The Wave Chapter 67: Food for the Moon and the Burning House

As you know, I began the Wave with a sort of set and finite plan – I was going to just talk about the Wave. There were going to be about ten chapters, each about 20 pages, and that was that. But, as it happened, the process of writing turned into channeling. I am very often surprised myself at what comes from my fingers.

There was another reference to an 11-house zodiac in a curious remark by Chester Starr, who writes regarding the earliest Sumerian ceremonials:

In the spring of each year occurred the greatest religious festival of the land, known as the Akitu in later Babylonia. This was the New Year’s feast, an 11-day (yes, you read right, eleven) ceremony of gloom and purification and then of joy, which ended as the gods “set the lots of mortal men during the coming year.” On the fourth day of the festival the priests recited a myth of creation, called from its opening words Enuma Elish. (Private correspondence)

His footnote was Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament by J. B. Pritchard.

The only other reference to the 11-house zodiac was one from a lecture given in the late 1880s by Rosicrucian, Golden Dawn co-founder, and medical examiner for the City of London, Dr. W. Wynn Westcott titled “Flying Roll VII”, attributed to “S.A.” He tells us that alchemy “is never taught in so many words. It may dawn on any one of you – the magic event may occur when least expected.”

Westcott begins his lecture by saying that alchemy means “the Higher Chemistry, treating of the essential nature of the elements, metals and minerals.” In the paragraph that followed this, Westcott says something very odd: he quotes a fourth century astrologer, Julius Firmicus Maternus, who says that skill in alchemy depends on having the Moon in the House of Saturn. Even more confusing, Westcott then asks: “what house does he [Firmicus] mean? The Day (Aquarius) house or the Night (Capricorn) house of Saturn?” And then further confuses everyone by wondering if this fourth century astrologer could have meant the attribution as referring to Uranus. This would be odd since the planet Uranus was not discovered until 1781.

Now, note that Westcott deliberately left out Virgo and Libra. In ancient times, Scorpio and Virgo were a double sign. Libra did not exist. Libra was later created and inserted to break up the double sign, which occupied a double space in the zodiacal wheel, so we are not talking about what would be broken down to merely a 10-equal house system here. What was called Scorpio was understood to include Virgo. Thus, it was an 11-sign system, with ten houses, one of them being double in its number of degrees.

But, back to the story. These were the only two references that I knew to exist, and I had been looking and asking for several years. I had a dream about it at one point. A high priest appeared, wearing a many-tiered skirt that resembled the Cretan depictions of the goddess – only this was a man. He showed me how the different tiers could be rotated so that certain symbols aligned, which then gave a message. The symbols were zodiacal and the star names were of great significance. The trick was, to align them properly.

The same dream then morphed. I was holding a vase that appeared to be onyx or something like that. Others had tossed it on a junk heap and I picked it up and was examining scratch marks all over it. I could see that it was engraved, but that all the grooves were filled with dirt and it was coated with grime. I began to clean it with cotton swabs and water very carefully, going into all the little cracks and tracing out the lines. As I did so and the dirt came away, I was awestruck at the beauty of this vase. It was not only cunningly worked with some great mythical scene being enacted, but it was inlaid with amazing veneers of various colored stones. And, it was also translucent so that the black turned out to be really a deep, translucent purple.

The dream morphed again: Ark and I were walking and it seemed to be a park or recreation area of some sort with mountains and cliffs and outcroppings of rock. We were walking around, looking at all the rock formations and shrubbery. The landscape was very dry and obviously in need of rain. As we were following a path I decided to hide in a bush and see how long it took for Ark to notice I was missing, as a joke. And then I suddenly found myself standing on the path ahead of him.

“How did you do that?” Ark said.

“Well, I ducked into this bush and there was a cleft in the rock, and I started to squeeze into it and something happened and here I am!” I said.

He insisted that I go back and show it to him. So, we went back and there was a small cave entrance, looking rather like the broken cleft of the tomb in the Arcadian Shepherds painting. He said it was impossible, too small.

“Try it,” I said.

So, he stooped down and easily entered the cave. He was in there a long time. Meanwhile, I decided to stay busy by cleaning all the cracks in the rocks around the cave entrance. There was a trickle of water coming out of the cave and I was using some sort of cloth. As I did, the water kept increasing its flow until it was a fountain.

At this point, Ark came stumbling out of the cave, holding his eyes, crying tears and laughing at the same time.

“I believe! I believe!” he said. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes!”

We decided to leave the park. As we were walking out the entrance, I glanced up at the cliff face and there was a huge mosaic set in the rock. On the right were seven sharks, the bottom one paler than the others. They got darker as they went up, stacked identical images. On the left of the mosaic was a large whale whipping around, its mouth open, eye on the sharks, poised to devour them in a single bite. I told myself I needed to remember this dream. Then I woke up.

