From: Josh Norton Area: ENOCHIAN To: All 18 Oct 94 17:03:00 Subject: 91 Parts #13 Lazdixi 1/ UpdReq .#0110 Continuing a series of brief visions of the 91 Parts of the Earth... Lazdixi, Part 13 of 91, first of LIT. Zodiacal King: Olpaged Ministers:8630 Mundane association: Bactriane (Northern Afghanistan, southeast Turkemenazi) While memorizing the names and sigil for this Part, I got an image of a large outcropping of rock jutting out from a grassland. The image went into a time-lapse mode. The grasslands dried out under the sun and turned to desert. The wind blew away the sand from around the outcropping, making more of it visible. Finally the wind eroded the outcropping until it took the form of a crouched lion, like the Egyptian Sphynx. Friday, October 07, 1994 approx 2:30 pm Invoked Lazdixi according to the revised method. The circle opened, and through it I could see a region of what would be called "high plains" in America. High plateaus interspersed with rolling hilly country. Sparse grass covered the flatter portions, with clumps of low bushes present, usually on the downhill sides of large boulders. Overall the region appeared arid, though a river could be seen running from west to east at some distance to the north. The sun shone with great intensity, but the air was cold, and a biting wind blew from the east. A camel caravan appeared from the southwest, moving northeasterly to intersect the river. I could see the point it was aiming for; the river spread out and became shallow over an area of fine gravel. Obviously a well-used ford. My viewpoint moved around to the north of the ford, looking south. A long line of forbidding mountains could be seen there, tapering off into more plains in the west. The land in between all sloped gradually in my direction. Now the image of a lion's head appeared, huge and ghostly above the mountains. There was a strong impression that the spirit-lion held all this land as its territory, but that it held itself aloof, not deigning to insert itself into events there. A strong leonian emanation came from it, and I spent several minutes just attuning myself to it and absorbing it. [Looking back a week later, my memory gives the impression that the mountains were the body of the lion, so that it was half spiritual and half material. Or half transcendental and half finite. There is a sense of this lion crouched over the trade route like a housecat dozing over a trail of ants; aware of the movement in front of it, but not terribly impressed by it. None of these impressions were present at the time of the vision; they appeared only when I examined my memory of it.] The caravan reached the ford and began to cross. Suddenly the ground began to shake in an earthquake. The rumbling and roaring seemed to contain the lion's voice hidden within it. The gravel of the ford shifted, and one of the camels became mired in it to the knees, breaking its leg in the process. Several other camels broke away and began a panicked run to the south, directly towards the lion. The remainder were brought under control by their handlers, who held them still and waited out the quake. The camels who had run eventually fell into fissures opened by the quake, and died. The handlers took what was useable from the camel in the river, then killed it. The loads were rearranged on the remaining beasts, and the caravan continued to the northeast, towards Samarkand. Now the voice spoke: "The voice of the Lion is the voice of the Sun, ruling over the wastelands of the spirit. Those who seek to cross his territory do so at their peril, for though he does not act or speak of himself, yet the whole world does speak with his voice. Even his own Word is imperiled therein, for the world cares not, but acts according to its nature. "Oh ye who seek the spirit of God, beware! Oh ye who seek to bring the spirit to Man, beware! For herein are the material and the spirit of God both shattered into a million fragments in the shaking of the Voice. Can you hold your place, O Man, in the quaking of the world? Is your will steady and free of attachment, o Mage? If not, then all your works shall be as naught. "That which arrives at journey's end is not that which began the journey. A child of that beginning, it may be, if all is done aright. But never is the thing itself brought undisturbed and intact through the travels. Look you:" The scene changed to a more abstract plane. I seemed to be in some occult space which refined reality into a few essentials, sort of a laboratory miniature. To one side of the space, a diagram of the Tree of Life stood, as if as a key for reference during experiments. My viewpoint was at Chokmah, looking down the path of Sol towards Tiphereth. What I saw next is difficult to describe meaningfully, though I saw it clearly. First a concentrated point of Will was ejected downwards along the path of Sol. About a third of the way down, it seemed to hit an invisible wall and shattered. Sparks flew out in all directions along curving paths, like the trails of subatomic particles in a cloud chamber. Next, a "beam" of Will was directed downwards. It was clear to my senses that the directing entity had the intent of producing a specific effect or form on a lower level, and was trying to control the way in which its will moved so as to produce that effect. Again, it reached about a third of the way down the