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Daily Reflection 6.16.21
Jun. 16th, 2021 03:05 pmThe Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 1, Verses 18 to 25
Read along here.
Once again, there's a lot going on in these few short verses.
The Enchanted World
In Act I, Scene I, Joseph is planning on breaking his engagement to Mary, but then an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him not to do it, because the child is a miraculous child.
As I've said, there are modern approaches to the Gospels (Thomas Jefferson's is the most famous) that attempt to edit out all of the miraculous events and leave just the part that the editors find important-- the moral teachings or whatever. To do this is to do immense violence to the text. From the getgo, this is a world in which God exists; spirits exist; spirits can interact with human beings; and dreams can be sources of accurate knowledge of the most extraordinary sort.
In other words, this is the magical universe.
The House of Wizards
I said yesterday that I think St. Joseph must be seen as a wizard from a line of wizards. This passage confirms this view. Consider: It is not at all unknown for people to encounter spirits of various types, and it is not unknown for people to be able to do this in dreams. I have a friend, for example, who has had vivid dream-encounters with other friends of ours who have died, and has been able to convey useful information from them to their relatives who remained here.
But most people can't do this. It is a psychic ability, and psychic abilities are either inherited or else gained through spiritual practice. Or both. St. Joseph is a magician, and it might be worth noting that Levi describes the magician as "a priest and king."
As a magician, he must have been a great one indeed to have been given the care of the Son of God.
How much greater must Mary have been, to have born him?
Miraculous Births
Children of divinities are not uncommon in the ancient world. Pythagoras, who we met last time, was considered by many to have been the son of Apollo. Iamblichus tells us that this is not literally true-- rather, Pythagoras's birth was announced by the Oracle of Apollo, and his spirit was a hero in the order of Apollo.
Quis ut Deus?
Since this is-- er-- a Bible study, we're going to have to talk about God. And it would be helpful, therefore, to know exactly what we mean by that word "God."
For our purposes, then, here are three definitions of God:
1. "A God" is a type of being, which exists outside of time and space and benevolently governs and cares for the material world. "God" as a singular noun, in this case, specifically refers to YHVH, a God whose role is or was to govern the Jewish people.
2. The Most High God, a being who is higher not merely than all other Gods, but who stands in relationship to the Gods as the Gods stand in relationship to human beings. This being may be identical to the Jewish YHVH, but may also be the being called the Maker or Demiurge in the works of Plato, or the Soul of the Universe in the thought of the Stoics.
3. The One, as described in yesterday's post. The One is that by virtue of which everything which exists, has existence. "The root and beginning of all things in this world" is how it's described by a later author; "the sole truth and unique unity, and from it, anything united receives its unity."
Any of these definitions will do. But let's add one more, before we go on:
This is from Eliphas Levi's Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic. What does he mean?
"Azot" or "azoth" is the universal solvent of the alchemists. This is the substance which the first matter is dissolved, in order to begin the process of transmuting it into the philosopher's stone. Levi hints at this by calling it "the efficient and final principle of the great work." What does he mean by that?
First, "efficient" and "final" principles are technical terms, derived from Aristotle. For Aristotle, there are four types of causes. The efficient cause is the necessary precondition for any given event: in order to knock the water cup off the table, the cat had to sit on the table and reach out with his paw. The final cause is the purpose of the event: the cat wanted to get the human's attention, to remind him that he needed to be fed. (Or given water. Or a toy. Or just to be an asshole.)
The Great Work, meanwhile, for Levi, "is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future."
God, then, is that power by which the bonds that tie us to the lower things-- the wills of others, the prejudices of our society and our era, the body and its passions-- are dissolved (Azoth); and the power which allows us to create ourselves, by ourselves, emancipating our wills and our psyches.
Let's keep all these definitions in mind as we proceed.
What's in a Name?
The child born in Chapter 1 is given two names: "Jesus" and "Emmanuel." Both of these are meaningful, and we need to discuss their meaning--
But before we do so, we need to discuss the meaning of "meaning." Yesterday we talked about the significance of numbers in a magical context. Words are significant in exactly the same way. Words and their definitions are, to a certain extent, arbitrary-- it doesn't matter whether you call the delicious, bitter black fluid I'm drinking café, coffee, or 咖啡; it's the same stuff regardless. But in the magical worldview, meaning is always present to everything. Moreover, "meaning" isn't as simple as "definition" or as abstract and powerless as "a sense of significance"-- the two ways of thinking of it that are common in the modern world. "Meaning" is present to everything, and it points to the underlying reality behind material things.