Well, of course I slipped in a quick question about this series of dreams:

Q: I had a dream the other night. As Ark and I were leaving the park in my dream, I looked up and saw a mosaic on the side of the mountain. It had seven sharks, one above the other, the lowest being pale almost to the point of transparency, and the highest being very dark and intense in color. There was a huge sperm whale to the upper left. He was in the posture of whipping around, his eye had caught the sharks, and his mouth was open and he was going to swallow them all in a single gulp. What was the meaning of the whale and the sharks?
A: Logic says to you: examine!
Q: The other part of the dream was that I disappeared and reemerged from a cleft in a rock. I was cleaning … he went to investigate … and he returned and was crying and all this water was flowing out of there like a spring. At another part of the dream, I was cleaning a vase … all this cleaning. What was the significance of this?
A: Trace minerals interact with deeply held secrets.

And that suggests the Alchemical transformation. Which brings us back again to Zelator.

I finally understood why the style of the Cassiopaeans was so different: it was the very model of the high-level adept working with a neophyte, helping them step by step to develop the inner circuits that would bring about the transformation. And I also understood why the Cassiopaeans took so long to tell some things and had no hesitation about others. It was clearly an initiatory exercise understood only by the adept. Never mind that the adept who is doing the teaching is doing it through a board and not in person or in some secret school. This reminded me of something I had asked the Cassiopaeans very early on:

November 9, 1994

Q: (L) Is the Sufi path a good one to study?
A: Up to you. We don’t want to judge that for you.
Q: (L) What percentage of truth is in that path.
A: In one sense all teachings are truths.
Q: (L) Can’t you just tell me?

A: Subjective. Would you like us to judge Reiki?
Q: (L) Well, yes before I spend any money on it. Will I waste my money?
A: Not if you go to right source. Now we have led you to answer we want you to continue to exercise your mind. That is how you progress.
Q: (L) So you want me to study Sufi for the exercise?
A: Yes. If we answered all your questions you would not learn.
Q: (L) In this book I am reading it talks about knowledge that is only given to the elect and that certain things are passed down through secret organizations. Most people think this organization is the Illuminati and that they hold many deep, dark secrets. Is that true?
A: Close. But now there is a knowledge explosion. The Illuminati is no longer exclusive; but they still think they are.
Q: (L) Compared to the big high mucky mucks in the Illuminati, what percentage of their knowledge do I possess?
A: 2 per cent.
Q: (L) You mean they know 98 per cent more than I do? As hard as I have worked for these many years? That’s depressing! How much knowledge, relative to the Illuminati, does the average college graduate have?
A: 0.02 per cent.
Q: (L) Is there any one person who holds a major chunk of knowledge on this planet?
A: By this time next year you will have 35 per cent as much.

Well, I guess 35 percent was better than 2 percent! But it made me painfully and acutely aware of how little I actually knew.

So here is this book, Zelator, and it is like reading about my own experiences with the Cassiopaeans. The big difference was that the author spent his entire lifetime gathering this information, and I am sure he only wrote what he felt he could safely divulge, concealing things in metaphors and allusions. Not only that, but it is also clear that obtaining his information via human filters, who have obtained their information through other sources which may or may not be closer to a real source has greatly colored or even clouded some of the matters covered in this book.

But, this book comes right out and says more truth about some of the secrets than any other book that has, to date, been published. And, as I read it, I was able to fill in the blanks from what I knew. There were certainly a number of crucial keys that I was looking for that Mark Hedsel revealed in his book for others on the Path of the Fool.

Which brings us back to the Moon. Chapter Seven of Zelator quotes at the beginning an excerpt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses:

I am the same Perseus who conquered the snaky-tressed Gorgon, the man who dared to travel through the airy breezes on beating wings. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, IV. 697)

This connects us back to our number 11 and the 3-5 code, if you will recall. The Cassiopaeans tossed Medusa into that discussion as a clue. And here we find it bearing some serious fruit. Not only that, the chapter begins with Fulcanelli. Hedsel writes:

Among the most remarkable of modern initiates who were prepared to reveal hermetic secrets to the profane was the mysterious Fulcanelli. In keeping with the secret Green Language, which he studied and practised with great accomplishment, he used a pen-name to disguise his real identity. ‘Fulcanelli’ meant ‘little Vulcan’ … As a pseudonym, this name seems to have worked very well, for no one has been able to determine with any certainty just who Fulcanelli was …

As we have seen, this mysterious alchemist paid especial attention to the alchemical images which are still found in the sculpted fabric of the French Cathedrals. In particular, Fulcanelli dealt with the secrets within the alchemical imagery of Notre Dame in Paris, and the cathedral at Amiens.

Among the most arcane of the many arcane stone quatrefoils on the western facade of Amiens cathedral which intrigued Fulcanelli is a curious image of a heavenly rain. The sheet of water streams like a veritable Niagara from the clouds which, for the mediaeval mind, symbolized heaven. It streams down to the Earth, where, in defiance of natural laws, it gathers into a ball of water which seems to pulsate and tremble, as though it were a ball of flame, rather than a magical liquid.

In the quatrefoil, an alchemist looks upon this cascade in awe, pointing with his right hand at the ball of water as though to show that it is a miracle, or something of profound importance. Could he be pointing to this water-ball to indicate that it is something dangerous? The phenomenon is portrayed in distinctly unnatural terms to show that this is no ordinary dew.

