GLYPH OF THE SPIDER GODDESS

                                 by Tenebrous


 Arachne,  the  Spider  Goddess,  was  a figure who held a position of key 
importance in the  Draconian  cults  of  the  ancient world.  In the mayan 
death-cults,  she manifested as Ix-Chel,  `the spider that catches the Dew 
of Morning', and Ix-Tab,  `Goddess of Ropes and Snares, patroness of those 
who hang themselves.' Today, in her embodiment via the Voudoun Loa Anansi, 
she  is  the  supreme  totem of the Obeah cults of African and West Indian 
sorcery.

 The glyph of the Spider  Goddess  represents  that  magickal power of the 
priestess which enables her to open a gateway to another universe. `She is 
the Guardian  of  the Pylon that admits to its mysteries,  for  she is the 
kala,  or  coulour,  that manifests the vibrations  of  time (KALI) as the 
secretion' (Kenneth Grant, Outside the Circles of Time).  The third eye of 
Kali is vertical,  symbolising  the  visionary and dream-inducing power of 
the  vagina  in  its  `dark'  or  menstrual  phase.  It may also suggest a 
connection between the  Ajna  and  Muladhara  chakras  in  the subtle body 
(centred at the pineal gland and the genital regions respectively) and the 
sephiroth of Chokmah and Yesod on the qabalistic Tree of Life.

 The thread of the spider,  which it uses to incapacitate and immolate its 
prey,  thus  corresponds with the noose of Kali,  and the cord used by her 
devotees,  the  Thugs,  to perform  their  ritual  assasinations.  In  the 
arachnid,  the  thread  is  produced from the region  of  the reproductive 
organs - here  again,  the  connection  is indicated between sex and death 
(Time). The female genitalia seen in its aspect of `vagina dentata.'

 In his occult novel, Our Lady of Darkness, Fritz Leiber writes:

       ``...the exterior female genitalia were thought of as a spider. 
        the tendrilled blot of hair?  The mouth that opened vertically
        like a spider's  jaws  instead  of  horizontally  like a human 
        face's lips... it involved the time to spin a web, the spiders
        clock.''

 Her web is is a diagram or yantra of the structure  which  permeates  the 
outer darkness,  and delinates the cells of the Qlippoth on the other side 
of the Tree;  `not in the spaces we know,  but between them'.  Its  spokes 
are  the  kalas  of  the  Priestess,  irradiating  space with their subtle 
effluvia.  This glyph  (which can be sigilised as an eye placed vertically 
within a downward pointing black triangle) therefore indicates a technique 
whereby  the  influx  of  the  magickal  current  of  the  Nu  Aeon can be 
facilitated (Number os the Goddess = 58 = KLChK = `licking up').