ADVENT 187

 

 

S	=	1	-	4	SIGN	49	22	4
S	=	1	-	5	SIGNS	68	23	5
S	=	1	-	6	SIGNAL	62	26	8
S	=	1	-	7	SIGNALS	81	27	9
S	=	1	-	6	SIGNALLED	164	38	2
S	=	1	-	7	SIGNALLING	104	50	5
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
S	=	1	-	6	SYMBOL	86	23	5
S	=	1	-	7	SYMBOLS	105	24	6
S	=	1	-	9	SYMBOLISE	119	38	2
S	=	1	-	9	SYMBOLOGY	133	43	7
S	=	1	-	10	SYMBOLISED	123	42	6
S	=	1	-	11	SYMBOLISING	144	54	9
S	=	1	-	12	SYMBOLOGICAL	133	52	7
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
N	=	5	-	6	NUMBER	73	28	1
N	=	5	-	7	NUMBERS	92	29	2
N	=	5	-	7	NUMERAL	84	30	3
N	=	5	-	8	NUMERALS	103	31	4
N	=	5	-	9	NUMERICAL	96	42	6
N	=	5	-	8	NUMBERED	82	37	1
N	=	5	-	9	NUMBERING	103	49	4
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
D	=	4	-	5	DIGIT	49	31	4
D	=	4	-	6	DIGITS	68	32	5
D	=	4	-	7	DIGITAL	62	35	8
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
L	=	3	-	6	LETTER	80	26	8
L	=	3	-	7	LETTERS	99	27	9
L	=	3	-	8	LETTERED	89	35	9
L	=	3	-	9	LETTERING	110	56	2
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
C	=	3	-	5	COUNT	73	19	1
C	=	3	-	6	COUNTS	92	20	2
C	=	3	-	7	COUNTED	82	28	1
C	=	3	-	8	COUNTING	103	40	4
C	=	3	-	9	COUNTLESS	128	29	2
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
C	=	3	-	6	CYPHER	75	39	3
C	=	3	-	7	CYPHERS	94	40	4
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
E	=	5	-	7	ENCRYPT	101	28	1
E	=	5	-	8	ENCRYPTS	120	39	3
E	=	5	-	9	ENCRYPTED	110	47	2
E	=	5	-	10	ENCRYPTION	139	58	4
E	=	5	-	10	ENCRYPTING	131	59	5
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
G	=	7	-	4	GODS	45	18	9
C	=	3	-	5	CYCLE	48	21	3
O	=	6	-	2	OF	21	12	3
T	=	2	-	3	THE	33	15	6
C	=	3	-	6	CIRCLE	68	32	5
O	=	6	-	2	OF	21	12	3
T	=	2	-	3	THE	33	15	6
C	=	3	-	6	CIRCLE	68	32	5
O	=	6	-	2	OF	21	12	3
T	=	2	-	3	THE	33	15	6
C	=	3	-	5	CYCLE	48	21	3
	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
C	=	3	-	8	CREATORS	99	36	9
D	=	4	-	6	DIVINE	63	36	9
E	=	5	-	7	ETERNAL	75	30	3
L	=	3	-	6	LIVING	73	37	1
M	=	4	-	4	MIND	40	22	4

 

 

