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Note: The following letters are reprinted with
permission.
On the Forbidden Letters - by
Maria El Safti
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Otto Reich for so skillfully editing this article
beyond recognition.
Dresden, Germany, Easter Sunday 2008.
Introduction
'The human body is an alchemical body.' [David Gordon White]
'Our man is on the floor on his back. He had his eyes closed during the whole
resurrection. A 'thread' (very thin) is closing around his neck. The head is
decapitated by that 'thread'.' [The Paris 4]
'Eggelink thinks that the Mahavira pot used in the Pravargya ritual "is the
head of Vishnu, the sacrificial man, and sacrificer." So in this ritual the
sacrificer's divine body is supplied with its head. (...) In this way the
sacrificer becomes immortal.' [Grace Cairns]
'According to Pannikar "God is dead from having created [1992:93]." He
"dies in creating his creature; there is no room for two at this level
[1992:105]." Thus "man must compose god in order to be able to have
immortality [Michaels 2002:343]." - ' [Amina Bubic]
'Man is a mortal God and God an immortal man.' [Corpus Hermeticum]
'I can only say that if you are impressed by this stuff, go for it.' [Laura
Knight-Jadczyk]
Part 1
[ Toledo - Spain ]
In her 1953 book The Ancient Secret, Flavia Anderson points out
that although the cities of Phoenicia had at one time successfully freed
themselves from Egypt's imperialism, they had kept Egypt's Gods. And the very
city, Toledo, where, as Wolfram von Eschenbach claims, the true story of
Parzival and the Grail was found, was originally a
Phoenician settlement, meaning, therefore, a settlement with its
religious roots initially firmly planted in the theology of Ancient Egypt and
its Pantheon. This all is a strong indication, ladies and gentlemen, that at
least one line leads directly from the Benben Stone of Heliopolis to von
Eschenbach's Grailstone.
And that makes sense, because 'the origin of Alchemy was not chemistry, but
knowledge of certain mysteries.' [Julius Evola [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Evola
]]
Mysteries pointing to physical immortality, divinity and the Solar Hero. Because
'in man there is an invisible sun, identified with the Archeus' [Jung][ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archeus
].
And the Solar Hero is he who frees this sun and puts it to work in the Great
Work of Alchemy to compose the Lightbody.
In many myths that hero is either wounded in the thigh, the groin,
or the foot. In the Guido Popp article on the Forbidden Letters John Grigsby is
quoted discussing the Egyptian equivalent of that wound:
'Certain members of Egypt's Ennead, the Egyptian pantheon, indeed seem to
personify specific phases of the Great Work of alchemy. This they appear to have
in common with some of the main characters in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival.
A beautiful example is, in my opinion, given by John Grigsby here:"Within
the (Grail)castle is a king, known as the Wounded or Fisher King grievously
injured with a spear or sword, usually through the ¡thighs¢ [or groin/Popp], a
euphemism for testicles, and as long as his wound remains unhealed, the land is
laid waste. It is the purpose of the Grail knight to find the castle and ask a
specific question. Failure to do so results in him waking the next day with the
land still blighted, and the castle gone. If, however, the right question is
asked, the land and the king are healed, or he is at last allowed to die and the
hero succeeds his position as the Grail King."[Grigsby] Now, Coffin Text
228 states "that Osiris is wounded in the thigh. Horus says:'Tell him I
have come thither to save myself... and to dispel the sickness of the suffering
god, so that I can appear an Osiris in strength. That I may be reborn with him
in his renewed vigour. That I may reveal to you the matter of Osiris' thigh and
read to you from that sealed roll which lies beneath his side, whereby the
mouths of the gods are opened." - The healing of this thigh wound, the
egyptologist R. T. Rundle Clark says, restored fertility to the land.'[Popp]
The alchemist of the Forbidden Letters also has a Solar Wound:
'Our gay man is, as we wrote earlier, Anfortas too. Meaning that he has that
mysterious pain in his left testicle. That pain started a few months before his
Kundalini. It is described by von Eschenbach in his Parzival. Especially the
part about the wound getting cold as ice is correct (there is no visible wound
on our gay man though). During the months that lead up to the resurrection the
pain gets worse and worse. In the end he had difficulties of walking even.'[The
Paris 4]
Flavia Anderson has digged up a Christian version of the Solar Wound in Robert
Graves' book King Jesus:
'(...) when we come to consider the significance of the
lameness of the Grail King. - Mr Graves in his book King Jesus was the first
to realize that some mystery probably lies concealed in the fact that so many
solar heroes are wounded in the foot or thigh. (...) Mr Graves (...)
postulates a theory that the Divine Youth always underwent a ritual mutilation
by having his hip-bone torn out of joint. (...) It would not be worth while to
discuss such a postulation, had Mr Graves not chosen to suppose it a Jewish
custom, and to have described in his half-historical, half-fictional life of
Our Lord (i.e., Jesus Christ) a repulsive ceremony in
which Christ himself willingly undergoes such a mutilation.'
