This is the last in my series of posts making available the writings of Colonel Charles ‘Griff’ Seymour, one of the most important esotericists of the twentieth century.

May to September 1938

Part 1. The Gods of the Mysteries

In these articles an attempt will be made to show what the gods of a Mystery tradition meant to their initiated servers who, being educated men and women, had a practical working knowledge of the techniques used by their particular school or schools.

Each of these cycles or systems of gods had their own Mystery cult, in most of which there were two types of priests. The ordinary priesthood whose members performed the exoteric rituals, and the initiated priests, selected from the ranks of the ordinary priesthood, who were taught to work both the exoteric and the esoteric rites. Here the student should appreciate the fact that the terms to perform and to work are not synonymous, and that the difference between them is a clue to the difference that existed in the past between those priests who served the God in his earthly temple and the initiated priests who worked the rites in ‘The Temple Not Made With Hands’.

Except in Greece after 600 BC, education was given as a rule only in connection with a temple. The civil servants of Egypt and Babylonia, and possibly elsewhere, were almost to a man educated, as were the governors, princes, priests and queens. Later when the priesthood fell into disrepute and the temple Mysteries decayed, the training of initiates in the working of the rites and ceremonies was carried out in secular schools which were formed eventually into secret brotherhoods. The school of Pythagoras is an example of this. The societies formed by the Orphikoi under cover of the official worship of Dionysius, and the schools of the Christian and pre-Christian Gnosticism in Syria and Egypt are examples of hieratic and secular attempts to supplement the inadequate pabulum given by official and state religions when in a degenerate condition.

In the widely differing cults of Mithras, Isis and Serapis we have examples of a dying religion taking on a new life, sometimes with a new name and a more up-to-date system of external organization. At the same time it should be noted that these cults as a rule retained much of that inner knowledge and technique
which enabled their trained and initiated members to work the rites in their new form, often in a new country.

Mithraism died in its own land with the conquests of Alexander, and then, with Mithras as its divine Saviour with a new role and a new message it flourished in Asia Minor and Europe for nearly a thousand years.

Isis died in Egypt but was reborn in orthodox Christianity as the Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven. It could be said that the Great Gods never die. Their names may change, the method of using that power which they represent may change, and the new message their priesthoods bring may be different in form and substance, but the Great Gods are eternal. So too, in another way, live on the Lesser Gods, the Heroes, and those earthly teachers who follow in the train of the cosmic gods. Man, even if he follows only in the rear of this great procession, is yet a child of the aeon; he is not ephemeral as some seem to think.

It may be said that the secrets of the Mysteries have been so well kept that little or nothing has come down to us. This objection is a fair one, but it can be explained. The secrecy to which initiates were pledged forbade those who knew to write the inner history of the cults to which they belonged, and rendered it impossible for those who did not know to divulge the inner teachings. Another point is that in addition to destroying the temples and the literature of the Mysteries the Christian writers misrepresented the Mystery cults in such a way that one is sometimes compelled to question how they ever exercised such a potent spell on ancient religious minds.

Consider how great some of these minds were from this hymn of a little-known writer, Cleanthes:

Lead me, Oh Zeus, and lead me, Destiny.
Whither ordained is by your decree.
I’ll follow doubting not, or if with will
Recreant I falter yet I shall follow still.
(Matheson’s trans. in Bevan, Later Greek Religion, p. 15.)

With all the advantages of modern science and education, few could express themselves more clearly or more beautifully.

It is true that the secret of the Mysteries is not known to historians, or even to men of such vast knowledge as the author of The Golden Bough. Again, the explanation is simple. History deals with facts, with the things of the age that is under consideration. The secrets of the Mysteries are not concerned with facts, symbols, dogmas or teachings. They cannot be betrayed because they concern a mode of consciousness. This secret has been shouted from the housetops since man became a thinking, tool-using animal, yet it still remains a mystery.

‘Behold, I show you a mystery,’ said one of the founders of Christianity and his empty hands showed no thing. The empty shrine is the Supreme Mystery of the Mysteries; it cannot be betrayed because it is a way of thinking, a no-thing-ness.

The acquiring of the technique of no-thing-ness is the subject-matter of the Mysteries, yet that technique is not a secret. Pelmanism is a modern adaptation of an ancient Mystery usage which was taught in the Lotus Court of the Mystery Temples of Isis. Yet the Isian Mysteries have not been divulged. Apuleius gives a long account of his initiation and adds, ‘Behold, I have told you things of which, although you have heard them, you cannot know the meaning.’

The clue is this: initiation is no thing, it is an experience which takes place neither in time nor space. Consider this saying: ‘The Sun is in the macrocosm what Reason is in the microcosm.’ This is an ancient word picture of a truth that can be interpreted in a less obvious manner when meditated upon by those who realize the relationship between Macroprosopos and Microprosopos as shown upon the Tree of Life.

Once the principles governing the methods of training used in the Western Tradition have been grasped, it is fairly easy to compare, to analyse and to classify the technique that is used in schools of another tradition. For example, the principles that govern the technique that is used in India, Persia and Thibet are au fond the same as those that govern the Yoga of the West, though the techniques are in themselves utterly different.

A highly trained initiate of the West can grasp the core of the technique of almost any Eastern system. This however does not mean that such a one can either practise or use a technique that is foreign to his own. Usually and for good reasons he leaves Eastern Yoga severely alone.

At the back of each of the older Mystery systems is a group mind and behind that group mind is the group soul of the nation or the epoch during which it flourished. If in the past a student has been a member of, say, the cult of Hathor at Denderah in South Egypt, he will be able by means of the technique that is taught him today in a school of the Western Tradition that is working under authority in London, to project himself into the past. His knowledge of the principles taught in this age will enable him to recover from within himself when back in the astral form of The Temple of the Denderah that was built more than three thousand years ago, the principles and the methods that were taught him in that long forgotten past life.

He can then work a ritual of the cult of Hathor for he is still a member of that ancient group mind which is even today a living integral portion of the group soul of Mother Earth. He picks up the trail first within himself, then within Nature’s magical memory, and then he very gently draws up from the deeps a forgotten knowledge. This is education in the true sense of drawing forth from within.

