Chapter 10: GAYA


The tenth concept is the Earth. It is completion that all the concepts revolve around, and it is made of all the concepts. The brown disk of Earth circles all the concepts. The sacred name of the world is "GAYA." I don’t have to describe the Earth. You can explore it yourself. Someone might make up a system and argue the logic of it and connect concepts with other concepts like a big crossword puzzle and never check to see if his relationships really mean anything. The Earth must be our teacher.

The Bible talks about the fall from God’s Grace. The Mahabharata talks about degenerative ages where things keep getting worse. Both books talk about ways of returning to the original better order; they call it salvation. You might notice that I don’t talk much about returning to God’s Grace. I have never been any good at that. It is a very important part of many people’s religious life. Do it if you want to, but remember to also stay part of Nature. The Earth is your mother. Heaven is your father. You exist as a union of the two.

To the Jews, she is Israel. To the Sioux, she is Buffalo Cow. To the Hopi, she is Corn. To Catholics, she is the church. To me, she is the trees. The Goddess is the safety of your mother who raises and cares for you. She is the ways of your home. She is the ways of your village. She is the ways of your tribe. She is the home. Men might run around outside the camp and kill things, but your home belongs to your mother. She decides what is evil and must remain outside the camp. She decides what is good and can come in. She gathers fruits to feed you, and knows the plants around her village as if she herself was the Earth that gave the fruit.

One important Goddess that I should mention is Hera. She is tradition. Each society must discover its own ways of seeing and doing things. The symbol for Hera is different from culture to culture. Civilization is full of silly rules and ways. I prefer anarchy. Perhaps there is a way that is closer to Earth, but I have not found it. Most primitive cultures are close to the Earth, but also have purification rituals, Idealistic concepts, discipline, and work ethics. These could be the seeds that eventual produce civilization. I have tried to invent a religion that is hedonistic and anarchistic. Perhaps anarchy is the correct way and Hera is just a female Zeus.

The Winds

There are also four winds. These are active forces in Nature that give the elements life. Each wind is identified with a season and a direction. West is the direction of spring and birth, but the west wind is the destructor of fall. North is the direction of summer and life, but the north wind is winter and purity. East is the direction of fall and death, but the east wind is the life-giver. South is the direction of winter and lifelessness, but the south wind is summer and a life preserver. The west wind is black, the counterclockwise thundergod of destruction, Jove, and sunset. The north wind is white, the purifier of winter the Moon, and night. The east wind is a life-giving spirit of spring, fire, and sunrise. The south wind is the life preserver of summer, Helios and daytime.

Each season, a priest might put a symbol of the season on the direction of that season, then put a symbol of the wind of the season on the direction of that wind. Each season, the priest changes and redecorates his temple. A priest may use other symbols if he wants. Like an artist, he can choose how he decorates the temple. The important thing is that his congregation accepts it. The temple belongs to the congregation.

The Tower

Religions have evolved and changed as ages pass. This doesn’t mean they are getting better or worse. They simply change with traditions. Cults come and go. Religious movements happen all the time. However, one basic system has been used in Europe and the Middle East for centuries. They corresponded the seven basic concepts to the seven planets and seven days of the week. The order of the seven days of the week represents the seven days of creation, from spirit to matter. From the Sun and Moon, which are pure spiritual, to Venus, which is the material world. Sunday is the Sun, a time for prayer. Monday is the Moon. Tuesday is the day of Mars, when God created grass in the field. In the Middle East, Mars is a shepherd. On Wednesday, God created the stars in the Heaven. This is the day of astrologers. Priests meet on this day. Thursday is the day of Thor the Thunder God, Jupiter. Friday is Venus’ day, a day for fun. Saturday is Saturn’s, the seventh day that the Creator rested and made that day sacred to himself. These seven concepts are the steps of the tower of Babel.

The male star is a circle of concepts in the astrological numerical order: Saturn to Moon. They are numbered according to how fast they move trough the Zodiac. The female star is a circle of concepts in the order of the seven days of creation. Connect the concepts of the male star with lines in the creation order. Connect the concepts of the female star with lines in the numerical order.

