but other testimonies have divulged the same sort of information. It could be that the highly complex polysaccharides offer an overall energy boost that works its way up the entire chakra system, lending most of the energy to the lowest chakras.

Applying these same principles to the avocado, I believe that the Universal consciousness has introduced this fruit at this time to resonate the energy of humanity closer to the vibration of unconditional love. Dr. Len Horawitz has claimed that the exact center of our visible spectrum is the vibration of a love song that the creator sings to emanate creation. The center of our color spectrum is green, resonating around 528 terahertz. When we see the earth from above, the first thing that we notice is the color green because this is the color of life.

Dr. Horawitz has stated that listening the frequency of 528 hz will have a major impact on the overall vibration of being. As we begin to “attune” ourselves to this frequency, our hearts will send out that signal to be picked up by other individuals that we come into contact with, communicating unconditional love.

This is the true “green movement”. A movement towards unconditional love disguised as an ass backwards attempt at cleaning up pollution and having a handful of respect for the living being that is our planet. So eat avocados in your salad if you want to save the planet.

The Tarot: In History and Theory

2008-12-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

Tarot lore is a tangled web of rumors, facts, and associations. Over time, the meanings were lost or diluted and we are now in an age of revealing where this knowledge can be freely distributed without judgment. With all the work being done on Tarot in the synchro-sphere, many new and exciting insights are coming to the forefront; but until a foundation has been laid, we cannot build a knowledge system that can stand on its own. It is like trying to hold a conversation on politics with an individual who refuses to acknowledge any possibility of conspiracy…What’s the point?! In this blog, I will be exploring the cloudy history of the Tarot playing deck and the fundamental symbolism as a foundation of understanding.

Let’s consider the purpose of the Tarot from a spiritual perspective. Tarot is a system that opens a medium of communication between the outer reality and the inner oracle (consciousness). We use the outer Tarot to understand the inner Tarot. All of these symbols are a part of who you are and those who have come before. Many people go to Tarot readers to gain insight on the future. Reading the future is a beneficial component of the Tarot, but is not the primary function. We are reading consciousness. Being that consciousness is everything that exist, has ever existed and will ever exist, you also have access to probable future outcomes. I use the word probable because we know that the quantum reality exist as a wave of probable potentials. Nothing truly exists in a concrete state, but in a wave of potential locations. I believe the Tarot helps us ‘flesh out’ the probable futures. The future never exists as a certainty because there are many potentials. We have the ability to choose the outcome and connect a future of our intent to the present. The true purpose of the Tarot is to build a language between the individual ego and the unconscious that is connected to the all-encompassing Universe.

Suppose that consciousness is a massive, infinite super computer main-frame, your brain is your own PC, and you are the user. The user may need direct access to consciousness/mainframe, but with nothing more than the brain/PC, the user will have a hard time gaining access to the information needed to complete the task. The user may be pulling and pushing information in the mainframe without the knowledge of what is taking place behind the veil. Unless the PC has a program or interface that can communicate with the mainframe, you will not be able to directly view what is taking place. The Tarot is the interface that allows you to appropriately access the mainframe consciousness.

We know that the Tarot had sprung onto the scene in the 1400s as a card game, exposed to the western world by gypsies roaming out of Persia. Alternative historians argue that the four elements or ‘suits’ of the Tarot can be found in Irish and Egyptian culture. We can also see the four fold representation of deity in theology, represented by the Tetragrammaton or the four lettered name. It seems that playing decks were fashionable among the rich in the Middle Ages since the cards had to hand painted and were not widely distributed until the invention of the printing press. The original decks were composed of the four suits and ten numbers. The number of court characters jumped around, starting with just one king. Eventually, the trumps were an addition made to the game with more court characters. It was recorded that Tarot was not used for divinatory purposes until the 1800s. (Wikipedia)

If you search for Tarot videos on YouTube, you will find many videos persecuting Tarot diviners and Tarot sites alike. There is a particular series of videos portraying Ronald McDonald in fast forward, singing and dancing in repetitive movements. The creator of these videos claims that he is on a campaign to rid the world of the Tarot and especially Tarot.com for illegitimate claims to historical cultures. He claims that the Tarot is nothing more than a game, made for the entertainment of French Aristocrats in the middle ages. Silly as it may seem, I believe that this sort of persecution is marking the breach of a new awareness. If you have never really been interested in the Tarot and happen to come across these videos, you may agree with the message and seek to further the knowledge of the agenda. But once you come into contact with the symbolism portrayed by the Tarot, you are unconsciously exploring a sacred art form. I have had friends comment to me that they have had ‘strange’ feelings on viewing some of the cards in the Tarot deck. I believe that the symbolism of the Tarot accesses information that we carry in our soul, embedded in our DNA.