[Flavia Anderson]
The Grail-keeper/Alchemist is probably a
redeemer. We do not know in what way exactly, but a redeemer most likely. He
becomes capable of 'transforming other beings,
indeed, the enitire universe, through his limitless powers,' says
Professor David Gorden White [DGW hereafter] after having spent years of
studying alchemy in India. A country correctly teaching that, in their
subtle bodies, all humans are 'essentially androgynous with sexual intercourse
an affair between a female serpentine nexus of energy, generally called the
Kundalini, and a male principle, indentified with Shiva.'[DGW] But, a country at
the same time never having contemplated the possibility that a second
form of androgyny [see the first Forbidden Letter], a psychological one, rooted
in biology, is needed too, to safely turn the alchemical key. A key ultimately
related to the unity of the soul with the prima materia.
That unity 'is truly lived and known only to the extent to which
the work has progressed along the road to its completion. - And here we touch
on the real secret of alchemy, why everything that is said about it must of
necessity remain no more than an indication and a symbol. Because materia
prima, the fundamental substance of the soul (psyche) is in the first place
the substance of the individual (...), then of all psychic forms (...), and
finally of the whole world. All
these interpretations are valid, for, if the 'web' of the world were not
fundamentally of the same nature as that of the soul (psyche), every
individual would be imprisoned in his own dream.'[Titus Burckhardt] Therefor
it is said that 'the third and last stage of the Work is seen in
a union of the will of the Alchemist with the macrocosm.'[Raven] Because, in
the words of Paracelsus: 'heaven is man, and man is heaven, and all men one
heaven, and heaven only one man.'
The gay man of the Letters nonetheless asks himself whether more alchemists could
be on earth 'right now.' It would be interesting for me, as a woman, to
consider the possibility here that at least one of them, if they exist, could
be female.
Jay Reed Armstrong gives us reasons to be pessimistic here, reminding us of
the fact 'that exactly the disciple who represents the Living Stone of
Alchemical Transformation, Peter, is misogynic: 'Make Mary leave us, for
females don't deserve life.' And the Paris 4 are worried that the microcosmic
female, kundalini, might not be tolerated in the macrocosmic one.
David Gordon White gives women even more reasons to despair here,
pointing out that sperm is an
absolute must for alchemy too. 'Semen is the raw material and fuel of every
psychochemical transformation.'[DGW] A transformation through which 'a new,
superhuman and immortal body is conceived out of the mortal one.'[DGW] That
semen 'has to be retained.'[DGW] According to India throughout the Work,
according to Paris only during the phase of kundalini. He who is unable to
retain his semen (here) 'is condemned to death.'[DGW]
In an email on the Letters to Otto Reich, Jay Gould insists that
only because 'women have no sperm, doesn't mean that women can't be
saved. It only means they cannot become Alchemists, meaning Solar
Heroes.'[Gould/presented with permission]
So what are we to conclude here? Are women only incapable of becoming Solar
Heroes, lacking testicles, lacking sperm? Or are we alchemically doomed
altogether? Surely not.
If the Solar Hero is a redeemer, then these technicalities about sperm and
testicles might be irrelevant. Then that Hero could 'simply' transform us
through his will, thereby saving us from a sleeping kundalini, meaning
death. Because 'the kundalini, when she sleeps, is
identified with the kalagni,
the fire of time that slowly cooks all creatures to death through the aging
process.'[DGW]
Part 2 [Quotes]
1.
'It seems that this change from the step-pyramid (of Djoser) to a true pyramid
was due to the victory of the Heliopolitan solar cult and that the pyramid form
was inspired by the benben, a high-pointed, conical stone worshipped at
Heliopolis.'
[Cerny, 1952:107] [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Cerny
]
2.
'By the power of that Stone the Phoenix burns to ashes, but the ashes quickly
restore him to life again.'[Wolfram von Eschenbach on the Grail-stone/see also
Part 1 of
http://www.world-mysteries.com/PhilipGardiner/forbidden_letters_23.htm
]
3.
'The androgynous character of the phoenix was well known to the Ancients.
[Marie Delcourt] [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Delcourt
]
4.
'In Evola's own words: "It is inappropriate to apply, as Plato does, the
metaphysical meaning made evident by the myth of the hermaphrodite to homosexual
love." - Inappropriate, because Evola was a homophobe.' [Susan Sanders]
5.
'It might then be that the words androgynous and hermaphroditic when used in a
metaphysical, hermetic, alchemical context, are euphemisms for the word
homosexual.' [John Raven on the Forbidden Letters]
6.
'The role of sacred homosexuality was lost.' [Thurban]
7.
'Thoth (the father of Alchemy/El Safti) contained the potential for sexual
differentiation, which suggest that he/she was conceptualized androgynously.'