BODY MAGIC

AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ESOTERIC MAN

Benjamin Walker 1979

MEDITATION

Page 236

An aid to mental development, and, according to its advocates, to ' spiritual advancement and enlightenment, involves a great deal of mental discipline. Some people have a natural aptitude for meditation, but most need to adopt guidelines and follow certain fixed procedures. Meditation is an ordered course in a particular direction aimed at a predetermined goal in a form of self-induced xenophrenia. Throughout the meditative process, even during all the apparently 'unconscious' or trance phases, there is /Page 237 /tinuity of conscious awareness. Meditation can confer genuine benefits, but is not without its pitfalls. The four chief stages in the meditative tradition are briefly outlined below.
(1) Attention, the first stage, is said to be like 'preparing to enter the pool of the mind'. It requires an intentness of consciousness, the direction of awareness by an act of will. But because men are constantly beset by irrelevant lures and diverted by transient issues, they need meditative aids, which are provided at this stage. This first phase is known in yoga as pratyahara, 'withholding', or the exclusion of distractions from the mind such as sense objects and conceptual notions. In Buddhist meditation one can start by focusing the mind on a simple object such as a bare pole standing upright on the ground. It must be done in a state of 'relaxed attentiveness', with no attempt at analytical thought. When extraneous thoughts arise one must not follow them; they should be disregarded, as bubbles on the surface, and allowed to burst and vanish.
Psychologists point out, however, that rigid, undeviating attention can also be pathological in origin. It is then known as hyperprosexia (Gk. pros, 'over', exo, 'to hold'), a psychotic condition in which the mind takes hold of an idea with unshakeable fixity. This is found in various kinds of mental disorder. Certain forms of monoideism (singleness of idea), as in ceaseless daydreaming; or in erotic, status or power fantasizing; and monomania, where the mind is obsessed with a single thought (idee fixe), and one keeps reverting to it in speech, are symptomatic of the same pathology. A number of seemingly paranormal faculties have been explained in terms of such hyperprosexia, where the powers of attention, observation and discrimination are at work to an abnormal degree, so that people can apparently see, hear and feel things that are beyond the scope of the average person.
(2) Concentration, the next stage, is the ability to centre one's consciousness on a subject without being distracted. It is 'entering the pool of the mind'. In yoga this stage is known as dharana, 'holding'. In the Buddhist system the exercise of the previous stage may be advanced to include some such qualification as : think of the same pole, but do not think of a monkey climbing it. The idea of the monkey has now been suggested to the student and he has deliberately to exclude it from consciousness. This is achieved without strain or effort, and in a condition of 'passive concentration'. Great /Page238/powers accrue from concentration. Sir John Woodroffe (d. 1908),
authority on tantrik yoga, wrote that by means of concentration alone, certain yogis are able to kill insects, birds and even larger animals. They can light a fire without flint or matches, by the same means.
The great mathematician and engineer, Archimedes (d. 212 Bc) of Syracuse, is supposed to have had extraordinary powers of concentration. The story goes that once deeply absorbed in a problem he unconsciously registered the rise of the water level as he immersed his body in the tub for a bath, and in a flash conceived the idea of an important hydrostatic principle. So profound was his mood that he immediately rushed through the streets crying, `Eureka! Eureka!' (I have it), quite unaware of the fact that he was still naked. The same genius during the capture of his beloved Syracuse by the Roman general, Marcellus, had been so absorbed in some mathematical diagrams he had drawn in the dust, that he said to a Roman soldier who came too close, `Do not disturb my circles, fellow,' which so annoyed the Roman that he killed him, in spite of specific instructions from Marcellus that the great scholar was not to be touched.
For training in concentration the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus (d. AD 270), recommended mathematics, dialectics and analytical thought. Sufis refer to the middle stages in the meditative process as fikr or devotional concentration on higher things. But in all systems it is emphasized that without concentration no progress can be made, for it is by this means alone that the mind learns to become receptive to the messages from the higher planes.
(3) Contemplation involves deep internalizing of thought. This stage has been compared to 'diving into the pool of the mind'. Here the degree of mental absorption reaches a kind of trance. All the senses are closed to distracting incoming stimuli : one's consciousness is withdrawn and the mind focused inwards. It is a receptive state and some regard it as the final stage of meditation proper. It continues to be a mental operation, but the man absorbed in contemplation is divested of the ego. In yoga this stage is known as dhyana, 'contemplation', in Pali as jhana, in Chinese ch'an, and in Japanese zen. Plato (d. 347 Bc) in his Symposium relates how Socrates once remained standing motionless, absorbed in profound meditation, for the space of /Page 239/ of St Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) who was once so rapt in meditation on the divine mysteries that he scorched his finger without noticing it.
(4) Many exponents agree that the final stage of the meditative process takes one beyond meditation, and outside the mental plane altogether. One's consciousness is divorced from all empirical content, unmixed with sensation, pathemia or thought. It is a stage of `mindless awareness', unconnected with any direct cerebral activity. This transcendent state is known by various names. It is the samadhi, `conjoining', of yoga; the nirvana, 'extinction', of the Buddhist; the satori, 'illumination' of the zen practitioner; the unio mystica, `mystical union', of the western mystic; and the fan'a, 'annihilation', of the sufi. It has been described as the exaltation of consciousness to 'the highest degree, yet recallable to the conscious mind after the experience is over.