All the arcane images of the west front of Amiens are contained in quatrefoils. This in itself is a significant thing, for the quatrefoil is made up of four crescents – symbolic of the four phases of the Moon throughout the month. In the quatrefoil which contains the Niagara of water, the heavens open in the uppermost crescent, as if to indicate that this is a lunar Heaven (or sphere), and the magic water it dispenses is a lunar dew. In fact, it is the ‘philosophical dew’ of the alchemists – one of the great Mysteries of this mysterious art. It is not straining ancient mythology too far to see in this cascade the dual streams of the tears of the ‘weeping sisters’, the Egyptian goddesses, Isis and Nephthys, the combined influence of the light and dark Moons.

In Latin, this dew is Ros. … some hermetic experts argue that the three letters form the beginning of the word Rosicrucian, a word which pertains to the most important secret brotherhood in late mediaeval Europe. These initiates, who united the secret of the lunar dew with the cross (crucis, the genitive of the Latin crux), were practising Christians … The Ros dew was subjected to the directional organization of the cross (crucis). (Hedsel 2000, 296–297)

Now, remember what we have already covered about the spider, the scorpion, and the Rose? That the Rose or Ros is a standalone symbol and the two groups represented by the spider and the scorpion have “different objectives”? Here’s a quick refresher:

October 4, 1997

Q: In reading the transcripts, I came across a reference to a “pact” made by a group of STS individuals, and it was called “Rosteem,” and that this was the origin of the Rosicrucians. In the book The Orion Mystery, it talks about the fact that Giza was formerly known as RosTau, which is “Rose Cross.” Essentially, I would like to understand the symbology of the Rose affixed to the Cross. It seems to me that the imagery of Jesus nailed to the Cross is actually the Rose affixed to the Cross. How does Jesus relate to the Rose?
A: No, it is from the Rose arose the Cross.
Q: What does the cross symbolize?
A: The symbology is not the issue. It is the effect.
Q: What is the effect of the cross?
A: All that has followed it.
Q: Could you list some of these to give me a clue?
A: You know these.

I do, indeed.¹ And even though Mr. Hedsel may intimate that the Rosicrucians are the good guys, in colloquial terms, it is clear from other things he is writing that he knew better. They are not. They are the Spiders who entrap and devour. Remember this:

October 4, 1997

Q: In the same vein, I have noticed that there are two classes of arachnids. There are scorpions and there are spiders. The zodiac was changed by taking the pincers away from the Scorpion and creating out of them the sign of Libra. This image was one of a woman holding a balance scales, usually blindfolded. This was done within recorded history, but was probably formalized through the occult traditions of Kaballah. Now, in trying to figure out who has on what color hat, if there is such a thing, I have come to a tentative conclusion that the spider, or spinner of webs, is the Rosicrucian encampment, and that the Scorpion represents the seeker of wisdom … because, in fact, the word for Scorpio comes from the same root as that which means to pierce or unveil. Therefore, the Scorpion is also Perseus, per Ziu, or “for God.” And the Rosicrucians are the “other,” so to speak. Can you elaborate on this for me? Or comment?
A: What a tangled web we spin, when we must not let you in.
Q: So, the Rose is the Spider?
A: Different objective.
Q: So, the Rose, with its thorns … can you help me with this Rose image … is the Rose the Scorpion?
A: No. Different objective … Rose is a standalone symbol.
Q: So, the Rose can be used by either side, is that it?
A: Maybe.
Q: Another derivation of the word root of Scorpio is “skopos,” or “to see.” You said that the human race was seeded on a planet in the constellation Scorpio, and, therefore, when the zodiac was set up and the clues were laid out, it seems to me that the insertion of the sign of Libra was designed to take power away from human beings, to take their hands away, to prevent them from seeing, to make them defenseless. Is this imagery close?
A: On track.

Now, just to confirm our suspicions about the Rosicrucians let me add this most interesting series of questions and answers with the Cassiopaeans:

December 21, 1996

Q: (L) I have been digging around about the Templars and have, more or less, come to the conclusion that the whole deal about the destruction of the temple was just a smoke screen, and that something else was going on at the time that was important. I also think that they have been resurrected from time to time and dusted off and blamed for for all this secret knowledge that is supposedly lost … am I on to something here?
A: Close.
Q: Who or what brought about the end of the Knights of the Temple?
A: Rosicrucians move as a “thief in the night.”

This last most interesting remark suggests that the Rosicrucians were behind the destruction of the Templars! The “thief in the night” of the Bible is defined as “sudden destruction.”