But when the initiate strives to pass into a group mind that is alien and into a culture that is also alien he will find that though he may understand it, he can neither practise nor use the technique he is examining. He is not a member of this group mind; he is alien to it; he is one of the profane.

He must as a beginner take his initiation into this, to him, new tradition. This is the reason why so few Europeans are able to use the great Eastern traditions of China, Thibet and India. These do not come naturally to them, and a fresh start has to be made. The would-be initiate has to be vouched for and trained by one who is a competent master in that particular tradition.

Again you will seldom find that foreigners (even Europeans) can take their full training in schools working with the English group soul. They can be trained up to a point in meditation, in psychology, and in the philosophy and comparative methods of the Mysteries. But when it comes to team work in a ritual it will be found – as a rule – that their practical work is weak. There are exceptions to this rule, plenty of them, but it can, by experience, be proved to be a useful practical guide, and it is almost infallible when dealing with the immature.

The rulers of the group minds described above are the gods and the goddesses of the various cults, the divine Children of the Great Mother. And if these results of practical work which have been set forth above are of universal application, as it is thought they are, then it will be wiser – in the case of beginners – to stick to the Divine Formulations that belong to the tradition into which one has been born. One may take it for granted that the Lords of Karma know what is good for each of us, and place us where best we can profit from the experiences that must come from environment.

If you would drink in the Initiatory Rites of the Cold Waters that flow from the Lake of Memory, remember the Guardians thereof, for these are the great Race Angels of the Orphic Tablet. They will know ‘who thou art and whence thou art and what thy city is’, when thou comest to revive ‘the memory of the Beginnings’.

Build clearly the images that rise into your mind as you brood in meditation upon this translation of the Orphic Tablet:

Thou shalt find on the left of the House of Hades a Well-spring,
And by the side thereof standing a white cypress.
To this Well-spring approach not near.
But thou shalt find another by the Lake of Memory,
Cold water flowing forth, and there are Guardians before it.
Say: ‘I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven (alone). This ye know yourselves.
And lo, I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory’.
And of themselves they will give thee to drink from the holy Well-spring,
And thereafter among the other Heroes thou shalt have lordship.
(The Flaming Door, Merry, p. 159)

The House of Hades is not hell as the untaught of today imagine. It is the bright shining land to which the Celtic heroes voyaged in the glass boat of initiation. It is the inner world that lies behind the dark door of the temple sanctuary. The Guardians are the Gods or Race Angels, and the well is in your own soul which is also in the Lake of the Memory of the Earth Mother.

After drinking you may look for the moon in the crystal cup of pure water. Can you build these images in reverie? Try the experiment.

Part 2. In the Temples of the Gods of Wisdom

‘Celui qui a de l’imagination sans érudition a des ailes et n’a pas des pieds.’ (Joubert)

In the reformulation of an ancient tradition a great deal of historical research has to be carried out in order to build that bony skeleton upon which all the rest has to fit.

It is often thought that when an adept returns to earth from the unseen realms of Hu (the once all potent Divine Lord of Western Celtic mythology) in order to take up his work in the Temple of Ceridwen – that is, in the realms of the soul of this earth-world, he has merely to open up his own communications with the Masters of Wisdom who are on the Inner Planes, and then a School of Initiation springs into being and also into function as Athene sprang fully armed with a great shout from the head of Zeus.

The Masters of Wisdom from the realms of Hu provide the adept with imagination, and they give him at the same time the winged cup of crystal that contains inspiration. But this is not enough. The adept has to use his own feet in order to crawl among the dusty and forgotten records of the past for the traditional forms into which the contents of the winged crystal cup have to be poured. And the quotation at the head of this Chapter is an exact description of the situation of any leader who, relying on imagination alone, and lacking erudition, gives his group emotional stimuli only.

This type of being is well suited to the pacific and, alas, often soporific atmosphere of an ‘uplift’ society, where all that is required is a gentle method of consoling old ladies of both sexes.

But an occult society in function, with the terminals of its contacts well plugged home in the realms of both the ‘Here’ and the ‘Yonder’, is seldom pacific and even more rarely soporific. Both the society and its members have to be strong in body and soul to stand the strain of the forces that flow through them. There has to be an adequate technique or the force will disrupt both the society and its members. In simple terms this means that such a society must have an outer court for teaching and training, and an inner court to carry on the work of initiation. It is the formation and functioning of the outer court that calls for erudition.

In the Inner Group the members look inward and prepare in silent meditation for the brewing of the ‘Three Drops’ of wisdom distilled in the seething cauldron of Keredwen. But when the ‘Little Gwion’ has licked his scalded fingers and become inspired thereby, he must look outwards if he is to escape the furious pursuit of the Goddess and bring his imagination to fruition by means of his hard-won erudition.

In the temples of the Gods of Wisdom there are many books, all with one thing in common: they deal with something that comes from experience, not argument, and this experience comes through nature to man who is her child. The first and most important book of all is the Book of Nature. It lies, ever open, on the altar of the material universe. Its secrets are not written on its golden pages but are hidden so that he who runs may not read. You must take it a little at a time, and visualize in quiet meditation; you must read between the lines to understand.

Plutarch in his Isis et Osiris gives a hint of this. He is writing about Anubis, a Prince of the West, the god who leads the dead through the Gates of Death and across the desert to the Halls of Osiris, and who also takes the initiate through the Portal of Initiation, which is always situated in the West. Plutarch goes on to tell us that: ‘By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle which divides the invisible [Nephthys] from the visible [Isis]; as the circle touches equally upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked on as common to both.’

Remember here that there is a horizon of consciousness as well as one on the physical level. In terms of the former the titles of Anubis give an explanation of his role. He is called Up-Uatu or the Opener of the Ways, and also Sekhem em Pet or the Power in Heaven, and he is mentioned as having two faces, one black as night and the other golden as the day.