path. This time the "beam" was split up into many different beams of different colors. These beams passed through the area of dispersion and recombined on the other side. They did seem to produce some effect there, but the effect was clearly not [ Continued In Next Message... ] ___ X SPEED 1.30 [NR] X 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Josh Norton Area: ENOCHIAN To: All 18 Oct 94 17:03:02 Subject: 91 Parts #13 Lazdixi 2/ UpdReq [ ...Continued From Previous Message ] what the will-er had intended. I got the impression that it was distorted or perverted to the point of uselessness. The third event was the most difficult of all to describe. It seemed that this hypothetical will-er was again sending downwards an intent to create; but this time it reached only so far as the point where the others dispersed. There it spread out into some pattern which did _not_ directly reflect the original intent, but did maintain its cohesiveness. But at the same time, this creator somehow caused a stimulation in the sphere of Tiphereth, producing a directed energy which rose upwards towards the midpoint. The effect this energy produced was an active willingness to respond to the downward-directed will, and to convert it into a form on the lower levels. This power of responsiveness rose up until it was almost at the same level as the pattern of Will. As they touched, all the finite substance in the area immediately re-configured itself so as to accurately reflect (as far as possible) the Will's pattern. This reconfiguration started at the point of contact and worked its way downward, changing at every level, until it came back to Tiphereth and manifested there as a centralized, cohesive entity. I got the impression that this final entity was exactly what the original intent had wanted produced, even though the intervening levels did not seem to reflect the original intent, but only the pattern it had created. (I know I am not saying all this right, but it is the best I can do.) The voice continued: "The meeting place between the finite and the transfinite is a problem not only for those who seek to cross it going upwards, but also for those who, from the higher level, seek to create something in the world. The will alone cannot truly create, for the stuff of the world has its own nature that does not, as yet, fully reflect that will. "Thus in the first instance, when a creator simply formulated his will in its most compact form, and sent that will into the world, it did shatter and fail. And in the second instance, when he sought to control the manifestation directly across the interface, did it also fail. "For an act of creation to succeed, it requires not only the [transcendental] Will, but an _active_ readiness in the stuff of the [finite] world to respond to that will, to relate to the intent of that will and bring its various elements into a relationship which reflects that will. "This directed readiness, this willingness to relate and to shape itself to the Other, is what we call Love. It arises not from the instincts or the emotions, or the intellect, but only from the heart. The Will alone will always fail, as will Love alone; neither by itself can fulfill the needs of Creation. But together, they produce the flowering of all Creation. Thus it is said that "Love is the Law, Love under Will". "Now, this combination may be attained in several ways. For those incarnate creators, such as yourself, it is often the case that his own being serves as both poles of the equation. He stands simultaneously in both the finite and the infinite. From the latter, he directs his creative will down into the worlds; from the former, he generates the magnetism of the heart that causes the world-stuff to respond to and reflect that will. "The great god Heru-Ra-Ha is the symbol of this. For he contains within himself Had, a god of Chokmah as we have previously seen, and Ra, a god of this path of Sol, and Horus, who is the Son, and therefore Tiphereth. He is the archetype of all true creators, who stand in both worlds at once. (There is another, related interpretation of Him, as you know.) "Other great creators choose not to embody both poles in themselves. Instead, they themselves stand wholly within the transcendental realms, sending their will downwards. And they seek out disciples, cooperating beings of a lower level of initiation, to be the lesser pole. The combined souls of these disciples, seeking to respond to the divine impulse of (as they think it) their deity, bring down and manifest the creative impulse, through their love of the divine. "Of this second sort, the creation of the Thelemic current of magick is the best recent example. For Crowley, though he claimed to be the Magus of the current, was not truly its creator; he was only the prophet, the fore-speaker, who brought word of this creation into the minds of men, showing them that there was an opportunity available to participate in an act of divine creation. It was not Crowley's work, but the response and the seeking of those who heard his words, that truly established the Thelemic current. "We have said enough for now, and see that you have business that must be attended. Re-invoke later, if you will, or stop and comment upon what has been said. But think also on this in your meditations, for if you are to become a true creator you must understand it fully within