December 21, 1996

Q: (L) But, as I understand it, the Rosicrucians did not come into being until after the end of the Templars … the Rosicrucians were the Templars…
A: No.
Q: (L) Do you mean that the information that came out, that pamphlet about “Christian Rosenkreutz,” that is a purported fable, might be correct, even if disguised?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Well, goodness sake! The Rosicrucians advertise in magazines! Is this worldwide organization that promotes itself so blatantly …
A: Well, the “worldwide” order is not all inclusive.
Q: (L) Is there an inner circle of this order that is unknown?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Are the Rosicrucians connected to the Masons?
A: In a roundabout away. [Which suggests to us that they may not necessarily be “in cahoots.”]
Q: (L) Are the Illuminati connected to the Rosicrucians in any way?
A: Same.
Q: (L) Do the Rosicrucians have writings in their keeping that they, themselves, do not understand?
A: Yes. So do the Masons.
Q: (L) The Priory of Zion, that has been purported to be the progenitor or inheritor of the Templar tradition, is that a mystical organization of great secrecy and import?
A: It is a cover for.
Q: (L) Another smoke screen.
A: Yes.

Did you ever notice how the Masons get blamed for so many things of a conspiratorial nature, and nobody ever blames the Rosicrucians or the present day Templars? Don’t you think that is a bit peculiar? Everything is a Masonic conspiracy, but nothing is ever a Rosicrucian conspiracy!

Now, lets get back to that most interesting item: heavenly rain; sheet of water. When I read those words, I had to whip out my hairspray to keep the hair from standing up! Note the following exchange with the Cassiopaeans dated, amusingly, 04-04-98 (keeping in mind that Hedsel keeps mentioning the word “quatrefoil.”):

April 4, 1998

Q: In the studies of the Triple Goddess, I came across some interesting things. You suggested that I should research the Third Man theme. I have discovered that the origin of the word “man” originally meant a female – the goddess. The Moon. The oldest word for the male of the species was “wer”, as in “werewolf.” So, the Third Man theme could mean actually, the Triple Goddess. Am I correct?
A: Close, if viewed through “sheets of rain.”
Q: Okay. Tracking the Triple Goddess back to the oldest references, we get to KaliMa. There are all kinds of derivations of this name, but the thing that strikes me is the relationship to the goddess Kell, or Kella, as well as to the word kell, Celts, and how this might be transformed into the word “Cassiopaea.” Can you comment on this?
A: Do not the Celts like “Kelly” green?
Q: Yes. So. What does “green” have to do with it?
A: Keep searching … learning is accomplished thusly, and learning is fun!

Now, let me just mention that when the Cassiopaeans first said this, I was completely baffled, so I came back to it in a later session:

January 2, 1999

Q: I once asked about the Third Man theme and that perhaps you meant that the imagery was that of the Triple Goddess relating to the Isle of Man … and you said, “if viewed through sheets of rain.” So, in this book that I am reading, it talks about the fact that the Celts of Gaul worshipped the Rain as the manifestation of the Goddess, and the Celts of Scotland worshipped the Sun … the male God. Does this relate in any way to this remark you made about sheets of rain?
A: In an offhand way.
Q: Anything further you can tell me in terms of a clue about “sheets of rain”?
A: Not for now, when you get there, you will find the chalice.
Q: Where and what chalice?
A: Wait and see!

Going back to one of the other threads we have been following, the bloodline theme, a chalice was mentioned in another context that may be related:

October 3, 1998

Q: (L) What were the names of the children of Jesus?
A: You have the clues, and your quest has been admirable so far, why stop now?
Q: (L) So, I will find them! Okay.
A: Could be like the Holy Grail.
Q: (L) What could be like the Holy Grail?
A: Chalice.
Q: (L) What does the chalice represent?
A: What is its root?

And we find in the dictionary that the root of chalice, in terms of words, is a Latin word, calix, which means a cup. When we look at the word calix, we find that its root is the Indo-European word Kel. Funny that the Cassiopaeans gave me the answer and I didn’t see it when they said “kelly green”.

Now, let’s get back to Zelator: skipping over a most interesting discourse on the Moon, in which he conceals with one paragraph and reveals with another, we come to this:

We had assumed that Jacques Bergier, who claimed to have met Fulcanelli in 1937, had probably – to put it kindly – imagined this meeting. … However, a remark, made by a friend in Florence in the May of 1978, pulled us up short, and made us call into question what we knew about this mysterious alchemist. …

‘… [Florence] is not a place of old ghosts but of old love. One does not need great powers to break through the veil in this place – to reach into a different time.’ On this occasion, however, we were standing on the generous pavement which frames the huge square of the Piazzale Michelangelo. We were leaning on the balustrade, overlooking Florence. As we talked, our eyes skimmed like swallows over the trees towards the lovely ponte vecchio. (Hedsel 2000, 303)

Reading this made me pull out the hairspray again. I have on my wall above the desk a photograph of Ark standing almost in this very spot with his arm outstretched, “showing me Florence.” In fact, Ark was on his way to Piazzale Michelangelo, a further ten-minute walk from where he was standing.
The date on the photograph is 07-07-96. This was two days after we “met.” Ark was in Florence at that time, working in an ancient monastery. He had taken this walk to think. On the same walk, he went to a nearby gift shop and purchased a postcard to send to me. It was Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” So, again, Hedsel is saying things that are personally significant, like markers.