The Crosses

Yule, Easter, Litha, and Modron are elemental festivals. They celebrate things that really happen. They are represented by a red and black cross that holds the elements in place. Justice is everything in its right place. Evil happens when things get out of their right place. The right place exists for something even if the thing is not there. Man, being detached from Nature, is an injustice. When things are in their right place there is victory. The red and back cross of justice is the material cross.

Candlemass, Mayday, Assumption, and Halloween are conceptual festivals. They celebrate conceptual ideas that Man creates, and are represented by the conceptual cross, which is also the Greek letter Khi, the spiritual cross. Many religions think the concepts are more holy than anything else, and that a holy man is someone who is spiritually minded. I don’t agree. I believe there are many kinds of holy things and a materialist can also be a. holy man. I guess it is O.K. for someone to be dedicated to the concepts so long as he does not let his belief upset Nature. Often a person dedicated to the concepts is insane.

The red line of the soul can be drawn with a circle on top to represent a head and is called Rhon. The Khi and Rhon are combined in a symbol called the Khirhon. The names Christ, as used by Christians, and Krishna, as used by Hindus, can be represented by the Khirhon. In both of those religions, the Big Khirhona is considered the one God who makes all things happen and sees all things, and everything is part of his plan. I guess sometimes it is O.K. to devote yourself to some dream of an all-powerful God, but I also think it’s often just a waste of time. Some people waste their whole lives praising him.

The name, Christ, is actually an ancient Greek word that can be added to the names of many Gods. It sort of means anointed, or full of a power called charisma. Charisma is semen cream. Semen has many magical meanings. I call it the water of life. The Hindu name Krishna also comes from the ancient word for semen. Many modern words have roots in prehistoric sacred words. Often the meanings of words are now completely different from what they originally were. Very few Christians are referring to semen when they say Christ.

It is interesting how sex and religion are mixed up. Religious people who consider sex evil talk about sex a lot. Today, most nuns are very anti-prostitution. In ancient Babylon, prostitutes were nuns. Many people have forgotten the original sexual meanings of sacred things. Christianity is a very nonsexual ceremony, but it adopts a lot of things from old orgy cults, such as anointing with oil, magic wands, holy water, and Nuns. I’d rather use these things in an old-fashioned orgy cult than in boring Christianity.

I tend to use whatever meaning I like. Some of my symbolic meanings are traditional symbols that have been used for centuries. Some, I just make up. I like to use the Khirhon to represent the divine power in semen. Semen is a very holy thing. A lot of stories about Jesus being sacrificed to make the crops grow, are really about sex. These stories appear in cultures that still remember the old pagan ways, which the church would like them to forget.

The Tree of Knowledge

The visions that I see on a vision quest are probably my own way of dreaming about the world. I try not to use them to escape the world. The American Indian, Crazy Horse, believed the world of his visions was real but he also lived as part of material nature, and even fought civilization to remain a part of Nature. This is very different from a holy man who lives separate from Nature in some monastery with nothing but his insane dreams.

The word, occult can refer to many different cults. Many occult traditions go back to ancient Alexandria in Egypt, where Jews and Greeks shared ideas. Their writing is preserved in ancient esoteric manuscripts, some of which are kind of interesting. Often, the hermetic system in occultism is pictured as a stairway of many levels. Many occult systems are too full of spiritual concepts and do not have enough reality concepts. The most famous esoteric system is the Qabalah. The Qabalah was originally invented by Jewish rabbis to serve as a key to help students unlock the mysteries of the holy book, the Tora. The Qabalah is a crossword puzzle of letters, numbers, and sacred names. It teaches people to make their life a long prayer to God. The Qabalah teaches that God is unlimited light. The universe is light in extension. God is too vast to ever be imagined, but we can understand ten extensions of God called Sephiroths. The power of each concept comes from the sphere of that concept. Each person is made up of these ten extensions; therefore, we can experience the extensions inside ourselves. Some people would say that the soul descends to matter through the spheres and gains a part of each. Man is a microcosm of the macrocosm. When you leave matter and go back to spirit, you must leave behind each part as you pass its sphere. Some people might say that to return to spirit you must regain each part. Basically, the Qabalah says that each person is an extension of God and can return to God if he lose his individual self.