Plutarch goes on to say that Osiris, the Lord of Initiation, is ‘the Common Reason which pervades the superior and inferior regions of the Universe’, and adds that another name for it is Anubis or Hermanubis, the first name expressing relationship to the superior, and the latter to the inferior world. Both these worlds exist only in terms of consciousness and have nothing to do with solar light or terrestrial darkness. They become manifest as stages of initiation. (See Budge, From Fetish to God, p. 213.)

Turning to the Celtic Mysteries we find that Hu represents the power and the glory of the spiritual world, and is analogous to Osiris. His Shakti was Keredwen, the Soul of this Universe, and she is as the Twin Goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Like Osiris, Hu is the directing principle of the whole universe. Whilst Keredwen in her dual Isis-Nephthys role is the power of the light and dark wisdom or vision. Again these things pertain to planes of consciousness other than the physical.

Anubis is the guide into these dual realms of Isis and Nephthys, but he is also Osiris, and there is a white Osiris and a black Osiris just as there are the Christs of Evil as well as the Christs of Good. Hu, wearing the gold yoke of the sun and the girdle of the Iris of the World, accompanied the human being when he was united with the ‘power of vision’, out of the Depths and into the Light. (Merry, The Flaming Door, p. 150.)

Hu unveils himself gradually just as in the Egyptian Mysteries of initiation and death the Dark Anubis gives way to the Golden Anubis. When the sanctuary is reached the guide Anubis becomes Horus the Child of the Sun. Remember that Anubis was indeed the first-born son of Osiris, it is he who sits upon the throne of the east as his Father, with his Twin Mothers standing behind him.

Here we have the eternal principle of all things that are in manifestation, a duality that is polarity. We see this clearly shown to us in the symbolism of Osiris/Anubis, Isis/Nephthys and Hu the Golden and the Dark with Keredwen is her aspects of the Fruitful Mother and the Dark Giantess. In the sanctuary the One becomes Two and the Two become Four.

The Law of Polarity is the first thing you learn from the Book of Nature. That which is solitary is barren (as Nephthys was to her husband Set). This is true of Gods and Man alike. It is also true of societies. There must be an outer and an inner, a hidden teaching and a revealed teaching.

Having studied the Book of Nature we may turn to the book that is hidden within the heart of man, and one even more difficult to read than the former. Today we call it the Book of Life, but the ancients knew it as the Book of Thoth. We are told that this book was hidden in the Nile at Coptos in an iron box within which was a succession of boxes of bronze, sycamore, ivory, ebony, gold and silver. Snakes and scorpions guarded it. Where it was, there was Light, where it was not, there was Darkness. This becomes clear only if we remember that for the ancients there were earthly, heavenly and human gods. There was an earthly Nile, a heavenly Nile and a Nile within the human aura. As will be explained later the ancients had a system of yoga not unlike that of India. (Griffith, Stories of the High Priestess of Memphis, p. 21.)

All the old Mystery rites are hidden in the Memory of Nature, that is in the Heavenly Nile. But there is also a Sea of Coptos deep in the hereditary memory of many alive today. But this kind of memory pertains to the soul and spirit of man, and has nothing to do with his physical descent. There are many living today who have in the past served at the many altars of the ancient world. If they can discover the hidden box containing the Book as it lies deep within their subconscious memory, then sooner or later they will discover the heavenly counterpart of that book. Some have discovered it already. There is an interesting book by Naomi Mitchison called The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Obviously it is to a great extent an uprush of subconscious memories. The author had ‘found her box in the Sea of Coptos’ and mankind is the richer for this book. The same can be said for Joan Grant’s The Winged Pharoah. Again the prose of A.E. and the poetry of W. B. Yeats leave one impressed by the fact that something very old and wise is peeping at us from the pages of these gifted writers.

Such books have a value for the trained and careful reader. They set him tugging gently and patiently at the delicate tendrils of his own subconscious memories, and help him to untangle those memories from past lives and draw them up into waking consciousness. They are easy to recognize for it is the great sorrows and tragedies of life that burn themselves into the soul’s memory, and when they come they often release a flood of emotion and fear that can be very painful. By this they can be recognized.

The systems used in the Mysteries for reading the records of Thoth have come down to us only in fragments, and much has to be deduced from practical experience. But in some countries the systems have come down almost uninjured. Tibet, India, Burma and China have many and varied ways of development that are coeval with the lost and shattered systems of Egypt, Chaldea and Syria. Under the generic title of Eastern Yoga the student will find much that throws light on these lost Mediterranean systems. For instance a little knowledge of yoga would be enough to give one a comprehension of the breathing and intoning that must have been used by the initiate working the Mithraic ritual given in Mead’s Echoes from the Gnosis, Vol. 6. It may also lead through practical work to a release of knowledge concerning these systems from the subconscious memory of the race. This knowledge is not the same as belief… it reaches beyond facts and exchanges belief for knowledge. The Gnostic is called by this name because he knows, and in knowing he discards believing. He has no credos in these matters.

Part 3

The initiate of one system can understand without much difficulty the system of another race. ‘All the Gods are one God and all the Goddesses are One Goddess and there is one Illuminator.’ The names and methods may vary, but the realities behind the Veil do not vary because they are ageless, timeless and perfect in their way of working; they are always the same. The ever-changing factor is man’s conception of these forces and the mental images he builds in order to reach out to them.

Popular ideology after centuries of narrow teaching, misconception and misinterpretation is singularly childish, while the wiser teachings of the modern Greek scholars have been almost unheeded. G. Murray has written in his edition of Hippolytus of Euripides: “The Aphrodite of Euripides’ actual belief was almost certainly not what we should call a goddess, but rather a force of Nature. To deny her existence you would have to say “there is no such thing” and that would be a denial of obvious facts.’

Here a great principle had been laid out. But if Professor Murray had also made it clear that in the heart of every man there dwells this potent natural force personified by the ancients as Aphrodite, and that this Aphrodite within forms a link with its parent nature force that is without, by means of the image of a perfect woman, then his statement would have been a lot more comprehensive.