We were talking about symbolism. … we decided to leaf once again through Fulcanelli’s masterpiece [and then] to put the problem to our Florentine friend. [He said,] ‘You may not have found the answer in Fulcanelli, yet I assure you that the clue is there, nonetheless. You understand, sometimes even Fulcanelli wraps his mysteries in mysteries, for he knows that some things may not be spoken, even today. … Look again at what he writes of Saturne as an anagram of natures.’ (Hedsel 2000, 304–306)

Now we understand the inside joke of Westcott’s lecture! Saturn is an anagram for Nature. And we also begin to have an inkling of the Saturnian influence of Nature!

‘Fulcanelli is far wiser than most of his readers know. He sets down less in words than he could, and delivers parables in parables. In this there is real wisdom. The alchemists insisted that one should heat the retort many times before making the final distillation. This is an emblem of true thought: one must pass one’s thinking through the furnace many times, to be sure. One should think with a hammer, rather than with a brain, as one shapes our thought from dross matter.’

Fulcanelli may well be a great initiate into the hermetic lore, yet he is an infuriating Teacher. He teaches, or enlightens, by means of hints and guesses, demanding all the while the full cooperation and attention of his reader. Fulcanelli seems to practise the sol lente, the ‘slow-heat’ method of the alchemist, for he recognizes that a more fierce heat, which may be raised with the bellows, would kill the germinating life within the vessel.

A word or a phrase by Fulcanelli can do two things. Either it will spark off unconnected links in one’s mind, yoking together unsuspected words or ideas, and thereby engendering enlightenment. Or, it can have one scurrying in ignorance to the old alchemical and occult books, or resorting to the active contemplation of symbols, which he so often recommends. Both these methods of learning are conducted through the slow inner heat, so beloved by alchemical teachers.

For the student, it is an infuriatingly slow method. All too often even the alchemical books prove too obscure for elucidation, and the questioning soul is left without answers to the questions raised by Fulcanelli. In some cases, years may pass before one arrives at the answers one seeks. We have to admit that, more than once, we have encountered great difficulties in following some of the indications left by Fulcanelli as he skipped along the Way of the Fool, juggling with words, occasionally allowing one to fall to the floor for the benefit of his followers. (Hedsel 2000, 306, 318–319)

Even though the Cassiopaeans have repeatedly told us that certain things must be given in a measured way and that phases must pass, I had never thought of this as the actual alchemical process of being transformed directly. But, here we have the clue that the retort must be heated many times. And we also begin to understand better the alchemical process itself.

‘You know, one day, some scholar will claim that they have finally discovered who Fulcanelli was. But that scholar will be wrong, for he or she will not know of how initiates really work. They will not know of how casually an initiate may change his clothing. They will not even be able to identify an initiate from his words, or from his eyes. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 306)

I had to laugh at this one! I am quite sure that this was addressed directly to all of those who read Fulcanelli and think that rituals are the answer, or that Kaballah is the path.

‘… Fulcanelli is alive. Fulcanelli is even older than me, yet he is still alive. He lives here in Florence.’ (Hedsel 2000, 307)

At this point, the old man who is speaking to Mark Hedsel tells him that there is a small group that meets in Florence, and invites him to join them. At this little gathering the old man speaks, and here we come back to the Moon:

‘In the arcane tradition there are two Moons. These pairs have very many names. Such names are usually derived from mythological personifications – yet all these pairs relate to the idea that one Moon is a reflector of sunlight, while the other, if not always in darkness, is invisible. …

‘From the very beginning of civilization, the Moon has been a mystery, because it has always stared down upon the Earth with one single face. As the Moon circles the Earth, it keeps one side of its globular face presented towards humanity. …

‘… Western occultism have tended, until comparatively recent times, to emphasize only the light side of the Moon. Even so, hints of the dark Moon are encapsulated in even the most overt-seeming symbolism.

‘… the archangel Gabriel is the ruler of the Moon – that is, of the light side of the Moon. His role as messenger at the Annunciation is well established, even if his arcane role (symbolized by the white lilies) is only imperfectly understood outside the secret Schools. The lilies of Gabriel are very profound symbols indeed. They are recognized, in the Mysteries, as symbols of the descent of a God. [Laura’s note: Notice that he does not say “the descent of God,” but of “a God.”]

‘Furthermore, in the same Christian tradition, images of the Assumption of the Virgin show the lunar crescent beneath the feet of the Virgin.

‘In these two different symbols, we have a clue to how the Virgin of Light is linked with the angelic ruler of the Moon at the conception of the Child, and with the lunar crescent at her own translation from Earth to Heaven – at her death. It is as though this symbolism was designed to show …’ He paused ‘… to show that the very same lunar forces which announced her destiny as the Mother of God were also lifting her to Heaven, at the end of her life.

