Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Samhain 2013 - Isian News Issue No. 150


Issue No. 150 Samhain, 2013

Published Quarterly Since 1976
Cover: "Mask of the Medusa, Krete" by Olivia Robertson


 

Aset Shemsu - "The Retinue of Isis"


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ATHENA:
 ARCADIAN AWAKENING
Xl. CRETE
PREFACE
The Medusa Labyrinth Trial

The Gods enjoy the task of moving humanity from one to another of the four aeons; the Kabbalistic Zohar each spanning roughly five thousand years.  Their goal was to move us from the Carthaginian and Cretan aeon of Taurus to the realm of Athena – elegant aeon of Pisces and Greek culture.

The plan was that of the constellation of Taurus. The centre and goal was the sigil of Aldebaron, the Red Star, the Bullseye, principal star of Taurus. It was protected fiercely by the Double Axe of Crete, the waxing and waning moon of the Goddess Passiphae, mother of Ariadne, with her four snakes.

However, the star Venus, of Taurus was the Eight Pointed Star that encouraged the pilgrims. So the brave neophyte entered the path of balance, of choice between the loving rays of Venus, and the severe power of the moon, and Minos, the Bull King. Theseus found his way to the centre, guided by Ariadne, but he deserted her, and got entrapped as punishment by the Queen, Passiphae.

Ariadne chose the God Bacchus to enliven the age of Pisces, which ever since was guided by him. Pisces was a duel sign caught between Rome and Athens – Venus and Athena. You are the neophyte. You have to choose.  We have been between the passions of religious wars, and the rise of modern science. We are now faced with a great change from Pisces, the wasteland of the Fisher King; to the on-rushing waters of the Age of Aquarius, from the depths of the Earth to the clouds of Heaven, pouring water from the Holy Grail of the Divine Spirit guided by the twins Isis and Osiris, inspiring all beings and elements.

ATHENA:
 ARCADIAN AWAKENING
Xl. CRETE
REFLECTIONS by Olivia Robertson 
 
"It’s a long way to Tipperary
(But our hearts are always there)"

Introduction

Yes, it’s a long way to what we as children knew as the Great War. We all sang this cheery ditty. Even in 1925 it was relevant. Every day, we could pack up our troubles in our old kit bags, and smile, while millions had died. Nanny said the Germans were poisoning our ice cream, but Daddy said “don’t believe her – she thinks the moon is made of green cheese!” I was discovering a grown up World of Lies. It seemed a great hoax was created by people who had their own agenda, who persuaded people to give their lives for the paradise of Tipperary, but sacrificed themselves to the God Moloch, and ended up dead on barbed wire in somewhere called No Man’s Land. Truly it belonged to No Man. It belonged to death. 

Seen through childish eyes, the God of Death had a black moustache. He was called Lord Kitchener, and summoned you to die for King and Country. Then he changed from God to Devil – Devalara, and He wore horn-rimmed spectacles and presided over burning buildings in Dublin, where to my alarm, I was going to live! Later this God of Death grew a huge chin, and was called Mussolini, and dropped bombs on black people who had no defence. Suddenly, He shrank, and grew a little square moustache, and became God the Leader - Hitler. His moustache dramatically changed into a huge handlebar one, and He became the Steel God - Stalin. Both Gods had millions of people exterminated in labour camps. The Steel God, was followed by many of my student friends, The God the Leader had older spiritual devotees who followed occult ideas. I didn’t.

As a three-month old baby, I had seen God. I didn’t worship him. I just liked him. He had no hair at all; He looked Tibetan, and was surrounded by brilliant blue light. I was saved from being a Catholic or Protestant, Green or Orange, and so the Civil War, by other Gods and Goddesses - Beings of Light, who shared their Goodness and Wisdom. Now I am Ninety-six. How can I warn people to escape from those who use our energy to mis-use power in the names of the Gods and Goddesses?  Heaven is truly around us.  Let us make it our home now! 

My Teachers taught me think-feel language. It is very easy. It is spiritual language. They never humiliated or criticised me in front of others. They did not get me to blame my parents or others or the way I was brought up. They taught me to have empathy with all creatures. They were enormously powerful, and could perform miracles. How? Their sphere of being controlled our time and space. They were eternal, not subject to death; they could talk to my ancestors. They knew the future, because it is already marked out in their time maps. So they could help me to grow up, and to rise above fear of death, to recognise evil and so dissolve it. These things exist only at our limited level. I had to learn to choose Good and reject Evil, because Good is Real, and Evil is a waste of Reality. We have the Divine in us; it is part of the Alchemical Flow.  Dusk and dawn are the best time to contact the two worlds of matter and spirit. You will sing with the blackbird who sang in Flanders field so long ago. We can enter the Labyrinth of Time and Space; the Labyrinth of Stars that lead us to the Centre of All. 