yourself. "We are done." (Continuing about 3:45 pm...) "Now there are many and subtle things that might be said about this Part, but we will say only a few. "First the Tarot Card, which reflect in its own way the principles which we speak of. For at the top of the card is the Sun, the creator shining the light of his will onto the lower worlds. And below him is the ring-pass-not which divides (and unites) the transcendental and the finite realms from each other. This ring is being torn down by such as yourself, and will vanish in future times. And below the ring, is there not the symbol of human love? Male [ Continued In Next Message... ] ___ X SPEED 1.30 [NR] X 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Josh Norton Area: ENOCHIAN To: All 18 Oct 94 17:03:04 Subject: 91 Parts #13 Lazdixi 3/ UpdReq [ ...Continued From Previous Message ] and female joined together in joy and love, in the delight of play under the Sun. And is not the play of children commonly so, that they take some vision of things as they are in the world of adults, and act it out within the more limited reach of their own realm? They take the will-to- be of the adult, and make it their own will-to-become, exactly as the disciple takes the will of the creator. "Thus is love under will expressed in this card. (The remainder of the vision went off on a tangent, and is deleted as irrelevant to the power of the Part.) Seer's comments: According to my atlas, the opening scene is an accurate description of conditions in the Bactrian region, though no doubt the image was somewhat compressed compared to the reality. Lazdixi is the first Part to be governed by Olpaged, Zodiacal King of Leo in the system being used. But the vision clearly relates to the path of the Sun, which connects Chokmah with Tiphereth. The aspect of that path being considered here is somewhat higher than that seen in the previous Part, Pothnir. The Bactrian region is used as a metaphor for the Wasteland, an equivalent of the so-called "Abyss" in certain versions of the Grail myth. A portion of the ancient trade route to China becomes the path of Sol. And a ford in a river becomes the functional equivalent of the false sephira Da'ath, where things fall apart. Note the fine gravel, the shattered remains of previous destruction. A caravan becomes either a creative impulse moving downwards into matter, or a human soul reaching upwards into the spirit; all depends on the viewpoint chosen. Samarkand, central stop of the trade route, is the goal of this caravan, so probably it is an impulse moving down to the central sephira Tiphereth. A sphinx rules over this wasteland; and like the traditional sphinx, it challenges travelers. Not with riddles; the sound of its voice is apparently a sufficient challenge. But there is a riddle implicit in the situation nontheless, as shown in the abstract lessons that follow. The riddle is, how to send a creative impulse of divine Will from Chokmah into the lower worlds, in such a way that its intent is not destroyed in the region of the Abyss? The abstract lessons show that sheer force of Will is not enough, no matter whether that will is sent in a single pulse, or as a continuing flow of will-to-control. A complementary impulse, originating from below, is required for the Will to make itself known in the finite worlds. Some difficulties in the transit from the divine to the finite levels are discussed, and it is shown how these are overcome through the Thelemic law of "Love under Will". The phrase is shown to not only be a philosophical principle, but a necessity of the process of divine creation. And that this is true both for the lone Magus, and for beings of higher levels. (As a practical matter, I believe this vision indicates that the proper mode of creation involves sending energy from the heart chakra and the ajna chakra into the throat chakra, and there combining them, so that the voice of the mage embodies both their powers.) As an aside, it might be noted that the Bactrian region was historically one where shattered order was the rule. Under the Persians it was chronically rebellious, splitting off from their empire several times. It was one of the last regions conquered by Alexander the Great prior to his death and the dissolution of his empire. And today, as northern Afghanistan, it is a region where tribal and, even more, family loyalties are given a higher place than any larger community. Towns and cities in the region are really nothing more than collections of family enclaves, walled off from each other and guarded with a zealous paranoia. This fragmentation seems to me to accord with the conditions given in the vision. As one American reporter remarked on returning from the region, "The Russians should have known better than to invade a place where people fight wars for fun." ___ X SPEED 1.30 [NR] X 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Josh Norton Area: ENOCHIAN To: All 18 Oct 94 17:02:06 Subject: 91 Parts #14 Nocamal 1/ UpdReq .