‘Now, Gabriel is the Christian equivalent of the personified light Moon. The name is, of course, Hebraic, and we must look to the same language in our search for the name of the Christian dark Moon. This name is Lilith, the mother of the lilin, or brood of demons. We see, then, that it is no great mystery that the angel Gabriel should carry lilies at the Annunciation. There is rarely such a thing as accident in the confluence of sounds in arcane symbolism.’ (Hedsel 2000, 310–311)

So is the old man, the teacher of Hedsel, telling us that Christianity is a religion of demons? It seems so, yet he will not come right out and say it. He gives with one paragraph, and takes away with another. He goes on to emphasize this point by saying:

‘… the early Christian church was embarrassed by the vast numbers of demonologies which prowled around the cosmologies of the pagan religions. These demons were especially numerous in the Gnostic tradition which the Church felt proper to dismiss. It seems to me that this rejection of the Gnostic tradition was part of a peculiar programme adopted by the early Church. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 311)

And then he said another thing that brought out the hairspray again:

‘… the lunar Isis is not a single goddess, but dual. Her sister, Nephthys, was the dark Moon: in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, Nephthys is portrayed standing opposite her sister, like a shadow-neter (opposite). In addition to being sister of Isis, this black virgin Nephthys was sister and wife of the dark Set. … The pair – Isis and Nephthys – were called the weeping sisters. Their tears stream to Earth, just as the tears of sleeping humanity stream towards the Moon in the Tarot card. This, it is said, was because they both wept at the death of Osiris, though, as we shall see, there may be a far deeper reason for this description.’ …

‘I said that much of the ancient lore pertaining to the dark Moon was lost with the emergence of Christianity … The initiates who guided the transfer of some of the ancient teachings of the Egyptians to Rome, that they might serve the new Mysteries of Christ …’

In the Greek and Roman epics, it is a commonplace for the poets to visualize the gods spinning fate around a man, as though his body were nothing more than a spindle, the inner core being wrapped in the threads from which his destiny was being spun. This notion was extended into the fatalistic activities of the Moirae. The Greek word moira, which meant ‘portion’, was eventually applied to the fate apportioned to an individual, and the three Moirae were adopted as personifications of the notion of allotted destiny.

The myths of Selene and the Moirae are not really too far removed from the ancient hermetic view which traced a link between the Moon and Fate. In early cosmologies, it was the Moon who was regarded as the controller of human destiny. …

… The Greek name Hecate means ‘worker from afar’, and captures perfectly the notion of an influence cast from a distant satellite. It would seem that Hecate is the tutelary lunar goddess of the Sleepers, of those who have not yet found their way to a Path. (Hedsel 2000, 312, 314, 316, 233)

Here I would like to point out that the Cassiopaeans have repeatedly said that the Moon is a “base” for the fourth-density control system. And we might also want to remember the writings of Morris K. Jessupon this matter, most particularly his theory of “null zones” that enable the activation or opening of windows or portals between densities, though he did not express it in those terms.

In modern times, most people tend to think of space as being empty of living beings: it is ‘empty space’ – save, of course, for the stars, planets and cosmic dust. This soul-less vision is however quite modern. In previous ages, there was never much doubt that the heavens were filled with Spiritual beings. …

… the Way Up and the Way Down, the Way Out and the Way In … marks a cross in space and time. …

… the ancient hieroglyphic for the Place of the Horizon, which eventually turned into the modern sigil for Libra, is that which separates the infernal from the celestial.

‘… the glyph indicates that Mankind – even that small part of Mankind that seeks initiation … must, at some time or another, descend into the Well of Ordeal. …’

‘… In some ways, the Moon is the greatest problem of esoteric lore. The Moon is not at all what it appears to be.

‘At the end of the last century an astounding revelation was made, as a result of dissent among members of secret Schools. Information, hitherto guarded jealously by the most enclosed of the inner Orders, was made public. The secrets disclosed pertained to a far deeper level of knowledge than has hitherto been made exoteric by the Schools – even in this enlightened age.’ (Hedsel 2000, 233, 239, 242)

Here, Hedsel’s teacher is suggested to be referring to A. P. Sinnet and his connection to Theosophy and certain revelations that were made in 1932 via the Brotherhood of Luxor, but I think that this was a deliberate misdirection. Gurdjieff was talking about mankind being “food for the Moon” before 1914. Here we find the probable cause for some of the distortion of information in the Way of the Fool. Blavatsky claimed to have inside information, but it seems likely that what she was given was intentionally mixed with half-truths and some lies.

‘In a nutshell, what was made public during this conflict in the Schools was the truth that our Moon is a sort of counterweight to another sphere, which remains invisible to ordinary vision. This counterweighted sphere is called in esoteric circles the Eighth Sphere.

‘We must be careful with these words, for, in spite of what I have said, this region is not itself a sphere, nor is it a moon. Even to locate it behind the physical Moon is not correct, for in the Spiritual realm spaces and distances are different. The truth is that the Eighth Sphere does not pertain to anything we are familiar with on the physical plane, yet we must use words from our own vocabularies whenever we wish to denote its existence. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 242)

Here we find that the Cassiopaeans have gone much further in trying to describe what this teacher is saying (and I am assembling these remarks from all through the book, since they are not in order, probably on purpose). The Cassiopaeans call the idea that this man is struggling to express “fourth density.” Again we see that the clarity of the Cassiopaean materials serves us well in understanding what have for millennia been arcane matters.