Consider the coffee again: Its color (black), its flavor (bitter), its effects (central nervous system and cardiac stimulant); the time and circumstances of its consumption (ritually, in the morning) all form a pattern which underlies the simple act of drinking liquid from a cup.
Ultimately, even the seemingly random syllables used to identify it are not meaningless, either-- though we need a system of some kind to decode them. This is where magical alphabets and similar systems come in. For example: "Coffee" in Hebrew is קפה, Qoph, Peh, Heh. In the Golden Dawn tradition, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are related to paths on the Tree of Life, and also to Tarot cards and astrological symbols. From that perspective, this is what "Coffee" means:
Qoph: The Moon, the 29th Path, the sign of Pisces
Peh: The Tower, the 27th Path, the planet Mars
Heh: The Emperor, the 15th Path, the sign of Aries
One way to read this: Coffee begins in Pisces, the watery sign of Neptune, Lord of the Great Dark Sea. This refers both to the great sea of sleep in which our day begins, and to the dark liquid itself. In the imagery of the Moon card, we see the sort of strange landscape through which we wander in our dreams. Then the lightning strike comes: This refers both to the dawn which shatters the night and wakens the sleeper, and also to the sharp, bitter taste of that first sip of coffee. Mars, the planet of energy and war, is active here in the caffeine which fuels us like the lightning in the Tower card. So empowered, we are able to attain the Empire of ourselves, like the Emperor in his card, beginning our day with the power of fiery Mars within us as the sign of Aries begins the year with the power of Mars.
God Saves; God is With Us
And so we have two Names here. One, "Jesus" means "God saves." The other, "Emannuel," means "God is with us."
It's worth noting that the words being used for "God" in each case differ.
In the case of "Jesus," the actual name is "Yah-shuah," which is the origin of the English name Joshua. "Yah" is short for YHVH. YHVH is known as the "Tetragrammaton," the 4-letter name. The exact meaning of YHVH is debated by scholars. We know that it is related to the verb "To Be." According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists” (Yahweh-Asher-Yahweh)."
"El," meanwhile, simply means "God," and was used as the name for the Most High God by Semitic cultures, including the Jews.
Here, then, is what we learn from the Names of the child born in Matthew, Chapter 1.
1. God is with us.
2. God is that which brings into existence anything which exists.
3. That which brings everything into existence saves.
4. These three concepts are embodied in a single man, Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, the study of his life and teachings will allow us to understand the presence of God
Please consider all of these ideas in light of the definitions of God I gave before, especially Eliphas Levi's.
From what are we saved?
"For he shall save his people from their sins."
The word translated as "sin" is "hamartia." Many people know that the word "hamartia" relates to missing a mark or target.
But what are our sins-- or, to say it differently, what is the target that we are missing?
Let's return to the idea of God found in Eliphas Levi for a moment.
If God is Azoth, and Azoth is a solvent, then God is something which dissolves. The traditional saying which summarized all the works of Alchemy was "Solve et Coagula," which means "separate and combine." Any alchemical operation is divided into various stages. The first stage is always separation-- the bonds that hold a substance together are dissolved, rendering it into its constituent parts. These parts are then purified, and then recombined into a new substance which exists on a higher level than the original. Lead is turned into Gold.
In spiritual alchemy, what is the substance that we are working to purify-- to turn into gold?
Our souls, of course.
Those which keep our souls enslaved to the habits, norms and prejudices of our particular culture, time and place; to the passions and instincts of the body insofar as these interfere with the operation of our reason and our will; and to the wills of others who are not working for our evolution, but for our enslavement-- whether those other wills are human or nonhuman.
Another way of saying this is: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
By freeing ourselves from these, we become the beings that we were meant to be. Another way of saying this is, we do the will of God.
Alchemy
The life and example of Jesus allows us to free ourselves from bondage and to accomplish the Great Work, to transform spiritual lead into gold, and to attain the immortality of the alchemists.
Read along here.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.
Once again, there's a lot going on in these few short verses.