[Wyatt, 2005:242]
8.
'No matter what they tell you, the method of arousing Kundalini is not yet
known. India is full of posers, and so ist the New Age Industry.' [Jane Wilkins]
9.
'I cannot see why Kundalini myth ever came up with the idea of there being a
stone involved.' [Jana Dixon, the author of 'The Biology of Kundalini']
10.
'The stone is produced about where the liver is. The stone ignites the Kundalini
fire (the fire can actually be heard) and starts to move about, increasingly
violently. Fire getting stronger. Arms and legs break into pieces.' [The Paris
4]
11.
'In this Stone lies hidden all that God and Eternity, heaven, the stars and the
elements contain and are able to do. There never was from eternity anything
better or more precious than this. It is in a simple form and has the power of
the whole Deity in it.' [Jacob Boehme]
12.
'The stone is a true stone (as we have said earlier), although not like an
ordinary stone. It is even pointy and about the size of a child's fist.' [The
Paris 4]
13.
'It must be emphasized that Alchemy was not, in its origins, an empirical
science, a rudimentary chemistry.' [Mircea Eliade, 1962:9] [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade
]
14.
'The prototype of alchemical literature, the work of Bolos of Mendes, a
Hellenized Egyptian who lived in the Nile Delta in the second century BCE, was
entitled Physika kai Mystika (physical and mystical matters).' [Italo Ronca]
15.
'The Christian scriptures are a vehicle for alchemy. The source-author is a
Greek writer from Egypt who composed two manuscripts with sayings in around 120
BCE. These manuscripts are not in our possession. We didn't read them either. We
don't know even whether they still exist. Most of the manuscripts is found back
in the parables of the fictional character Jesus about the Kingdom of God/Heaven
our gay man ensures us.' [The Paris 4/note that Paris is not talking about the
Physika kai Mystika here/El Safti]
16.
'Although the problem of the historical origins of Alexandrian alchemy is still
unsolved, one could explain the sudden appearance of alchemical texts at the
beginning of the Christian era as the result of the encounter of differing
currents. [Eliade]
17.
'The Gnostic creator-god is always pictured as evil, while the hermetic (i.e.,
alchemical/El Safti] one is not.' [Jonathan Peste, 2002:12]
18.
'Several scholars have paid attention to the importance of a divine man,
Anthropos (Man), in several religious traditions of Late Antiquity. Gilles
Quispel
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Quispel
] notices that Philo polemicized against the Anthropos being androgynous.' [Peste,
2002:31]
19.
'One has to imagine a perch extending out of the waters of the Abyss. On it
rests a grey heron, the herald of all things to come. It opens its beak and
breaks the silence of the primeval night with the call of life and destiny. The
Phoenix, therefore, embodies the original Logos, the word of declaration of
destiny which mediates between the divine mind and created things. (...) It is
the first and deepest manifestation of the soul of the High God.' [R. T. Rundle
Clark, 1959:246]
20.
'We don't know why there is a period of 14 (!) years between the Kundalini and
the Night of the Soul.' [The Paris 4]
21.
'Know that the alchemical path is a very long path (longissima via).'[The
Rosarium Philosophorum] [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosarium_philosophorum
]
22.
'India ist still full of 'alchemists' who swallow gross mercury and gross
sulphur hoping to induce alchemical reactions, thereby only inducing chemical,
if not lethal ones of course. It is apparently impossible to explain to people
that the alchemical process is not depending on anything macrocosmic.' [Antoine
Bucc]
23.
'The tan-t'ien, the 'fields of cinnabar,' are to be found in the most secret
recesses of the brain and belly; here it is that the embryo of immortality is
alchemically prepared.' [Eliade, 1962:111]
24.
'The Calabash, of course, plays a considerable part in Taoist ideology and is
regarded as representing the cosmos in minitiature. In this gourd-shaped
microcosm resides the source of Life and Youth.' [Eliade, 1962:98]
25.
'This region, if still seen as a spectral 'land beyond', appears to be a whole
world in itself, a macrocosm. If, on the other hand, it is felt as 'psychic' and
'inside', it seems like a microcosm of the smallest proportions.[Jung, MC, pars
411 et 412] 'Whoever wished to commit this (alchemical/Cambronne) act (...),
would therefore have to get outside himself, as if into an external glasshouse,
a round cucurbita which represented the microcosmic space of the psyche.' [Jung,
MC, pars 410]' [Paul Cambronne on the Forbidden Letters]
26.
'You need to be well read to appreciate those Letters.' [Alchemical Tribe]
References
-
Anderson, F., The Ancient Secret, Gollancz,
London, England, 1953
-
Burckhardt, T., Alchemy, Science of the Cosmos, Science
of the Soul, Stuart & Watkins, London, England, 1967
-
Professor White, D.G., The Alchemical Body, The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1996
Copyright 2008
Note: Presented with permission
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