‘… Were we to use a word which fits most appropriately this Sphere, then we should really call it a vacuum. Certainly, vacuum is a more appropriate term than sphere, for the Eighth Sphere sucks things into its own shadowy existence. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 242)

You don’t say? You mean like: man is food for the Moon?

‘… It acts as as sort of demonic conduit to suck into its maws certain degenerate Spiritual forms on the Earth. It is a shadow Sphere, controlled by shadow beings. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 243)

Like maybe Lizzes and Grays? Here, again, we have the advantage of the Cassiopaean explanations of these “shadow beings.” We can easily see how, without understanding of hyperdimensions and densities, those who were not directly inside the “secret schools” would have the idea that these beings are shadowy or even in some way simply spirits. The same misunderstanding is prevalent today among those alien/UFO interpreters who have decided aliens are merely spirits or demons with no physical reality. This has led to such nonsense as believing that they can possess humans in an interpenetrative spiritual way, like climbing in or out of a body and bringing on shape shifting in the human being.²

‘… However, the fact that they are shadow beings should not lead us to demote or underestimate their capabilities and intelligence. In many respects they are more intelligent than Man, for they are not limited by the power of love, as is Mankind. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 243)

Again either this man doesn’t know how truly deep the mystery is, or he is afraid of scaring his pupils to death!

‘The operation of the Eighth Sphere is complex. Its denizens – those shadowy beings for whom it is home – wish to people their Sphere with humanity … Towards this end, it has erected what we might call terminals on the Earth: these terminals are soul-conduits, which will suck into the lower Sphere a certain form of materialized energy that is engendered on the Earth plane. …’ (Hedsel 2000, 243)

The teacher then goes on to say that the most usual place where this vacuuming of energy happens is among people engaging in spiritualist activities, particularly those having to do with communication with the lower etheric planes, i.e. talking to dead dudes.

While I am in agreement with him, for the most part, I think that it is too great a generalization, and the evidence that there is an alien reality that clearly matches what he is talking about in terms of the Moon or the Eighth sphere, should take us far in realizing the true nature of this energy sucking. In fact, the Cassiopaeans are light years ahead of this, even if it is interesting to get a little corroboration from another source. And there may be something very deep in what he says here, considering the plethora of New Age trance channeling, or conscious channeling, and contacts with space brothers going on nowadays.

‘… Certain spiritualist activity is coloured by the erroneous belief that the realm of the dead is accessible to the living. In truth, mediumistic activity cannot penetrate through into the true realm of the dead: it is therefore dealing only with shadows. In so doing, it is creating fodder for the nourishment of the Eighth Sphere. This sucking of certain forms of human soul-matter into the Eighth Sphere is not, by any means, intended for the benefit of humanity. The aim of the denizens of this world is to enhance and populate a world which may truly be described as the realm of the damned. The efforts of these denizens, or demons, is contrary to the evolutionary development which has been planned for the world. …

‘It is less than on hundred years since this knowledge of the Eighth Sphere was made public. At first there was an outcry at this breach in initiate knowledge, but now we can see that it has proved something of a blessing that the demonic threat has been brought out into the open. In some ways, it is easier to deal with a visible enemy. Those who dabble in the supposed communications with the dead, and with that spirit-land which they fondly imagine lies beyond the veil, have not gone unwarned. (Hedsel 2000, 243)

And now, finally, we come to one of the greater blessings of this book that indicated to me how I must view what I am doing. In this excerpt, Mark Hedsel is in conversation with an old man who has been on the Path of the Fool for a very long time.

MH: ‘I set out to learn how to be a Fool.’

OM: ‘No, you set out the follow the Way of the Fool. There is a difference. And what is the result of such a journey? The result is a wise Fool. A fool is the one who gives up everything for an idea. The wise Fool is the one who knows that he never had anything to give up in the first place. Is that Foolish? … What is the difference between an old man and a young man, if they are both fools?’ …

MH: ‘Is it commitment? The old man has committed himself, while the young one has not?’

OM: ‘Yes, exactly so. The old man has committed himself. He has made a stand. Life has made him do that. He has drawn a circle around himself, and said, “This is where I stand, this is what I must do.” He has committed himself to an action. Because he has drawn a circle around himself, others can see where he stands. He can be attacked by others. His position is weak. Those who have not committed themselves can mock, if they are so inclined. The one who has committed himself appears to be in a weak position. Yet the Spiritual truth is quite otherwise. It is the one who accepts commitment who is strong. The true commitment is the artistic one. This is why artists are so often attacked. They are attacked for their morals, for their ideas – even for their work. Yet their essence – their commitment – is the secret which is unassailable. The true artist knows that creativity is its own reward. Ordinary people fear commitment, you see. Ordinary people fear creativity. They know that if they allow that seething cauldron of yellow liquid to boil over within themselves, then their whole lives will be changed. People fear change. People do not wish to be creative and artistic in any real sense. They wish to decorate, perhaps, and to make things around themselves pleasant – but this has little to do with creativity. … All spiritual paths should be creative. Creativity is involved with sacrifice. That stew of yellow liquid which boils in everyone is a sacrificial broth …’

MH: ‘The sulphur?’