#110 Nocamal, 14th of 91 Parts, 2nd of LIT. Zodiacal King: Alpudus Ministers: 2306 Mundane association: Cilicia (Southeast seacoast of Asian Turkey, abutting the Gulf of Alexander) Friday, October 14, 1994 10:12 PM Invoked Nocamal according to the revised procedure. The vision opened, and I seemed to be a giant standing above the Earth. Below me I could see a fertile crescent of plain bounded on the north and west by mountains bordering a plateau. To the south was a sea; I could see waves traveling leagues to strike the shore and be refracted back again. More mountains, more like large hills, to the east. My body shrank so that it was closer to the scale of what I was seeing. To the northeast, there was a deep gorge cutting through the mountains. To either side of its entrance high rocks jutted upwards like pylons or weather-worn pillars. The sky was overcast here, but bright light shone down the gorge from the other end. Coming down the gorge was a procession of men, going in pairs. All of them wore belted robes with the hoods thrown back; the robes were a rich violet color. Their headgear was red, and came in many styles. Before them, riding on a white horse, came Death with his banner, as in the Tarot card. Death reined in between the pillars, and the men continued on, one of each pair passing to either side of him. As they came into the plain, the spread out to either side so that they formed a crescent with its points facing to the southeast. Death now moved somewhat forward, so that he was near the focus of the crescent, and lowered the banner he carried in the direction he faced. On the banner was a stylized silver rose, and this rose was exactly at the focus. It seemed to me that the line of the gorge, plus the curve the men made, plus the circle of the rose together made the symbol of Pluto. A power seemed to radiate outwards onto the plain. Like Pluto's force, it worked underneath the surface. Above ground, it was merely a great brilliance; below ground, it worked as if drawing or pushing things irresistably upwards into the light of day. Now hands and feet and heads began to appear out of the ground. Soon people were pushing and dragging themselves out of the ground, like drowning swimmers who had just dragged themselves out of the water, and stood there gasping for breath, in sheer amazement at still being alive. These all faced Death and bowed deeply. Death raised his banner again and set it in a stirrup or cup on the left side of his saddle. He spoke: "It is not my power that has raised you up; only the gates of passage are mine; the lands beyond are otherwise, and there will you go." And in an instant all present (except Death and his men) were transported to the other end of the gorge, from which the light earlier shone. Here it was bright all around, with a sort of red-tinged brilliance. I could see no details of the land. But above in the sky was a great angel, arms held out and down at 45 degree angles, left leg crossed over right, so that he formed the symbol of alchemical sulfur. Somewhere behind his head shined a star, like one of the fiercer of the stellar brethren, so far away that it had no disk, but so brightly burning that it was nearly blinding. And around this star shimmered a ring of vibrating rays, of all the colors, concealing the Great Serpent. This ring gave the impression that the angel had a halo, but I knew it was not so. I waited for a few minutes more, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming, and there was no Voice. So I ended tonight's vision, to try again tomorrow. Saturday, October 15, 1994 6:44 PM As the vision opened, I was high above the plateau seen before. Below I could see many people streaming out of the gate to the lower seacoast plain, following a path that went through the relatively barren land here. But only a portion of the path was visible; as it passed northwards, it --and everything else -- dissolved again into a brilliant featureless glow that covered the north from top to bottom. As the people moved north, they too seemed to dissolve. First their bodies became reduced to a series of connected reflective planes - - sort of a Picasso-like or post-modern rendition of a human body. Then these too dissolved, and as they approached the glowing region, they became sparks of fire and passed through. I followed the sparks into the glowing region, and found that it was not a region at all, but simply an interface. I felt like one of those medieval images of a monk traveling through the spheres of the pre-copernican heavens; he breaks through the sphere of the fixed stars and is suddenly confronted with the glory of God. But here that is reversed; I broke through the seeming glory of the divine, and beyond it is the blackness of space, filled with stars. The sparks coming through with me waft away on an invisible breeze, transforming into stars among the many already there. "What is it that draws the souls of men upwards, o mage? Do you think it is the Will of God? It is not. Do you think it the encompassing nurturance of the Mother? It is not. No, it is the pure, unaltered fire, the essence of Being, reaching down into the created worlds and pulling itself to itself. For all things created are, at their root, Fire; and Fire speaks to Fire. "Take away that Fire, and creation dissolves into nothingness. Bring that Fire, and creation also dissolves, but after another manner, gradually, and with the gains and experience of its many lives retained. "Now, in this Part, as in all the others, we are concerned not with powers and principalities, not with things, but instead with transitions and relationships, the movement [emphasized] from one state to another. And what greater movement is there than this, the drawing of [ Continued In