Category: Spirituality/Paganism & Magick

For some time the world has eagerly awaited the premier of the film version of Dan Brown’s best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code. For the few not familiar with the story, a Harvard symbologist is swept up in a mysterious web of intrigue over an unsolved murder revolving around a secret society. Clues to the society’s most preciously guarded secret abound in the paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci – a former member of this society. The secret reveals what the Holy Grail really symbolizes – the sacred bloodline that culminated in the marriage between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ whose descendants live among us today. While most critics agree that the book is a thrilling confluence of fact and fiction, many argue over which part is fact and which is fiction. Regardless, the book and the movie neglect to mention the true origin of this sacred bloodline and why it was considered royal to begin with. That brings in the connection with aliens and vampires. Those not privy to this knowledge (because knowledge is power) might think it even more bizarre than the initial controversy, but historical evidence for this story also exists.

The researchers from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History sought to explain how people from across Greece came to consult with the Oracle – a hotline to the god Apollo- on a particular day of the year even though there was no common calendar.

Time magazine’s cover story that week was “The Turning Point in Vietnam,” by which the establishment press meant winning the war, not increasing the level of protest. Out in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, a proposal from the local chapter of the Vietnam Day Committee had grown into a worldwide event, the first large-scale antiwar protest of a new era. Somehow, someone from the Committee asked Kesey to speak in a prime time slot, just before the protest march into Oakland. This turned out to be a disastrous choice, as Kesey had his own opinions about the protest movement.

To the Pranksters it was all a matter of synchronicity. Signs and portents emerged from the great mystic morass of the collective unconscious and took shape as events and metaphors capable of shaping reality. Pay attention, keep the cosmic mind tuned in, be “on the bus” in Prankster terms, and you could actually surf that mother wave of change. The year before, 1964, the Pranksters took their metaphor out for a road trip to the New York World’s Fair in a Day-Glo splashed 1939 International Harvester school bus named Further. Being the Pranksters, they pranked everyone they met along the way and filmed and taped the entire experience, including a visit to Dr Leary’s Millbrook retreat.

While the great west-east LSD summit meeting the Pranksters imagined failed to happen - Dr. Tim was off on a three-day trip and couldn’t be disturbed by a group of west coast costumed crazies - something was gained from the experience. Kesey and the group were off on a different kind of trip, were in fact sailing into the uncharted, dragon-infested waters of the collective unconscious where even the famous LSD gurus feared to go. On the return trip, the Unspoken Thing, the un-reference the Pranksters used for synchronicity, grew deeper and more powerful. By the time the group returned to La Honda in the fall of 1964, something new and truly unique was emerging: the Pranksters were developing a group mind, an egregore to use an archaic term.

In the early 1960s, before heading up into the mountains to La Honda, Ken Kesey lived near a quiet valley south of Stanford University. Back then it was known for its fruit orchards and was called the Valley of Heart’s Delight. It wouldn’t become Silicon Valley until 1971, and by then the radical evolution of the future was under way. But it all started, the future was truly groked and teased into manifestation, right there, amid the peaches and the apricots of Heart’s Delight. That somehow is comforting to contemplate…

Traditionally, the twentieth Tarot trump has been called Judgment. Then Aleister Crowley came along and renamed the card The Aeon. This should come as a surprise to no one. After all, Uncle Al renamed half the pack. But while some of his changes were easy to understand, and others not so much changes as refinements, substituting The Aeon for Judgment might seem downright confounding.

Several years back, I read a book on the Tarot in which the author compared the twenty-two images of the Major Arcana to some Jungian archetypes. In her write-up on The Hanged Man she pointed-out that if you turn the Rider Waite version of this card upside down, then the central figure is no longer hanging upside down, but is right side up and dancing a jig.

So you want to be a Ceremonial Magician? You've bought a copy of Donald Kraig's book Eleven Lessons In The High Magickal Arts as well as a copy of Regardie's The Golden Dawn. You've studied many of the High Magick sites and asked questions on their forums. You've taught yourself the Middle Pillar meditation and the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram. All that's left for you to do is to set-up your altar and fire-up your temple.

In studying history, one discovers kings whose characters and acts could not have been transformed by more legends than historical reality could possibly have authorized. In the words of Frederic Thieberger (which are reported in this article for their historical authority) regarding one of these monarchs: "If this is so, let's not try to deny it. This is solely because the real man should be gifted with radiance capable of justifying so much admiration." And Samuel Fallows will write: "This is confirmed by the universal voice of antiquity." Solomon was one of these kings.

When I'm doing a Tarot reading, when The Fool card comes-up people will often ask, “That doesn't mean I'm a fool, does it?” Many people are so afraid of seeming foolish or silly that they often see no positive attributes to The Fool at all. Actually, The Fool is like every other card in the Tarot deck and has positive and negative attributes. The meaning of this card in a reading depends on its placement within the spread, the other cards around it, and “what's going on” in the life of the person being read.