ATHENA:
 ARCADIAN AWAKENING
Xl. CRETE
By
Olivia Robertson

ALCHEMICAL RITE
PART ONE:  THE NARRATION

The Mirage of Deception

A Vision Quest
“Every Step Matters, The True Shaman Does Not Lose Sight of His Goal.”
  
Part 1 – The Narration
The Resident God is Minos, the two-faced bull, painted in a small private temple near Knossos.
 
VISITANTS:
Narrator and neophyte: Percy
Ariadne: Elaine
Lucifer-Hermes: Aiden
Oracle: Deirdre
Set-Eros: Local F.O.I. Priest
Alchemical FOI Group
 
Elaine: (to Percy) “You beg for initiation of the labyrinth by Ariadne. You say the situation is desperate. Why?”
 
Percy: “You have not penetrated my esoteric disguise. I am the poet Shelley, come back to have the Supreme Awakening.”
 
Elaine: “I see." May I be Ariadne?”
 
Percy: “No. My tiresome wife drowned herself. I think it’s her fault I failed the initiation, though Byron gave a nice funeral oration by the sea. You see the sea did not take me. I just stood there like an ass frozen with terror.”
 
Elaine: “As a Guide, I am going to be your second intellectual wife, who wrote the Frankenstein horror story. The first wife was just silly. The second was unscrupulous and took you off by cunning. She will be a good Ariadne, teller of tales of the Jekyll and Hyde dual personality.”
 
Aiden: “I want a good part. I will be both mad scientist Frankenstein and the monster.”
 
Deirdre: “We see the compulsive magic of Greek mysteries. We are all involved. Let me speak, Ariadne.”
 
Aiden: “So is it. You have the right of choice”
 
Percy: “As you gather, I am still a neo romantic. These days I belong to the Golden Dawn, and have been filmed acting in one of their secret rituals for Facebook. I was the Imperator like Yeats. My hair curled round my mask and black hood. It is glorious that Byron is with us as romantic as ever - one of the Officers. He is busy re-doing the Wagner Ring cycle, to make it politically correct. How on earth can you do that?”
 
Set/Eros: “It is beyond you!" You are not an initiate!”
 
Percy: “How can I become an initiate?”
 
Set/Eros: “By joining the Fellowship of Isis that is especially suited to naïve idealists. You are taken in by everyone. Your father is an Earl, and you are rich. You always tell every secret you hear, and F.O.I. has no secrets so you won’t be punished for divulging! FOI is for psychic people like A.E. and yourself. Yeats and I were not psychic so we needed secrecy and the occult to give us status. ”
 
Percy: “So here I am, ready for any trial or ordeal you have lined up.”
 
Elaine: “We don’t give ordeals. We don’t try people. Only life itself works through the law of balance. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It is the law of fate, ordained by the divine mother, who insists on all her children being saved. And so they are, by Grace if not by Virtue. ”
 
Aiden: “Life is its own antidote. Birth v/s Death, Matter v/s Spirit. We teach how to control Cause and Effect through the Labyrinth which the Deities created for the Cretans, the last of the Atlantean colonists. It kept their ancient ways. They are so old fashioned after being submerged!”
 
Deirdre: “Let us meet and this evening and bathe in the light of the moon by the sea.”
 
ARCADIAN AWAKENING
ALCHEMICAL RITE
XI. CRETE
 
PART TWO
 
Dissolution of the Mirage of Deception
 
Deirdre: “Friends! The Great Hoax, created by Pallas Athena and Minos as a Path of Learning – a vision quest – a shaman journey. To look in the Mirror of Truth is to banish the Mist of Deceit with your own breath.”
 
Elaine: “Let us hear the Oracle.”
 
Oracle of the Goddess Medusa
 
“Children, you are deceived! You see my terrifying head covering the Shield of Pallas Athena, my daughter, and do not realise I am the Balancing Power of Love. My Divine Head includes Mind and Heart. You need both. The Ordeal of the Labyrinth is to Travel the Path of the blue, eighth pointed Star, and the Double Axe of the Moon. The star rays permit you to pass. Moon Rays Forbid. Each time you have to choose. Mine is the Alchemical Gold which flows in the Deities: Ichor – the Divine Blood in each one of you. I guide you in many guises. Hear my voice. I am Conscience and Wisdom. In Truth, you loved your drowned wife. You wish for her to forgive. When you have forgiven yourself, you have passed the test of the Labyrinth.”
 