The neoplatonist, Iamblichus (d. AD 333), said that the power of contemplation can at times be so great that the soul leaves the body. And indeed others speak of this last stage as a movement of the soul resembling the spiritual ecstasy* achieved by prophets, sages and mystics. It is a kind of rapture, a peak experience of clear and unclouded bliss. It has been referred to as a merging with the Total, Pure, Objective or Cosmic Consciousness, perhaps representing a flicker of the consciousness of God. But many have denied this as presumptuous. The sufis speaking of the final stage in the mystic's progress, which they call hal, declare that it cannot ever come solely through man's effort, however assiduously he tries, since it is vouchsafed by God's grace. Hal, they declare, is gifted.
Certain physiological concomitants are associated with the trance state, and in recent years scientists have carried out extensive tests to measure the changes that occur in the body when a person is in a meditative trance. Hindu yogis, zen Buddhist monks, Egyptian fakirs, Voodoo practitioners, African medicine-men and Siberian shamans, have all been subjected to such tests. While the results are not conclusive certain factors do seem to be constant. For instance, it has been found that cardiac activity decreases, the heartbeat is slower than normal, blood pressure falls, the general metabolic rate is reduced. Breathing slows down, and oxygen consumption may be appreciably lower than the minimum necessary to support life. The temperature may be feverish, reaching 39°C./Page 240/ 239(102°F.), but this is not always so. EEGs indicate that alpha waves (see brain waves) predominate.
Properly undertaken there would appear to be much physical and mental benefit in the complete relaxation and tranquillity that many meditative disciplines provide. The bodily energies are restored and the powers of concentration developed. But the effects of meditation go beyond body and mind, and penetrate to the deepest recesses of the human psyche. Most responsible exponents today affirm that meditative exercises should never be undertaken lightly. Buddha laid great emphasis on the need for 'right meditation'.
In the first place the purpose of meditation has to be very clearly determined. Meditating on a practical problem is actually a form of attentive concentration, and can be a useful aid to its solution. Meditating in order to understand oneself and acquire discipline and self-control can be very beneficial if carried out in the proper spirit. Sometimes extravagant promises of personal success are held out to the student as a reward for his effort. But we are warned that any meditation undertaken with the object of obtaining siddhi (Sanskrit, 'power), or gaining wealth, or injuring one's enemies, can do great harm to the practitioner.
Again, the methods of meditation are also very important. The aids adopted, the ritual paraphernalia used, can all serve as pitfalls for the beginner. Meditation on the psychic centres (chakras) can stimulate them and cause them to be needlessly activated. It has been said, 'More men and women have been driven insane through a premature awakening of the forces latent in these centres than most students realize' (Anon., 1935, p. 23). It is also undesirable to meditate on one's guru or preceptor, such as many Hindu systems advocate. Not only does this smack of idolatry, but it can be used by an unscrupulous guru to gain ascendency over a pupil in more ways than one (see expersonation).
Experts further warn that nothing should be done to precipitate the meditative state, such as quick methods of inducing xenophrenia, through drugs for example. Some occult systems employ magical designs : the mandala of the Buddhist, the eight trigrams of the I-Ching, the kabbalistic tree, the tarot trumps; and also vibratory phonemes or mantras. They may be used in order to effect changes of consciousness, and in some cases to raise thought-forms and elemental entities. These are illusory phenomena artsing from false / Page 241/ meditation, causing fantasies to emerge from the unconscious mind. They act like poisons in the spiritual system.
Again, meditation, for all the virtues claimed on its behalf, can be negative and meaningless, as many inadvertently confess when they reveal that they 'empty the mind', or 'Concentrate on nothingness'. Spiritually, the value of many forms of meditation may be regarded as negligible, and could even be retrograde. Alice Bailey says, `It is essential to realize that meditation can be very dangerous work.'
Correct meditation avoids esoteric techniques and tricks, concentration on the chakras, the repetition of meaningless syllables, ritual procedures, visualization of the guru. The purest form of meditation, it is said, can only be directed to pure ends and use pure means, and is best achieved by devotion to God. When accompanied by beneficient and positive thoughts for the welfare of others, such meditation has a healing virtue for the soul, and this indeed is what the word originally signified (from Latin, mederi, 'to heal').
Meditation that is described as 'getting close to God without humility', and that 'does not ask for guidance' (Anon., 1935, p. 7), might be regarded by many as both arrogant and foolhardy. The personal effort in meditation, without divine grace, can lead one to the shoals. The practitioner can soon be led to believe that he is divine, a self-delusion that is fostered by the autohypnotic repetition of mantras like Aham Brahmasmi (I am God). This leads to antinomianism, the meditator ending up by believing that he is absolved from the requirements of the ethical, moral or religious law, and above spiritual judgment.
Because of the traps that beset the path, theistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam declare that no method of inner development should be divorced from religion, nor should any method of development be undertaken in a spirit of self-sufficiency. In essence, meditation is humble supplication to God, as a creature to his Creator, in the form of prayer.