OM: Yes, the sulphur. The first of the Three Principles. It is in a sacrificial cauldron. It is an excess. Creativity is Spiritual delight, and overpouring of sulphur. … Some time ago you asked me about the word sulphur. We both agreed that Fulcanelli was right, and alchemical sulphur is the equivalent of the sexual energies in man and woman. The sexual energies may come out in a selfish way or in a creative way. Jakob Boehme … saw the division in the word sulphur in a slightly different way. He divided the word itself, and said Sul was the soul of a thing, the oil. The sulis born of the phur, the light. … Have you ever looked at spilt oil? Under certain conditions it can look like a thin filament of a rainbow. This is the light imprisoned in the oil. The light rises upwards. It liberates the rainbow. It is as simple as that. …’

MH: ‘Then all creative activity must be foolish? In which case, thinking must be foolish?’

OM: … ‘Perhaps thinking is foolish. Certain forms of thinking undoubtedly are foolish. After all, most people are vulnerable in their ideas: they fear to think for themselves. The Fool learns to think for himself: he or she makes it an exercise of the soul. Others refuse that Way. This is why our civilization is so under threat. We are living in a world where every effort is being made to ensure that the body is comfortable, yet little is done for the growing soul. …’

MH: ‘… creativity is itself a form of selflessness?’

OM: ‘Exactly so. Creativity is the giving away of Spiritual energy. Creativity is the soul in the expenditure of a bottomless purse. One gives sulphur away – initially perhaps through an excess of joy – for that is the foolishness of young men. Later, one gives away energy through commitment to an idea.’

MH: ‘Creativity is the ultimate deed of unselfishness?

OM: ‘Yes. … When a man knows that creativity is its own reward … well, then he is ready to work with people. …you think of yourself as a loner. You do not see how much you are needed. You are needed to point the way.’

MH: ‘But I know nothing.’

OM: ‘… You do not really believe that when you sit before a group you do so alone? You are there as a representative of the spiritual world. … Fools like myself become teachers, because we find suddenly that there is no one else. It’s as simple as that. … You realize how great is the gulf between you and others. There is a curtain between you. And you understand that this curtain is good for neither of you. The house out there is burning. You can see the flames, but those others cannot see the flames. … Now the question is, can you leave those people in the flames? Would it not be the act of a Fool to snatch one, or perhaps two, out of the conflagration?’

MH: ‘If that is what they want.’

OM: ‘They cannot see the flames, but they do not wish to be burned. You see. You know that there are two sorts of flame. There is the soft and slow flame of the inner heat, and that terrible burning flame which consumes, and which feels no human pain. … You cannot continue widening the gap between yourself and the world. … What for others is light is for the Teacher an old light – another word for darkness. … We live in a foolish paradox, for while we have forever, we do not have much time. (Hedsel 2000, 325–329)

And that was my answer. The house is burning, and I am a Fool who seeks to snatch as many as possible from the flames. And it is an act of creativity – a commitment to an idea. And, just as I finished reading this book, I received a message from a friend who wrote:

Laura,

Sharing your life and trials and fiery initiations through your pages is a raw fire walk on this planet. I know how lonely it feels in the moment of retelling each drama, re-experiencing even the sensory memory that served to strip another layer off your (by now) Zen flesh and Zen bones. Yet at this stage, it is also a refreshingly cool wind that passes through awareness to allow ourselves to be that thoroughly exposed … as if that wind of the exposure is blowing off a little more residual bits of flesh still clinging to our bones.

And yet, in reading those truths (those of us who know and can relate), the storytelling is understood to be a beautiful performance art of your soul’s expansion under the tutelage of our future selves. Such a spectacular display of universal love and timelessness and beauty and truth and cosmic humor it is.

Yes, when the truth (as lessons and dramas) hit us here in 3rd density in the matrix, we process it as painful (because of our programs) … but after a while, if we learn to relax, life in the matrix is doable. Like anything painful (childbirth, for example) relaxing is the way to avoid the worst of it (and minimize scarring … which is to carry pain into future time).

So I see this dance of your posts and the stimulation they provide as an exercise in networking that seems to have a wonderful cosmic purpose. That cosmic purpose is that networking in the matrix is a group lesson that can greatly accelerate both individual and group awareness. Many times I have found this group energy fascinating … for example, a dream of a friend seems to act as a preview of coming attractions of a meditation insight that comes to me, and that is mirrored in the life movie of another friend, etc.

… It is my theory that we are moving towards this understanding of group mind and interconnectedness in this coming year. I am feeling we are all going to become much more aware of this networking synchronicity. One of the lessons of duality is to understand we are not really separate beings, but suspended together in one mind. Playing there with telepathy and other ways to explore expanded awareness is a birthright we can claim and enjoy with like-minded others.

Thanks, Laura, for being a scout and going out and expanding our playing field comfort zone so we can all expand together. You rock, girl. Can’t wait for the next pages!

M.

Thank you, Michele. From one Fool to another.