The form which the Aphrodite Force takes in Greece is not the same as that which her counterpart Isis takes in Egypt; nor is the latter the same as that of Isis of Nubia. These varying forms, for their initiates, act as a link between the subjective Aphrodite of the microcosms and the objective Aphrodite of the macrocosm. The forces within and without man do not vary. Only the images that link them vary. Yet the same initiate when trained can get results from all three forms alike when working on the astro-mental plane, or subjectively on the astro-mental sphere of consciousness.

For the trained initiate these forms are not the Goddess any more than the tap which you turn on with your hand is the hot water that fills your bath. The Christian uses the image of Jesus to touch the Cosmic Christ Force, the ancient Egyptian used the image of Osiris to bring him into touch with that same great spiritual being. But though the initiate can understand the techniques of another system, it does not mean that he is competent to work that system. To do that he must take initiation into that tradition and become conditioned to its symbolism. This is a point that many junior European initiates of Eastern systems forget.

Each nation has a group soul and a group mind. The group mind is the gateway to the group soul, and that group soul supplies the voltage that lights the altar lamps of that tradition. It is true that there is a Common Group Soul to all humanity; you can, and must, touch it if any system is to work for you with power. But this does not give you the right of entry into the system of another nation. You must be tested, trained, conditioned and vouched for by an initiate of that tradition. This explains why the European Jew is not at home in a Celtic or Nordic system; it is his traditional way of thinking, not the fact that he is a Jew, that isolates him.

Yoga was not unknown to the Egyptians, as the directions given in the tale of Setne Khamuas by the priest to Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah clearly show:

The Book of Thoth is in the midst of the Sea of Coptos [near Luxor] in a box of iron. In the box of iron is a box of bronze, in the box of bronze is a box of Kete-wood, in the box of Kete-wood is a box of ivory and ebony, and in the box of ivory and ebony is a box of silver wherein is a box of gold, and in here is the book, there being an endless snake about the box. (Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, p. 21.)

The following notes by Griffith will show how impossible it is to think of these stories as dealing with physical events.

1. ‘The Sea of Coptos.’ It takes three days and three nights to row from the shore to the middle of the Sea of Coptos, and the ‘Sea comprised one schoenus (six miles) of ground swarming with reptiles surrounding the Book of Thoth. Its name and its size suggest the Red Sea which was generally approached from Egypt by the Coptos road; but the identification is impossible since it is evident from the narrative that the shore was close to the city of Coptos, and that a ship could be easily brought to it from the Nile. More probably the ‘Sea of Coptos’ was a sacred lake, perhaps part of the temple grounds, magically extended when the safety of the book was in question.

2. The endless snake is the snake of Zt, meaning the Snake of Eternity.

3. In Egyptian the order of the boxes is given in reverse of that which appears above.

The geography given here is impossible, but the snake of Zt is a clue, so are the three days and nights spent rowing. In the Temptation in the Wilderness Jesus was taken up to a high mountain and shown all the kingdoms of the world. This is also an impossibility, physically, but psychologically it is possible. The expression ‘going up into a high mountain’ in the Ancient Mysteries means going into a trance-like state of meditation, another hint which must be taken into consideration with the three days and nights. It is clear that the journey of Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah to the Sea of Coptos was a psychological or magical experiment dealing solely with an inner plane journey.

For those conditioned to think in symbols there is more than appears to the eye in this story, for it is about the two most famous magicians in ancient Egypt, Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah, and Kha-Em-Uas, and it explains much about clairvoyance and the methods used in that time. It is also a fine example of the misleading methods, used in giving out hidden teachings, of which the ancients were so fond. We have here a direction for finding the lotus centre in the human body that is ruled by the God of Wisdom. The Nile equates with the human spine, and Thoth is the Lord of Daath or Understanding. It was at Coptos that Isis cut off a lock of her hair when she heard that Osiris had been murdered. The Daath centre is at the nape of the neck in the human aura. That was formerly why the priest’s stole had a cross at this point.

Kundalini, the coiled serpent, is the guardian of this knowledge in the symbolism and She, the Goddess of cosmic magical knowledge, here appears as the snake of Zt coiled about the box, or the base of the spine, the lotus-like source of magical power within the microcosm.

The story of Kha-Em-Uas can be seen merely as a story, but it is also a mine of information regarding the use made of esoteric knowledge at that time, much of which is still contained in the Book of the Dead. This name is really Pert-Em-Hru, the Coming Forth by Day, or Manifested in the Light. However, the knowledge was also meant for the living as well as the dead. It contains formulae which were intended to enable the deceased to travel where he would. It was by the use of such spells that Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah succeeded in bringing the ghosts of his wife and child to his own tomb in Memphis while their bodies remained at Coptos.

In The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Dr Evans-Wentz, p. 25, there is this significant remark: ‘Such priestly guiding of the deceased spirit is for the laity alone, for the lamas themselves, having been trained in the doctrines of the Bardo Thodol know the right path at death and need no guidance.’ The Egyptian Book of the Dead is very similar to the Bardo Thodol and Evans-Wentz remarks that ‘both treatises alike [are] no more than guide books for the traveller beyond death’. It is interesting to know that this eminent author studied the ancient funeral lore of Egypt for three years prior to his visit to Tibet. He is looked on as the greatest living authority on this subject and his book is published by the Oxford University Press.

Both these books, the Pert-Em-Hru and the Bardo Thodol, clearly deal with initiation. Now initiation used to be looked upon as being carried out by dramatic rituals rather like the Mystery plays of the medieval Church. In the lesser grades of the Mysteries of Isis, Osiris, Mithras and the pre-Christian Gnosticism of Syria and Babylonia this was probably the case. But it was only in the lower grades of these Mysteries and in the primitive nature-cults that dramatized action was used to induce exaltation of consciousness by means of dancing and sympathetic magic.

In the higher grades and in the more advanced systems this method of ritual action was abandoned. The initiate was taught how to awaken the God within himself. Then in a purely mental drama which was carried out in the ‘Temple Not Made With Hands’, the Thoth within was connected consciously with the Universal Mind the Ancient Egyptians knew as the Lord Tehuti. Usually these grades were given in a form of very light trance which required only the conscious stilling of bodily senses and the awakening of the initiate’s consciousness on the inner levels. But in the higher grades the initiation was given in a very deep trance, a condition so deep it resembled death, and could last up to three days in the tomb, or as long as three days and three nights in the belly of a whale!