The Enchanted World
In Act I, Scene I, Joseph is planning on breaking his engagement to Mary, but then an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him not to do it, because the child is a miraculous child.
As I've said, there are modern approaches to the Gospels (Thomas Jefferson's is the most famous) that attempt to edit out all of the miraculous events and leave just the part that the editors find important-- the moral teachings or whatever. To do this is to do immense violence to the text. From the getgo, this is a world in which God exists; spirits exist; spirits can interact with human beings; and dreams can be sources of accurate knowledge of the most extraordinary sort.
In other words, this is the magical universe.
The House of Wizards
I said yesterday that I think St. Joseph must be seen as a wizard from a line of wizards. This passage confirms this view. Consider: It is not at all unknown for people to encounter spirits of various types, and it is not unknown for people to be able to do this in dreams. I have a friend, for example, who has had vivid dream-encounters with other friends of ours who have died, and has been able to convey useful information from them to their relatives who remained here.
But most people can't do this. It is a psychic ability, and psychic abilities are either inherited or else gained through spiritual practice. Or both. St. Joseph is a magician, and it might be worth noting that Levi describes the magician as "a priest and king."
As a magician, he must have been a great one indeed to have been given the care of the Son of God.
How much greater must Mary have been, to have born him?
Miraculous Births
Children of divinities are not uncommon in the ancient world. Pythagoras, who we met last time, was considered by many to have been the son of Apollo. Iamblichus tells us that this is not literally true-- rather, Pythagoras's birth was announced by the Oracle of Apollo, and his spirit was a hero in the order of Apollo.
Quis ut Deus?
Since this is-- er-- a Bible study, we're going to have to talk about God. And it would be helpful, therefore, to know exactly what we mean by that word "God."
For our purposes, then, here are three definitions of God:
1. "A God" is a type of being, which exists outside of time and space and benevolently governs and cares for the material world. "God" as a singular noun, in this case, specifically refers to YHVH, a God whose role is or was to govern the Jewish people.
2. The Most High God, a being who is higher not merely than all other Gods, but who stands in relationship to the Gods as the Gods stand in relationship to human beings. This being may be identical to the Jewish YHVH, but may also be the being called the Maker or Demiurge in the works of Plato, or the Soul of the Universe in the thought of the Stoics.
3. The One, as described in yesterday's post. The One is that by virtue of which everything which exists, has existence. "The root and beginning of all things in this world" is how it's described by a later author; "the sole truth and unique unity, and from it, anything united receives its unity."
Any of these definitions will do. But let's add one more, before we go on:
"God, for us, is the AZOT of the sages, the efficient and final principle of the Great Work."
This is from Eliphas Levi's Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic. What does he mean?
"Azot" or "azoth" is the universal solvent of the alchemists. This is the substance which the first matter is dissolved, in order to begin the process of transmuting it into the philosopher's stone. Levi hints at this by calling it "the efficient and final principle of the great work." What does he mean by that?
First, "efficient" and "final" principles are technical terms, derived from Aristotle. For Aristotle, there are four types of causes. The efficient cause is the necessary precondition for any given event: in order to knock the water cup off the table, the cat had to sit on the table and reach out with his paw. The final cause is the purpose of the event: the cat wanted to get the human's attention, to remind him that he needed to be fed. (Or given water. Or a toy. Or just to be an asshole.)
The Great Work, meanwhile, for Levi, "is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future."
God, then, is that power by which the bonds that tie us to the lower things-- the wills of others, the prejudices of our society and our era, the body and its passions-- are dissolved (Azoth); and the power which allows us to create ourselves, by ourselves, emancipating our wills and our psyches.
Let's keep all these definitions in mind as we proceed.
The child born in Chapter 1 is given two names: "Jesus" and "Emmanuel." Both of these are meaningful, and we need to discuss their meaning--
But before we do so, we need to discuss the meaning of "meaning." Yesterday we talked about the significance of numbers in a magical context. Words are significant in exactly the same way. Words and their definitions are, to a certain extent, arbitrary-- it doesn't matter whether you call the delicious, bitter black fluid I'm drinking café, coffee, or 咖啡; it's the same stuff regardless. But in the magical worldview, meaning is always present to everything. Moreover, "meaning" isn't as simple as "definition" or as abstract and powerless as "a sense of significance"-- the two ways of thinking of it that are common in the modern world. "Meaning" is present to everything, and it points to the underlying reality behind material things.