MEMORY

The power of retaining, recalling and recognizing previous experience. In its most developed and significant meaning memory is a faculty of the higher intellect. Memory serves as a link with our own past and constitutes an all-important ingredient in the integrative process of our personalities and the recognition of ourselves as individuals. Memory alone forms the link in the continuous flux of perception, and is, according to David Hume (d. 1776), 'the source of personal identity'.
In amnesia or loss of memory, frequently due to injury or shock, one is unable to remember the past, either totally, which is very rare, or partially, where one cannot recall a particular place, time or experience related to a particular set of circumstances usually of a traumatic character. In the form of amnesia known as fugue, `flight', the victim forgets his name, address, occupation and his personal identity. He has no knowledge of his past, and as a rule disappears from his usual haunts. In other respects he is perfectly normal and his intellect remains unimpaired./Page 243/What we consciously remember is obviously only a small part of our total memory, even if we cannot recall it to conscious awareness. We do not remember most of our dreams, nor do we remember countless incidents that have happened to us a few years, a few months, even a few days ago. We do not remember large segments of our youthful experiences, nor much of our childhood, and nothing of our early infancy and prenatality. Speaking of the strange amnesia that blots out much of the first six or eight years of our life, Sigmund Freud said that 'it serves for each individual as a prehistory'.
It has been estimated that in the course of his seventy years of life, an individual, only when awake, receives and perhaps stores fifty trillion bits of information. (A 'bit', short for 'binary digit', is the smallest unit of information for a storage device, like a computer.) Yet no single event in our lives, however insignificant, is ever forgotten, as is suggested by the phenomenon of cryptomnesia (Gk. kryptos, 'hidden', mneme, 'memory), in which something previously experienced but forgotten is recalled, and now appears as a new experience without awareness of its original source. Religious exaltation, pre-mortem delirium, senility, insanity, high fever, disease, drug states, electrical stimulation of the brain, psychoanalysis, hypnotic trance and other xenophrenic states are among the conditions that often lead to the recall of memories long forgotten and apparently beyond recollection.
How far the human memory can go is still not clear, but age-regression suggests that there is virtually no limit to recall. In ageregressi9p one recollects very early periods of one's life, sometimes even the birth trauma. This is important for the psychologist who looks to the period of these early years for certain suppressed memories, which might be the genesis of later mental ills and aberrations. But the mere recollection is not enough; the patient must undergo the process of abreaction, during which he re-lives the pathogenic (disease-producing) memories in the same emotional state he originally experienced them and thus works off the unconscious repressed emotions associated with them. Abreaction therapy is akin to the pathesis or 'suffered' experience that the candidate had to undergo in the ancient Greek mysteries; or to what Aristotle (d. 322 Bc) called catharsis, 'purging', which he said was the function of great 'dramatic tragedy : to relieve the mind of pent-up emotion