You cannot come into contact with the Tarot without it affecting you, even if you have a questionable intent. In Crowley’s summarization of the questions discussed in the Book of Thoth, he explicitly states, “The origin of the Tarot is quite irrelevant, even if it were certain. It must stand or fall as a system on its own merit.” So it doesn’t matter if some hoe-boe was scribbling on some piece of paper and decided to call it Tarot. Does it work or not? I would have to say it works better than we are able to conceive. Crowley goes on to make an analogy to chess. Chess did not start out as the game it is today, in all its glory. It was built as a system of symbols and improved upon until we arrived at an efficient tool for teaching projective logic that we have today.

The Three in One (1:3)

The Golden Dawn’s logo can be found on the back of the Golden Dawn Magickal Tarot and I think this gives an accurate analysis of the Tarot. I see this symbolism as several things: the trinity or the three becoming one (1:3); the resurrection of Christ Consciousness out of the Eye of Knowledge; and the relationship of the 3:4 ratio, which can be seen all throughout the Tarot. The whole pyramid and cross as one symbol can be further broken down into two symbols to understand the relationship. The pyramid with the sun can be compared to the pyramid and the eye on the back of the dollar bill. This symbol has been linked to many cults throughout time but the general interpretation is the Eye of Knowledge. This ‘third’ eye senses beyond the five sensory inputs and the veil of reality. The development of this wisdom is a process of spiritual refinement also known as the alchemical transfiguration. The pyramid is topped by the Rosy Cross, the symbol of the Rosicrusion society. This symbol can be broken down further into 3 symbols. This cross represents the distinction of the four elements, and the rose represents the twenty letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the sun behind the cross represents the sun in the zodiac. (There is much more to this symbol, obviously. Feel free to search on.)

The concept of three gods in one (1:3) is known in every culture all over the world, in every time and place.

The three in one always is used to inspire patriotism, resonating with an unseen reality that is part of our experience. The reality is that we are all three in one: mind, body and spirit. I remember being very young in church contemplating the holy trinity. It didn’t make sense, but oh well, that’s the way in goes in organized religion. We were taught there was a Father God, a son, and a holy spirit. Is not God the Father and the Son both spirits in the first place? No matter. You don’t have to have an intellectual reasoning to be part of a mass movement.

Deck 1: The Trumps

From a Cabbalist standpoint, the pack is viewed as three separate packs in one. The three in one consist of the 22 Trump Cards, the 40 suit cards, and the 16 court royal cards. The trump cards are numbered by their association to the Hebrew alphabet.

The rose of the Rosy Cross is a representation of the alphabet divided into a 1:3 ratio of 3:7:12. It could be coincidence that the alphabet fits together so well, but it works and has stood on its own for thousands of years. The three represents the three primary elements of fire, water and air. The forth element is implicit as earth is a combination of all three; hence, the three in one. The next seven letters represent the seven planets and the next twelve represent the signs of the zodiac. Understanding the letter, element, planetary, and/or astrological association helps in deciphering the cards meaning.

For instance:

is associated with Tet:

The imagery of the card gives away the astrological association of Leo. We know that Leo is ruled by the Sun and the card is further defined by the Hebrew letter Tet. Leo the lion is courageous, strong willed, and adventurous. The shape of the letter Tet tells us that the Leo receives the power from within and that we all posses this potential for there is a part of us that is Leo, no matter what your Sun sign is.