Next Message... ] ___ X SPEED 1.30 [NR] X 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Josh Norton Area: ENOCHIAN To: All 18 Oct 94 17:02:08 Subject: 91 Parts #14 Nocamal 2/ UpdReq [ ...Continued From Previous Message ] souls out of matter, and their return into the heavens from which they came? "Fire is Life. This is the word of Chokmah. But Fire is also Light, and this is the greater word of Kether. The one creates, the other returns, and brings about return. And who can say if they are truly two and not one? Not I, nor any of my kind. "In the early stages of this vision, you saw the hidden Fire, that fire which is at the core of all finite things. And the power of Pluto is like unto the power that draws those fires out of their insulating nests, their comfortable abodes, and frees them once more to stand above the worlds." Here my attention was directed back to the moment in yesterday's vision when Death radiated his force into the Earth. Then it was focused upon a single particle within the Earth. It seemed to me that in this state the sparks of Fire were in a form of stasis, or a deep sleep, in which they did not expend any of their intrinsic energy. When the Pluto- like energy touched a spark, it was brought into a state of activity and began expending its energy. Its "insulation", its material form, somehow sealed it off from drawing in more energy to replace that being spent; thus the sense of drowning -- more properly, suffocation -- that I had noticed. The spark (which is a human soul, in some cases) forces itself upwards in order to have free access to that which it needs to renew itself. "In the next stage of the transition, the sparks are free of their containers, yet retain the memories thereof, and the patterns of action established there. They live within the greater Fire, and draw sustenance therefrom, but are still in some ways not purely of fire themselves. Here the greater Fire acts to reduce them, to abstract them burning out the dross, purifying, converting the memories of matter into patterns of energy. This is the reduction of life-experience to a set of symbolic relationships, as is done by those in the so-called "adept" grades, which the Thelemites call the "Lover" grade. "And eventually even these are burned away, turned to vapor and dissipated. And there is nothing left but a spark of Fire, indistinguishable from any other, indistinguishable from the Greater Fire itself, but still unique. And this spark passes back into the realms from which it was sent in the beginning. "Thus, you might call this Part the Part of Sublimation by Burning. That which enters under its power is made more rarified, closer to its own essence, by the power of Fire. "There is nothing here of great import to your personal work at this time; you have seen this power at work many times before, and the lesson has been learned. In the future you will see it again, but not yet. "And thus we complete this vision of the Part. We are done." Seer's comments: Here we return again to the Path of Fire, connecting Kether with Tiphereth in Achad's Tree of Life. But at a somewhat lower level than in the previous contact. What was seen here covers the path's action in the region between the two horizontal paths it crosses: that of Aquarius between Chokmah and Binah, and that of Scorpio between Chesed and Geburah. The sigil of Nocamal bears a surprising resemblance to the shape of the Part's mundane association. The starting point of the sigil would be at about the location of ancient Antioch; the next two lines would be the seacoast of Cilicia, the remaining lines the Taurus Mountains separating it from the rest of Anatolia. Tarsus, the city of the apostle Paul's birth, would be just about at the point of the sigil's upper "v". The gorge of the opening image and its gate-like entrance are a poetic rendering of the Cilician Gates, a pass through the mountains that was, and still is, one of the main routes into the middle east from Anatolia and Europe. Here it is used as a metaphor for the Path of Fire. The connection with Paul is perhaps apropos, since a blinding light is seen later in the vision. As in the Part Pothnir, the vision suggests an interaction between the descending path and the path it crosses, so that the Fire is transformed by the Scorpio influence into a generative or re-generative power. The "dead" are raised up out of their coffins of matter, as in the Tarot card "Judgment", but this is done through the process of death itself, acting as a front for the fiery power. The final image of Friday's vision confirms the path being dealt with by showing a somewhat modified image of the Judgment card. Some elements from the previous vision of this path are repeated to affirm that it is a continuous process. Saturday's vision continues the confirmation. The people pass through the gates and enter into the Wasteland, the region of the so- called Abyss. Beyond the Wasteland there seems to be only light; perhaps an expression of the way the divine is perceived from the finite levels. But the light turns out to be another front; from "above" the Abyss, the divine is seen not to end in some conclusive oneness, but instead opens up into a region of infinite possibilities. The Voice explains the remaining aspects of the vision well enough. ___ X SPEED 1.30 [NR] X 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718