Page 244

Experts contend that even prenatal events are recorded in the child's memory. The French psychical researcher, Col. Eugene Albert de Rochas (d. 1914), claimed that under hypnosis his subjects went right back through all the phases of their lives to infancy, birth and the foetal period. Indeed some people have claimed to remember their life as an embryo, and in a few instances have allegedly re-lived the sensations caused by sexual intercourse between parents during gestation. An even more fantastic claim was made by a woman who said that she had a consciousness of herself as a tiny speck at the very moment of her conception, that is, when sperm met ovum in her mother's womb. Finally, according to reincamationists, there is the age-regression that reaches back beyond prenatality to the memory of one's previous incarnation on earth.
Certain scientists believe that our memory is 'material' and registered entirely in the brain. An engrain is the hypothetical inscription or impress supposedly left on the living cerebral tissue as a result of any excitation caused by the stimuli of, experience. Millions of such engrams or neurograms are believed to combine to make up the fabric of physiological memory. Whether engrams are transmitted to progeny and inherited by them like other genetic characteristics is still debated.
The ancient Greeks thought of the mind as a tablet upon which one's personal experiences were inscribed 'like seal on wax'. Rene Descartes (d. 1650) said that every experience caused the 'animal spirits' to leave a trace on the pores of the brain, and the process of recall was one whereby the pineal gland impelled the animal spirits to seek out the earlier traces in the brain-pores. The English philosopher, John Locke (d. 1704), picking up the Greek idea, compared the mind of a child at birth to a tabula rasa, a 'clean slate', upon which the incoming impressions were written as they were received through the senses. Thomas Huxley (d. 1895) maintained that every sensory impression left behind a record in the molecular 'structure of the brain, in what he called the ideageneous molecules, which formed the basis of memory.
Russian scientists have been particularly interested in establishing a connection between the physical organism and the personality, or the brain-consciousness and character, without any non-material or 'spiritual' factor intervening. After Lenin's death in 1924 Russian surgeons spent two and a half years examining his brain in detail.

Books
Anonymous, Concentration and Meditation. A Manual of Mind Development, Buddhist Lodge, London, 1935.
Bailey, Alice, Letters on Occult Meditation, Lucis Publishing, New York, 1922.
Bailey, Alice, From Intellect to Intuition, Lucis Publishing, New York

/Page 242,/

Benson, H. and Wallace, R. K., 'The Physiology of Meditation', American Journal of Physiology, 1971, pp. 221, 795.
Eastcott, Michal, J., The Silent Path: An Introduction to Meditation, Rider, London, 1969.
Hare, W. L., Systems of Meditation in Religion, Philip Allan, London, 1937.
Hittleman, R., Guide to Yoga Meditation, Bantam Books, New York, 1969.
Jacobson, Edmund, Progressive Relaxation, University of Chicago Press, 1929.
Lounsbery, G. C., Buddhist Meditation, Kegan Paul, London, 1935. Metzner, Ralph, Maps of Consciousness, Macmillan, New York, 1971. Miles, E., The Power of Concentration, Methuen, London, 1919. Naranjo, C. and Ornstein, R. E., On the Psychology of Meditation,
Viking, New York, 1971.
Rawcliffe, D. H., The Psychology of the Occult, Rockliff, London, 1952.
White, J. (ed.), The Highest State of Consciousness, Doubleday, New York, 1972.
Wood, Ernest, Concentration, Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, 1950.