In many cases this initiation had to be given by means of the hypnotic power of the presiding hierophant. But if the candidate sufficiently developed he could cast himself into trance in the same manner. When the candidate was in this condition, those in whose care his body remained checked and followed his experiences in the inner world, the domain of the Anubis Within.

If the student will experiment patiently with the visualizing of these pictures, and the invocation of the ancient names given to him in this chapter, much will become clear and real to him that can only be guessed at by the neophytes. The ordinary and the casual reader will not understand this mass of picture symbolism and the obscure references made to the ancient gods and goddesses, and will deem them to be unreal. So they are, and so they will remain, for him. These things are not real and actual in any sense of those two words for the untrained mind. The initiate has to be conditioned to his symbols through a conscious experience of their powers.

The aim here is the creating within the soul of the untrained a great store of images. These images if brooded on for a few minutes as they are being read will seed the unconscious mind and make of it a rich and fruitful source for future work. The student must tend this richness as if it were a fertile field, which indeed it is, for within each one of us there is a divine husbandman whose task it is to till the soil of the mind and to reap from it a golden harvest.

Let us think back to the Lord Tehuti, the Lord of the Moon Cave, whom the Chaldeans called Zinn, the Lord of the Moon Wisdom. He is also the Lord of the Inner Human Wisdom; he is Merlin in his sea cave by the still waters of the summer sea that flow and ebb over the lost lands of Lyonesse. The blue cloak of this Watcher can still be seen on the hidden shores of the mind. The silver badge of his Shakti, whom men call Morgan Le Fay is the full moon low in the south east, throwing a long bar of silver light across the waves to the feet of the silent Watcher at the entrance to the Moon Cave. A figure seated on a sacred stool, it is motionless, and behind it with hands placed upon its shoulders stand two female figures robed in white and silver, one crowned with the crescent and the other with a silver star.

Merlin draws all his power through these two priestesses; he loses his rule and his power when he allows the silver priestess to usurp his divine authority, and thus Merlin fell. If we go back into Egyptian mythology we find the same warning in the tale of Isis and Ra. For the silver-footed Isis, by her craft, obtained the secret name of the great sun-god, and by so doing became possessed of his power and so his master. Beware the mastery of the silver priestess; rule your own subconscious mind.

Just myth and legend you may say, and with truth. But the myths and legends of this world are the earthly shadow of a happening in the shining land of the gods in the uppermost West. Listen to the song of the fairy maid who sang to Connla:

It will guard thee, gentle Connla of the flowing golden hair.

It will guard thee from the druids, from the demons of the air.

My crystal boat will guard thee till we reach the western shore,

Where thou and I in love and joy shall live for ever more. (Joyce, Old Celtic Romances.)

Connla forsook all to follow the fairy maiden, springing into the boat in which she stood. The King and his people watched as their prince sailed away over the bright sea to the Lands of the West. Some day this same call may well come to you, and then it is all or nothing. Death, damnation, hell and purgatory mean little to the one who can sit in that Moon Cave whither his fairy Shakti has brought him.

You are not meant to understand these pictures. If you do understand them, then the writer has failed in his purpose. They are meant to be incubated in the depths of your subconscious mind. Some day, perhaps under the stress of great love, hate or adoration, the inner fountains of your subliminal life will open up. The images that you have worked with for so long will spring into life full blown, for better or worse in your conscious life. Will you, as the lord of the Moon Wisdom, as the initiated Tehuti, use them, or will they use you? Knowledge is a two-edged sword.

Part 4

In the last section reference was made to a certain Kha-Em-Uas, whose statue was until recently in the Southern Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. The name is sometimes spelt as Khamuas or Kha-m-uas. He is also called Setne or Sethon, a corruption of Sem, a sacerdotal title.

He was the son of Rameses II and his Queen Isis-Nefert, and was born about 1300 BC and died in 1246 BC some ten years before his father. He was a man of great learning. In his youth he was a soldier, later he became a priest, and then a High Priest of Ptah, and finally the head of the whole Egyptian hierarchy of his time. He was the most notable of the progeny of Rameses II.

His name has the meaning of ‘Manifestation in Thebes’ indicating that he was born in the southern capital, but he lived most of his life in Memphis and died there, being buried near the Great Pyramid. Had he outlived his father it is probable that he would have become Pharoah. In the Egyptian legends he played a part similar to that which Merlin played in later centuries in the medieval tales of the Round Table. There is a strange likeness in the characters of these two men.

In order to visualize the image of this great initiate more clearly, the reader is advised to buy the two photos of his statue published by the British Museum. If he can persuade the authorities who have hidden this statue in some inaccessible cellar to let him see it, so much the better, for the best contact is a personal one. There is great magnetic power in this statue.

For those not likely to see it, here is a description taken from the British Museum Guide of 1909, page 170.

Flint agglomerate statue of Kha-em-Uaset… The deceased wears a heavy short wig and a tunic, and holds to his sides with his arms two standards. That on the right was surmounted by a mummied form and a figure of the prince, that on the left by an object which appears to represent the box which held the head of Osiris at Abydos. In front of this object are two Uraei… the height of the statue including the base is 4 feet 8 inches…

The following may also prove helpful to the building of your visualization. On page 69 of the 1930 General Guide to the Egyptian Collection in the museum we find the following:

Another is the extraordinarily eerie tale (of a much later date) preserved in a demotic papyrus, of the magician Setme Khamuas (historically a son of Rameses II) who went down into a tomb to obtain a book of magic reported to be in it. Khamuas plays draughts with the ghosts, the stake being the precious book.

The life story of this Magus is well told by Griffith, in his now rare book Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, and he gives this tale in full in Chapter 11 under the heading of ‘The Tale of Khamuas and Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah’.

As the object of these articles is to give the reader who is prepared to spend the time and trouble the chance of experiencing the ancient Mystery teaching by experimenting for himself, a few notes on the ways of thought habitual to the initiates of that time will first be given. They will be followed by a short account of the tale, which the reader should carefully visualize.