The Tetragrammaton

Any further understanding of the Tarot deck requires a basic familiarity with the Tetragrammaton: the four lettered name of God. Whether this is the name of the true creator or completely contrived, I do not know. I do know that the Tetragrammaton summarizes our nature and the way we experience this plane of reality. Each of the letters represents an element, and each element holds a Tree of Life. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute….two of the letters are the same”. The Cabalistic understanding of this phenomenon is that the father and the mother in cosmic union to produce twins, He and He.

The Tetragrammaton has been held so sacred that it was actually taken out of holy texts so that the people would not attempt to pronounce the name in vain. Scientist Gregg Braden connected the holy name to our DNA by matching the numerical values of the Divine Name to the periodical numbers of the elements that make up our DNA. I also see the four elements as an integral part of the way we experience reality and a formula for the participation in the co-creation of reality. Fire = mind, water=emotion, air=action, earth=manifestation.

Gregg Braden’s book, The Lost Mode of Prayer, outlines this fundamental method of creation as the true mode of prayer. The prayer starts with a thought, we fuel that thought with our emotions to feel our prayers instead of just acknowledging our wants and needs. The thought of the prayer should be as close as possible to the desired outcome, such as: I have a great job, not I want a great job. By adding the emotion of gratitude to this prayer, we can be thankful for our great new job as the prayer. This is fully supported by Biblical teaching but has escaped core doctrine. As we drop our prayer into the cosmic ocean of being called our unconscious, the Universe will bring about situations that we must act on in order to manifest the original thought. We can pray and pray, but if we don’t act, we can’t expect the Universe to fulfill our needs.

Deck 2: The Minor Arcana

The key to understanding the meanings of the minor cards is to learn how to interpret the combination of symbols. The formula for symbol combination goes like this: Meaning = element + sphere no. + astrological symbols. Each suit represents an element and The Tree of Life in that element. According to Cabalistic doctrine, there are four worlds, each containing a Tree of Life. That gives us four Trees and forty spheres in total.

The Spheres

Understanding the spheres (or paths) of the Tree of Life is a never ending process and you could spend a lifetime collecting the wisdom of each of the paths. The paths also have simplified meanings and associations that allow us to capture a glimpse of the wisdom contained in a relatively small space. Each sphere can be summarized by a planet and each path inbetween spheres can be summarized by a trump or letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

The Decantes

The decantes are an important element to the formula of the minor arcane cards. The word decante refers to the division by ten. There are twelve signs of the zodiac and each of those signs contains thirty degrees. If we split one sign into three parts, we have divided the sign by ten degrees and this gives us three decante signs per one zodiac sign 12:36 = 1:3.

12:36 Message from Beyond 1997 (Crystal Links)

Each of the minor arcana cards represents a decante, excluding the ace cards which represent the pure emanation of that element. The decantes are determined by the element and the modality of the card.

I highly recommend the Crowley Thoth deck or The Golden Dawn’s Magickal Tarot. These decks contain all of the astrological components of the card and make reading easier than memorizing each of the decante correspondences. It’s great to have the Rider-Waite deck and study the ideas that they were trying to portray while studying the formula for deciphering their meanings. In Crowley’s six of swords we can see the astrological association of Mercury in Aquarius in sphere of Tiparath in the element of air. So we have AIR + TIPARATH + MERCURY + AQUARIUS = SCIENCE. The way that the symbols work together is not always logical but it is a system. When you get the general understanding of the symbol combinations, readings will become much easier.

Deck Three: The Court Royals

The court royals represent sixteen individual personalities. Each of these personalities is within you, and you may call on them at different times for different purposes. When they come up in a reading, they could represent individuals in your life or different personalities that you are suggested to portray in whatever situations that are represented. What the royals really represent is each of the elements such as: knight=fire, queen=water, prince=air, and princess=earth. So when we are interpreting the cards, we can combine elements to deduct the fundamental understanding.

Example: The queen of swords represents WATER in AIR.

This concludes my analysis of Tarot fundamentals. There is much more information, and the study of Tarot is a never ending process because of its holographic nature. This is merely an attempt by myself to lay out a knowledge infrastructure of the Tarot symbolism. The study of Tarot is very rewarding, as it is a teaching tool as well as a divination tool. Memorize the Tree of Life. Memorize the elements and modalities of the zodiac. All of the symbolism builds off of these schools. Good luck and have fun.