 

 

4	A+G+T+C	31	13	4
7	LETTERS	99	27	9
11	A+G+T+C+LETTERS	130	40	13
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
3	DNA	19	10	1
3	RNA	33	15	6
6	D+N+A+R+N+A	52	25	7
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
6	DOUBLE	59	23	5
5	HELIX	58	31	4
11	DOUBLE HELIX	117	54	9
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
8	MAGNETIC	72	36	9
5	FIELD	36	27	9
13	MAGNETIC+FIELD	108	63	18
-	-	1+0+8	6+3	1+8
13	MAGNETIC+FIELD	9	9	9

 

 

7	SPHERES	90	36	9
4	ORBS	54	18	9
7	BUBBLES	63	18	9
5	ROUND	72	27	9
4	BALL	27	9	9
4	HOOP	54	27	9
3	SUN	54	9	9
7	JUPITER	99	36	9
5	WORLD	72	27	9
11	SAGITTARIUS	144	45	9
4	GAIA	18	9	9
3	TAO	36	9	9
4	REAL	36	18	9
7	REALITY	90	36	9
1	I	9	9	9
2	ME	18	9	9
3	IVE	36	18	9
3	EGO	27	18	9
10	CONSCIENCE	90	45	9
6	DIVINE	63	36	9
7	THOUGHT	99	36	9
6	SORROW	108	36	9
4	LOVE	54	18	9
9	FIFTYFOUR	126	54	9
10	THIRTYFOUR	160	61	7
3	YOU	61	16	7
4	YOUR	79	25	7
7	LETTERS	99	27	9
8	LANGUAGE	68	32	5
9	LANGUAGES	87	33	6
9	NUMBERING	103	49	4
6	NUMBER	73	28	1
7	NUMBERS	92	29	2
10	NUMBERLESS	128	38	2
8	NUMERALS	84	30	3
5	HIERO	55	37	1
7	GLYPHIC	80	44	8
12	HIEROGLYPHIC	135	81	9
8	GLYPHICS	99	45	9
5	GLYPH	68	32	5
6	GLYPHS	87	33	6
10	HIEROGLYPH	123	69	6
11	HIEROGLYPHS	142	70	7
13	HIEROGLYPHICS	154	82	1
6	SYMBOL	86	23	5
7	SYMBOLS	105	24	6
4	ZERO	64	28	1
3	ONE	34	16	7
8	ALPHABET	65	29	2
9	ALPHABETS	84	30	3
8	INSTINCT	108	36	9
9	INSTINCTS	127	37	1
11	INSTINCTUAL	142	43	7
7	NATURAL	87	24	6
6	NATURE	79	25	7
7	NATURES	98	26	8

 

 

9	UNIVERSAL	121	40	4
8	LANGUAGE	68	32	5
17	First Total	189	72	9
1+7	Add to Reduce	1+8+9	7+2	-
8	Second Total	18	9	9
-	Reduce to Deduce	1+8	-	-
8	Essence of Number	9	9	9
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
7	GENETIC	63	36	9
4	CODE	27	18	9
11	Add to Reduce	90	54	18
1+1	Reduce to Deduce	9+0	5+4	1+8
2	Essence of Number	9	9	9
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
6	DOUBLE	59	23	5
5	HELIX	58	31	4
11	Add to Reduce	117	54	9
1+1	Reduce to Deduce	1+1+7	5+4	-
2	Essence of Number	9	9	9
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
	MAGNETIC	72	36	9
5	FIELD	36	27	9
13	Add to Reduce	108	63	18
1+3	Reduce to Deduce	1+0+8	6+3	1+8
4	Essence of Number	9	9	9

 

 

 

 

ANCIENT EGYPT - THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Gerald Massey

Book 12

Page 898

"When Horus returns to his father with his work accomplished on earth and in Amenta he greets Osiris in a “discourse to his father”. In forty addresses he enumerates what he has done for the support and assistance of Osiris in the earth of Seb. Each line commences with the formula, “Hail, Osiris, I am thy son Horus. I have come!”