We know from historical research that the Egyptian Mysteries were divided into two grades. In the first grade were the feminine Mysteries such as those of Isis, Hathor, Mut and Sekmet. These particular cults dealt mainly with the developing of mediums and mediumship, especially in the young girls, who as the virgins of the Temple were used for psychic work, and who later became the priestly seeresses. These latter were often married into the priesthood, or if they had little ability, married to laymen selected by the Temple Authorities. A study of the funeral texts in the British Museum makes this theory almost conclusive.

In these Lesser Mysteries the phenomena, both mental and physical, were much the same as those now found in the Spiritualist Society, which seek to awaken religion through the emotions. These Mysteries were not confined to women, but they offered a quick and easy development of the subconscious through the emotions, and for this reason attracted women with their finer sensibilities rather than men.

In addition in the outer forms of the Lesser Mysteries there were beautiful rituals that were combined with song, music and dance. Here every effort was made to stir up the emotional nature and the subconscious minds of the laity in order to produce a stirring religious atmosphere.

These festivals were usually held with reference to the moon periods. The symbolism was that of the moon, water and the form-giving, negative side of nature. Though the mother principle of the macrocosm was the object of this type of worship, those who worked these Lesser Mystery cults were the more highly trained priests and priestesses of the Greater Mysteries. The hierophants who ruled had to be members of that Order which had its colleges at ‘The House of Net’ whose Lord was Thoth, whose main Temple was in Hermopolis, the Greek name for the ancient city of Unnu. Thoth is the ‘pacifier’ of the gods, that is the ruler over the chiefs of all the Mystery schools, and the arbitrator in their disputes.

The Greater Mysteries were (in Egypt but not in Greece) masculine in their nature and the gods were male, and usually considered to be the Lords of Life or Judges in the world to come. Gods such as Osiris, Anubis, Imhotep, Khnosu, Tehuti and Thoth were human rulers or divine/human saviours. They also seemed to be names for an office that was held by many hierophants ruling over a cult that may have lasted for centuries. They were the earthly representatives of the Lords of the Fields of Aalu, the Egyptian Summerland. Like the box of Thoth in the Sea of Coptos, the Summerland was surrounded by a wall of iron, broken by several doors. Here, iron stands for the boundary of the material world, the limit of the sphere of sensation in man. These gods were represented in terms of the Qabalah, the microcosmic aspect of the Greater Mysteries; that is, they dealt with the salvation of mankind in a purely religious sense.

In addition the Greater Mysteries also had their macrocosmic aspect. Here the chief gods were Amen, the Hidden One, with a subsidiary form of Min, Ra, Ptah and Khnemu as Cosmic Creators. These gods had each of them a consort of Shakti. Amen had Mut, Ra had Rat, Ptah had Sekmet. It should be noted that the feminine consorts were often the destructive aspect of the male god. In India this same idea appears as the relationship between Shiva and Kali-Durga. Most of these gods are personifications of various elemental powers, and often the benevolent Mothers of the Lesser Mysteries become the terrible destroying Mothers of the Greater Mysteries.

Controlling all Mysteries, Gods, saviours, rulers and hierophants was the Lord of Khemmennu. He ruled over the colleges in which were trained the selected initiates from the Lesser and Greater Mysteries of all Egypt. His was the earthly Order that is behind all earthly Orders. Here were trained the hierophants skilled in magic, the Kheri Heb, or priest-magicians. This was indeed the ‘House of the Net’, and it is still behind each and every contacted Order that comes to birth on this plane. A hierophant had to pass through the ‘Net’, and take the higher grades out of the body before becoming a high priest. For the highest degrees are of grace, and not by rite.

Before we try to look at the experiences of this earthly life through the eyes of the Egyptian initiates, a caution must be given. No priest, no anthropologist will allow for one moment that most of the views which I am about to put before you are anything but fancy. I can offer no proof in their support. But if you will use them as working hypotheses, you will get results that will tend to show you that they are, in the main, very sound ideas. Keep an open mind and see for yourself.

The ancient initiates being both clairvoyant and clairaudient, when fully trained, were able to function almost at will in states of consciousness other than that of the purely material. For them the seen had become a much greater reflection of the unseen. They had sought for and found the world of causes that lies behind the world of effects. They knew the lore contained in the books of The Double House of Life, and had developed objective clairvoyance and subjective awareness. In the quiet of the great temples they sought to train even further, in order to develop highly sensitive nervous, vital, emotional and mental mechanisms. They were equally careful to develop a physical body capable of withstanding the extra strain that such psychic work involves.

For the initiate of the ancient world the inner levels were fully objective on their own plane of consciousness. He knew from experience that within those levels definite forces functioned, and wove forms that could be seen. He raised himself to the required level by using the cult symbols with which he had been conditioned, yet he never forgot that the Kingdoms of the Heavens were within himself.

After this brief, and very inadequate, explanation of the ancient initiate’s viewpoint we must return to the story of Khamuas, which we shall tell in such a manner that the reader may use it for his visualization.

The first half of the narrative has perished, but it has been conjectured by Griffith to be as follows:

Setne Khamuas, the son of Pharoah Usermara, being a diligent seeker after ancient and divine writings, was informed of the existence of a book which Thoth, the god of Letters, Science and Magic had written with his own hand. He learned that this book was to be found in the cemetery of Memphis, in the tomb of Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah, the son of a Pharoah named Mer-Neb-Ptah. Having succeeded in identifying and entering the tomb accompanied by his brother Anherru, he finds there the ghosts of the owner, his wife [Ahure] and child, and lying by them the coveted book. But they refuse to give it up to him. Theirs it was, for they had paid for it with their earthly lives, and its magic power availed them in good stead even within the tomb. To dissuade Setne from taking the book Ahure tells him their sad story.

Here it is necessary to give an exact definition of what the word magic means when used by initiates, and the meaning given to it in these articles. It has been defined thus: ‘Magic is the art of causing changes to take place in accordance with the will.’ Using this conception of magic it becomes evident that Khamuas and Anherru visited that tomb by means of the magical process called, or rather miscalled today, astral projection. That is why they met the ghosts on a footing of equality and were refused possession of the book. Anyone with the necessary training can do the same kind of thing today, if they will but remember that initiation is an experience that takes place not in time or space, and if they realize the full implication of the definition of magic just given.