Consider the coffee again: Its color (black), its flavor (bitter), its effects (central nervous system and cardiac stimulant); the time and circumstances of its consumption (ritually, in the morning) all form a pattern which underlies the simple act of drinking liquid from a cup.
Ultimately, even the seemingly random syllables used to identify it are not meaningless, either-- though we need a system of some kind to decode them. This is where magical alphabets and similar systems come in. For example: "Coffee" in Hebrew is קפה, Qoph, Peh, Heh. In the Golden Dawn tradition, the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are related to paths on the Tree of Life, and also to Tarot cards and astrological symbols. From that perspective, this is what "Coffee" means:
Qoph: The Moon, the 29th Path, the sign of Pisces
Peh: The Tower, the 27th Path, the planet Mars
Heh: The Emperor, the 15th Path, the sign of Aries
One way to read this: Coffee begins in Pisces, the watery sign of Neptune, Lord of the Great Dark Sea. This refers both to the great sea of sleep in which our day begins, and to the dark liquid itself. In the imagery of the Moon card, we see the sort of strange landscape through which we wander in our dreams. Then the lightning strike comes: This refers both to the dawn which shatters the night and wakens the sleeper, and also to the sharp, bitter taste of that first sip of coffee. Mars, the planet of energy and war, is active here in the caffeine which fuels us like the lightning in the Tower card. So empowered, we are able to attain the Empire of ourselves, like the Emperor in his card, beginning our day with the power of fiery Mars within us as the sign of Aries begins the year with the power of Mars.
God Saves; God is With Us
And so we have two Names here. One, "Jesus" means "God saves." The other, "Emannuel," means "God is with us."
It's worth noting that the words being used for "God" in each case differ.
In the case of "Jesus," the actual name is "Yah-shuah," which is the origin of the English name Joshua. "Yah" is short for YHVH. YHVH is known as the "Tetragrammaton," the 4-letter name. The exact meaning of YHVH is debated by scholars. We know that it is related to the verb "To Be." According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, "Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be “He Brings into Existence Whatever Exists” (Yahweh-Asher-Yahweh)."
"El," meanwhile, simply means "God," and was used as the name for the Most High God by Semitic cultures, including the Jews.
Here, then, is what we learn from the Names of the child born in Matthew, Chapter 1.
1. God is with us.
2. God is that which brings into existence anything which exists.
3. That which brings everything into existence saves.
4. These three concepts are embodied in a single man, Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, the study of his life and teachings will allow us to understand the presence of God
Please consider all of these ideas in light of the definitions of God I gave before, especially Eliphas Levi's.
From what are we saved?
"For he shall save his people from their sins."
The word translated as "sin" is "hamartia." Many people know that the word "hamartia" relates to missing a mark or target.
But what are our sins-- or, to say it differently, what is the target that we are missing?
Let's return to the idea of God found in Eliphas Levi for a moment.
If God is Azoth, and Azoth is a solvent, then God is something which dissolves. The traditional saying which summarized all the works of Alchemy was "Solve et Coagula," which means "separate and combine." Any alchemical operation is divided into various stages. The first stage is always separation-- the bonds that hold a substance together are dissolved, rendering it into its constituent parts. These parts are then purified, and then recombined into a new substance which exists on a higher level than the original. Lead is turned into Gold.
In spiritual alchemy, what is the substance that we are working to purify-- to turn into gold?
Our souls, of course.
And what are our souls?
The principle of life within us, meaning especially the sum and total of our willed actions and mental experiences.
And what are the bonds, then, which must be dissolved?Those which keep our souls enslaved to the habits, norms and prejudices of our particular culture, time and place; to the passions and instincts of the body insofar as these interfere with the operation of our reason and our will; and to the wills of others who are not working for our evolution, but for our enslavement-- whether those other wills are human or nonhuman.
Another way of saying this is: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil.
By freeing ourselves from these, we become the beings that we were meant to be. Another way of saying this is, we do the will of God.
Alchemy
The life and example of Jesus allows us to free ourselves from bondage and to accomplish the Great Work, to transform spiritual lead into gold, and to attain the immortality of the alchemists.