Trial of the Labyrinth – Trance Journey
 
Elaine: “It is necessary for you to enter trance. We will be with you.”
 
Percy: “I find myself in a temple of Medusa. Two beautiful Gods are before me.  The fair one says he is Lucifer/Hermes. The Dark one says he is Set/Eros.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “Yes! I suppose you are astonished. I am a fallen Angel. As an intellectual, one needs to be periodically disillusioned. (Lucifer/Hermes talking to Set) You create the illusion!”
 
Set/Eros: “So do you! In reality, neither of us does.” 
 
Lucifer/Hermes:ermeHermes We tempt initiates with their own folly.”
 
Set/Eros: “I create sirens.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “And I abstract causes.”
 
Percy: “Hey! Don’t talk over my head! I am the candidate. It is my soul you are fighting for.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “Wrong! Only you create your own Divided Soul. We just help to give you discrimination.”
 
Elaine: “Excuse Me! Or do you just ignore women? I am Ariadne. I was divided between my husband Baccus and Theseus! And yet you ignore me!”
 
Set/Eros: “You have to learn to be interesting to get our attention.”
 
Elaine: “You have the arrogance of Byron and the conceit of Don Giovanni.”
 
Set/Eros: “Ariadne – You are like Melusine – half fairy, half dragon.”
 
PERCY'S INITIATION
Trial of Spiritual Climbers
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “You hope for a better world.”
 
Percy: “I always have.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “Look at these cloud pictures. What wonderful visions of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in action!”
 
Set/Eros: “You cover your eyes!”
                         
Percy: “Oh horror. What trick is this? The clouds are covered on blood. I see the slaughter of thousands!”
 
Set/Eros: “You are the fool. Sir Percival the pure of the Holy Grail.”
 
Percy: “But where are my friends? Why don’t they help? I cannot find them!”
 
Set/Eros: “Where were they in the reign of terror? Absent. Avoiding horror.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “They were busy repairing the Temple of Lies.”
 
Percy: “I see men, women and children slaving in factories. I see false villages, schools and universities. They are all dissolving.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “While they are killing millions, they do not allow people free will to choose their own path.”
 
Percy: “There is hope. Pallas Athena has unveiled the Medusas Head. All deception vanishes. Hardly anyone passes the test.”
 
Percy: “I see how I rebelled to spite my father – revenge for abuse, for flogging by my tutor. I could not cope with my wife, let alone two of them. The first punished me by suicide. The second described me as both Frankenstein and the monster. I created the monster myself.”
 
Lucifer/Hermes: “Do you mind?” 
 
Percy: “Mind? Thank you. I am happy to fall with Lucifer if it is to fall from self-created delusions. But something strange is happening. Pallas Athena has put on the mask of Medusa and now she is my second wife, laughing. She gives me her book Frankenstein, and I can laugh as well. She has forgiven me! I was both the professor and the monster. I created both!”
 
Percy enters into ecstasy surrounded by golden clouds.
 
Medusa: “Your initiation is not complete. You may not yet undertake the Trial of Passion. You are from a sphere of angelic reality and do not feel passion. You have come to share the Holy Grail of the new eon, the elixir of life.”
 
Percy returns from trance. They realise it is true. They all drink from the holy well and share in Percy’s ecstasy. They give thanks to the Deities, and bathe in the sea. 
 
Recommended Reading: “New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology”, Felix Guirand, editor, introduction by Robert Graves, various contributors, Hamlyn Publishing Group, Ltd., London, 1968. "The Greek Myths", Robert Graves, Penguin Books, in two volumes, London, 1955. "Pausanius: Description of Greece", translated by W. H. S. Jones, Heinemann, Harvard, 1918, later reprinted by Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass, 1969. “Juno Covella, Perpetual Calendar of the Fellowship of Isis”, Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, Cesara Publications, Clonegal Castle, 1982. “Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning", Richard Hinckley Allen, first published G. S. Stechert, 1899, Dover Publications reprint, New York, 1963.
 
Note: 
These Rites may be used for meetings of the Muses Symposium and the Arcadians. 



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