Ahure tells Khamuas and Anherru that her husband, the heir apparent Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah, was a man of great learning who, hearing about the Book of Thoth from an elderly priest, determined to get possession of it, having learned that it was hidden in the ‘Sea of Coptos’.

Note carefully the following quotation:

And the priest said unto Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah, ‘The book named is in the middle of the Sea of Coptos in a box of iron, this same being in a box of bronze, in a box of Kete-wood, this box of Kete-wood is in a box of ivory and ebony, in a box of silver in a box of gold, wherein is the Book; there being a schoenus of every kind of serpent, scorpion, and reptile round the box wherein is the Book.’

Here Griffith points out that: ‘in the description of the nesting of the boxes, it is evident that the scribe has reversed the order of things’ (see Part Three of this article). But has the scribe been careless and made a mistake? Iron for the Egyptian as well as the Celtic initiate was a symbol for the material universe, and the human sphere of sensation. They, and we, know the physical body is within the etheric, and the etheric within the astral, the astral is within the mental and the mental within the spiritual, matter being the most condensed. This is a reversal of the way the ordinary man thinks about his so-called ‘inner man’. So has the scribe indeed reversed the order of things? Build the Tree of Life in your aura, and see where the golden box of Tipareth comes. The Book of Thoth is in Daath, and Daath is the Revealer of the Secrets of the Universe. A tree mirrored in water is upside down; so too is the astral when reflected in matter. Here is the key to this story and indeed to the occult. That which is miscalled the inner is outside the outer!

The subtle is more extensive than the less subtle and it is less contracted. If you do not believe this and fail to see the implications of this apparent reversal of the normal way of thinking, then look carefully at the diagrams given in Dr Kilner’s book The Human Aura.

You may ask what is the use of visualizing this story, and trying to unravel its subtleties, what will you, in the twentieth century get out of these ancient tales of Khamuas? The answer is simple: direct contact with the minds of the greatest magicians of ancient Egypt, Ka-Em-Uas, and Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah.

Part 5

In the previous chapter the first part of the encounter between the two magicians was begun, and the story of the finding of the Book of Thoth was briefly summarized. The first part of the story dealing with the finding of the book and the deaths of the magician’s wife and child, and his own subsequent suicide by jumping into the Nile is of no great importance to the elementary student. But it contains much that is important to the advanced student for it hints at dangers of which they should become aware when travelling these ancient by-ways. Such an awareness is often brought about by unpleasant experiences in the twilight realms of Anubis, realms that have already been described in these articles in terms of ancient symbolism that gives right of way through them, and, more importantly, the right of return.

Some students think they can neglect the technique of the return journey, but for such the price is paid in growing ill health both psychic and physical. Let us return to the story.

Ahure the wife begs Khamuas to leave the book in the tomb, saying: ‘Thou hast no lot in it, whereas our term of life on earth was taken for it.’ Khamuas, however, threatens to take it by force, and the story goes on…

Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah raised himself on the funeral couch and said, ‘Art thou Stone to whom this woman has spoken these vain words, and thou hast not harkened to her? The book named, wilt thou be able to take it by power of a good magician or by prevailing over me in a game of draughts? Let us play for it …’
And Setne said, ‘I am ready.’
They set before them the game-board with its pieces, they played at the game of fifty-two and Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah won one game from Setne Khamuas. He pronounced a spell upon him, causing him to sink into the floor to his feet. He did the like by the second game, and caused him to sink into the floor as far as his middle. He did the like by the third game and caused him to sink up to his ears …
Then Setne Khamuas feeling that he was beaten sent his brother Anherru to bring from the upper world his Amulets of Ptah. As soon as these Amulets were placed upon his body he was free, and he hastened to the upper world, taking with him the Book of Thoth.

However, he did not keep the book for long; the vengeance of the dead pursued him and he soon returned humbly to their tomb to replace the book where it belonged. (Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, Chapter 2.)

Now conduct your own experiment with this inner working. Picture the Book of Thoth as a roll enveloped in its own bright aura of soft moonlight. Then day by day build and rebuild this story using the visualizing properties of the human mind. Look at pictures of Egyptian tombs in order to get the image right. Try to sense the emotions of the characters concerned, try to feel the thick heavy darkness of the tomb, hidden deep in the desert sand on the western bank of the Nile. Feel the velvet blackness of the realms of the Lord of the West, Anubis.

Use composition of place as taught by Ignatius Loyola. Build each scene as if you were preparing to set it out on a stage, picture where each character will be placed. Imagine the couch on which the mummy of Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah is laid. Watch the mummy with its still living counterpart playing draughts with Khamuas and his brother Anherru. See the ghosts of Ahure and her child Merab, without their mummies, feel their anxiety and their fear and their joy as the game goes in their favour. Experience fear as Khamuas must have felt it. Hear Ahure weeping for the lost book and hear her despairing cry as the two brothers escape with it: ‘Hail King Darkness, Farewell King Light, Every power has gone that was in the tomb.’

Sense the power and the certainty that fills the great magician as he comforts his family in the astral blackness that falls on them when the light shed by the Book of Thoth is gone. Hear his words: ‘Be not grieved, I will cause him to bring the book hither once more.’

Later picture the chastized Khamuas returning humbly and saluting a much greater magician than himself. Bringing the book back causes the light of the sun to illumine the tomb once more, for where the Book of Thoth is, there also is light. As an act of repentance Khamuas brings the long-dead bodies of Ahure and Merab to join their husband and father in the tomb of Ne-Nefer-Ka-Ptah.

Once more you may ask why you should take all this trouble. Be assured this type of work is for the very few. It will go a long way towards training you to change planes of consciousness at will. By such matters you will be judged as a competent magician.

The actual forms of the gods are creations of the created, and one of the most important forms is that of Thoth. The Wise Ibis is a common symbol for the Logos and as such Thoth is Lord of Magic; that is why you have been given these pictures in such detail. If you can gain the ear of Thoth, you can work magic, i.e. you can touch the World Mind of the Great Mother whose children include man and gods alike.