The higher sphere is unity of all spheres. Some people think of the world as one whole. They might confuse the material connections in nature with a less realistic unity. They might think the unity is nonmaterial. Material might be thought of as separation of objects, but they consider the material to be an illusion anyway. Material nature is then thought of as separate from the unity. The Great spiritual One, is somehow more connected to mind than body. Even though some people think everything is one, they want to be one by being one. The way they say it, it sounds less circular. They might think that all materialists have the illusion of seeing things as separate. Hindus call this illusion Maya. I have never met a materialist who has this illusion. All materialists, that I know, see a material unity of nature, which I call Maya.

Throughout history men have interpreted this unity in all kinds of imaginative ways. There are metaphysicians who think of the world as an inferior copy, of the One. There are political writers who see the unity of a nation as copy of the One. There are athletes who see the well-built body as a reflection of the One. There are psychologists who think that psychological harmony in a well-adjusted person is the original meaning of the One. People equate the One with justice. I avoid using the concept of the One, because people who use it tend to think that the material world is inferior to the One. They see a divine justice in Heaven to which they want to rise up. I see a material justice on Earth.

The top of the Qabalah is bright and lighted. The bottom is dark, rotting filth. They put their peaceful, lawful ideals in the top half. They put material nature on the bottom, which they consider violent and chaotic. They see Man as having an evil material side, which fights the spiritual side. They divide each sphere into lighted and material halves. They think you must gain the lighted and lose the material. They tend to think that the lighted halves can guide and inspire you. They think your soul is purified and saved by joining the lighted half, which goes to the One after you, die. They fear the dead, because they think the evil half stays in the body, and can pollute the living. They invent an image of the world where the dead can take your soul away from the One. They think that the material halves, which are usually biological instincts, can corrupt you. Souls who are attracted to the body stay in their rotting flesh. They think that biological life is the pain of being dead. They think the One is the only true life.

The steps along the Qabalah are sometimes associated with stages of psychological development. For example, Venus might be the time when someone leaves the safety of his mother to enter an unknown danger. This interpretation of Venus is based on obscure interpretations of obscure interpretations. I think the original idea was that love could drive you to face any danger. Some people explore the mythology of each step, as a form of spiritual meditation, to become a more complete person. There is an astral plane where occultists fantasize about their perverted concepts. Modern psychology seems to indicate that man has many needs. Some people jump to the conclusion that the Qabalah is a map of these needs. Qabalist tend to think that the Qabalah is the natural way, and that they are practicing a natural art.

Some people believe in a higher self who can control their animal nature. This higher self is identified with a driving force in all men to bring order into their lives. Some people would say that the essence of the force is the love for your fellow man. They think you can only spread love if you order your life. Their goal might seem good, but they go to extremes to do something most of us can do naturally. They see civilization and domestication is necessary to create love. They think that self-domestication is what makes you human, and that it is natural for all men to want to be civilized. My definition of human is very different from theirs. I see real humans as wild and uncivilized, and civilized man as inhuman.

Some modern occultists say that the higher self is also mysteriously the lower self. They think that adopting this idea will make you free from conflict of the two sides. Some people who adopt this idea don’t have the courage to abandon the higher self. They can’t go all the way, so they invent excuses. Most of them are hippies who chant OM and eat health food. They don’t know the beast within, and are too scared to let him out for real. Some occultist put the beast on top. For example, Aleister Crowley equated light with lust. Crowley is one of the rare cool occultists.

In many occult dogmas, the male is dominant, and the female is submissive. To be the male they rule over a force. To be the female they let the force rule over them. As they explore the forces they try both dominant and submissive roles with each force. They consider Dionysus feminine since he lets such forces as passion have power over him. I do not consider giving in to passions to be submissive. I consider Dionysus to be an assertion of the true self. My Dionysus is not a wimp. They consider Apollo to be the most dominant male, but I have noticed how Apollo is a form of submission. Apollonians let Ogum possess their souls and have lost their true self. I do not consider the male dominant or the female submissive. My Goddesses are not submissive.

Many occult rituals are supposed to open your mind and have some kind of effect on the unconscious mind, to influences your behavior. Some occultists want to turn their lead into Gold. Their rituals consist mostly of highly energized chanting and climactic freaking out. Some occultists are busy trying to overcome fears so they can properly deal with psychological shadows. Their covens become group therapy for the meek. Most spells have never actually been tested. It is possible that you don’t need whatever psychological benefit they’re trying to push. I tend to mistrust most forms of psychotherapy. This self-inflicted brainwashing seems very unnatural. I tend to think that most people can work things out without neurotic rituals, which only make them more neurotic. The therapy might actually prevent you from getting something important. Civilization puts a lot of pressure on people causing them to do weird things.