In magic you must work for your play and play for your work. This is the law of alternating rhythm. For your work build upon the magical Egyptian myths; for your play build upon the Celtic myths. They too are magical, but in another way. Get in touch with nature if you want to know the gods, call on them by the names that come most easily to you. Your mind will give them form, the Great Mother will ensoul them. The following working is one that will magically enhance your ‘play’.

The Gates of Horn and Ivory

It is the first week of June and spring has suddenly become summer. On the sunlit edge of a beechwood, bright with the colouring of new leaves, seated in the grass of a golden and green meadow sit two worshippers of the Great Mother. They sit in meditation seeking full communion with Her Children. Magically they are at play.

The invocations have been made, the god desired has been called upon by the wordless adoration that follows the vibration of the sacred name. He has given proof that he has heard; his presence is felt.

The sun has put off his cloak of midday brilliance and completed his journey through the eighth house of Death, now he has become the Setting Sun and sinks through the scarlet and gold cusp of the eighth and ninth houses of Heaven. The silver-grey half-moon is now with him in the house of Unmanifested Life. Between these two Great Ones is the planet Venus. She is the ruler of the star Sothis, Queen of the thirty-six constellations that formed the astronomical tables of ancient Egypt. The Isis of Netzach concealing her powers behind a veil of emerald green. She is and is not the Silver Isis of the Moon. As the Sun-God departs, the Green Isis merges into the Silver-Grey Goddess of the Evening when the Children of the Great Mother return to their play.

Now the Lord of Tipareth gives way to the Lady of Yesod, and as the summer’s day merges into the silver twilight the Children of Isis wake from their day-long sleep and come peeping through the purple and green shadows that creep across the meadow.

‘I am the Setting Sun,’ chants the neophyte as he prepares to enter the realm of the Great Mother that is next to his own plane of existence. ‘I am the Silver Isis, the dark-veiled ruler of Night,’ answers his guide as she closes his eyes in the temple sleep so that he may see with the inner eyes the Children of the Goddess who wait to see him pass between the Pillars of the East and West.

Without speaking the silent pair watch the violet shadows play across the darkening land. As each patch of light is swallowed up something seems to stir into waking life. Bright eyes look out from every bush and tree, half-seen forms flit through the undergrowth. The birds sing their sunset song until the topmost leaves are dark with shadows. Then something happens to the trees. They have become alert; the wood is alive. All the Children of the Great Mother are now awake.

In meditation, through tightly closed eyes bright forms can be seen that step out of the shadows of the wood. High above is a great swirling form of green and silver. It is the deva that rules this wooded valley, the cosmic mind that gives life and keeps order, a formless force that man personifies because he cannot do otherwise.

Deeper and deeper the two watchers sink into meditation; their aims and methods are one, they have merged their consciousness into a single sphere of sensation. Their bodies are propped against a tree, their bodily senses are slowly being put out of action for a while.

Dusk comes, and the conscious sleep grows deeper, a feeling of panic comes, a welcome sign, for this feeling of fear means that power is condensing upon their sphere of sensation. The Great Gates of Horn and Ivory loom up before the inner eyes, then swing back on soundless hinges, the Great God comes. We pass into His garden and the gates close behind us. We have invoked and He has come, the First-Born of the Great Mother, the Master, the shepherd of all Her children, except modern man. Name the God if you can, worship Him if you dare, invoke Him if you are able.

The consciousness of the pair now ‘awake in sleep’ is in Tir-nan-oge or Fairyland. Anyone can enter if they but take the time and trouble to prepare themselves and their minds to know and accept other spheres of existence. You will know when you have won the Key to the Gates of Horn and Ivory. You will receive there the blessing of the Great God who is the first-born love of the Great Mother. As a man thinks, so he is.

Tir-nan-oge is the Celtic fairyland, the Land of Promise, the home of the Tuatha de Danaan, who are the Children of the Goddess Danu, another name for the Great Mother. They wandered the earth and finally came to Ireland where they fought and defeated the Firbolgs, taking over the land. Later they were defeated in their turn and disappeared into the Hollow Hills of Fairyland. Today they are called the Sidhe (Shee), or the Fairy Host.

Mannanan Mac Lyr was one of their great chiefs, and Aengus Oge was their great magician, being to them what Thoth was to the Egyptians. Remember these Names of Power and brood over them. They can become a Key to the Gates. But do not try to rationalize these ideas or explain the names of power; they are seed thoughts to be buried deep in the subconscious mind. Act as if they were potent. Remember, in magic, you are what you think you are, you are where you think you are.

All one has to do to open the Gates of Horn and Ivory is, with emotion and intention, call upon the children of the Great Mother every day. Picture Her woods, Her mountains, Her rivers and Her shores, and you will be answered if you persevere.

The Gates may remain closed at first, and you must be content to peer through them, but with work they will swing open: ‘Labor Omnia Vincit.’ Then you are free to roam where you will in Her lands and become aware of an ever-opening series of worlds within worlds. You can thus become unshackled from the herd law through your own efforts.

The Celtic spirit of Freedom is now permeating through the life, religion, philosophy and customs of Britain and Brittany. Much of England is as Celtic as Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Your subconscious mind, with its link with the British racial subconscious mind, is the source of your personal power. It is the driving force of the group soul of the peoples of this island. And if the following poem lifts your soul then let your Anglo-Saxon Christian conscience beware, for the Celt in you is awakening.

The Hosting of the Sidhe
The Host is riding from Knocknarea
And over the grave of Clooth-na-Bare;
Caoilte tossing his burning hair
And Niamh calling, Away, come away.
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.
The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round,
Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound,
Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are agleam,
Our arms are waving, our lips are apart.
And if any gaze on our rushing band,
We come between him and the deed of his hand,
We come between him and the hope of his heart.
The Host is rushing twixt night and day,
And where is there hope or deed as fair?
Caoilte tossing his burning hair,
And Niamh calling, Away, come away.
(W. B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight.)