People waste a lot of time studying the Qabalah when they could be out studying real Nature. I prefer rituals that are just for fun. There is something artificial about ceremonial magic that tries to make changes in your psychology. I’m sure any ritual can have some kind of psychological effect, but let it happen naturally, don’t force it. Put down your Qabalah or whatever you’re using and just do whatever feels good. You might get a power that neurotic occultists will never know.

A lot of stuff might look like it is better than Nature, but is it really better than Nature. I tend to think that in the long run the natural is the best way. Maybe I don’t always explain why I feel that way. It is just a faith I have. When my grandparents where young, people used to think that they must tame the wilderness to make the wasteland grow. They thought they were improving Nature. Since then, Man has found that interfering with the environment can hurt nature. He has also learned that Nature was not a wasteland, but rather it was a healthy environment that he needs. He is beginning to learn that the best ecology are those that grows naturally on its own. There have been many studies on how kids should be trained. I think kids learn fine using their own natural curiosity. Sure, some programs might produce kids who can learn faster, but will that actually be better for the kids? Perhaps some day we will learn about the dangers of interfering with the Nature in Man.

Teachings like the Qabalah are considered heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church claims that God and Man are separate. You can experience God’s love or grace, but you always remain yourself. You do not disappear into the divine. I prefer the Catholic doctrine over the Qabalah, since I’d rather experience God and remain myself. Also, in the Catholic Church, God is a real being with real powers. An experience of God is a real gift, and not just a state of mind, as in some occult doctrines. The Qabalah is sometimes said to be the Tree of Knowledge. In the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life is separate from the tree of knowledge.

Most of the occult hermetic societies correspond the Sephiroths on the Qabalah with the planets in their astrological order. Thus Jupiter numbered four, falls on the fourth Sephiroth, Mercy. This makes no sense to me, since Jupiter should fall on Severity. In the traditional occult Qabalistic system, they put Mars on Severity. I think Mars belongs on Beauty. They put Venus off to the side and say that it is off balance and decadent. They completely misunderstand the Moon. Their Moon is their door, a contradiction of my Moon. The order I prefer is, Saturn as Crown, Zodiac as Wisdom, Lucifer as Intelligence, Sun as Mercy, Jupiter as Severity, Mars as Beauty, Moon as Victory, Mercury as Glory, Venus as Foundation and Earth as Kingdom. If you draw my Qabalah as a woman, the Trinity of Crown, Wisdom and Intelligence forms her head, Mercy her right hand. Severity her left, Victory her right foot, Glory her left, Beauty her body, Foundation her vagina, and the Kingdom, Earth, is what she is standing on.

A little Dogmatism

There are two Gods who want to be your father. If you choose one you deny the other. One is called Lucifer, who is nonexistence. The other is called Yahweh, the creator of the world. Yahweh is Yevo, clockwise, the seasons in order. If you choose to exist you choose Yahweh and your name will be Yesvo, the son of Yahweh. Yesvo is the five stages of life known as Jesus. If you choose not to exist you choose Lucifer and your name will be Jove. Jove is the destroyer of life, counter-clockwise, the seasons backward, known as Satan. You cannot just say you love one or the other. It is what you do that makes you Satan or Jesus. Many people think they love Yahweh but actually live as though Lucifer was their father. Many people who claim to worship Lucifer actually live the way Yahweh wants them to. Faith must have a reality or else it is just foolishness. There are many men who think they love God with all their heart and have Absolute Faith, but they will never get to Heaven, because they are civilized. There are many people who never believed in God but still go to Heaven because they live as they are meant to. Man once lived as part of Nature, in a biological paradise, with Yahweh as his father. This was the Golden Age of Saturn. Man lost Nature, when he denied his place in Nature, and fell out of paradise. Zeus, who is civilization, took over, because Satan fooled man out of paradise. We can return to Eden by accepting Nature again and living as part of it, the way Man is biologically made to live.

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