Three Wheels of Law

>> Tuesday, February 3, 2009

shakyamuni buddha
Lord Buddha appeared in this world with the sole purpose of benefiting all sentient beings of the Triple Realm. His appearance in this world is a very rare phenomena and is the outcome of the collective merits of his disciples and the beings who are to be trained under him. Out of great compassion Buddha Shakyamuni revealed many different means to attain enlightenment and to win liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Buddha Shakyamuni set forth Three Wheels of Law to suit varying degrees of intelligence and receptivity.

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The White Virgin of Alchemy

>> Saturday, January 24, 2009

egyptian hieroglyph
Once alchemists overcame the issue of dissolving gold, they eliminated troublesome compounds of nitrogen with antimony. The ancients derived antimony from a variety of sources, which they called Prima Materia. Two popular starting points for the Egyptians were the minerals of lead oxide called galena, and tin dioxide called cassiterite.

Antimony was purified with iron or Mars, just as in the modern industrial process of extracting antimony from stibnite ore. When they saw the pure white vapor of antimony rise, the alchemists likened it to a white virgin queen, the moon goddess, and called it the Philosophers' Mercury. This mercury should not be confused with metallic mercury, which is always poisonous if used alchemically.

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Elixir of Youth

elixir of youth
Alchemy using dissolved elements is simple and effective. It differs from the Great Work because it starts with water already containing the necessary elements. Traditional alchemists would consider it the lightweight end of the Art. The Great Work focused on the reverse direction, converting metallic gold into the Philosophers’ Stone. For the ancients this involved three major technological hurdles. The first was to make a solvent for gold. No easy achievement. The second hurdle was to eliminate the impure elements, particularly nitrogen, introduced in dissolving the gold. The third major hurdle was to create a gold chloride that could be dissolved in water. When the gold dissolves, we have potable gold, or gold that can ingested to purify the body. It was said that with this Elixir of Youth, the old could become young again; and life could be extended to at least the natural limit of one hundred and twenty years. After all, the Bible said that Melchizedek, the King of Salem, who first possessed the Philosophers’ Stone, would live forever.

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The Elements of Shamanism

>> Sunday, January 18, 2009

a siberian shaman with traditional clothes

Although other societies sometimes have elements of shamanism, we confine our definition to hunter-gatherers and propose ten characteristics of shamanism as it is practised in such societies; elements of shamanism may well appear in other kinds of society, but it is not of them that we speak.

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Sufism and Ismaili Gnosis

>> Thursday, January 15, 2009

The most important "mystic" or "occult" symbol Gurdjieff's "Work" has introduced to the West is enneagram, an occult glyph resembling in some respects Rosicrucian geometrical constructs or Kabbalistic Tree of life. As the story goes (1,7,8), it is prominent among Islamic mystics, Sufis. But- there is a little problem. Not one known Sufi order (and there are more than hundred of them, most notable being Naqshbandis, Mevlevis, Chistis, Qadiris at al.) knows of and uses this symbol.

So, probably, enneagram represents a modified remnant of Neopythagorean and Hermetic tradition that has percolated and survived in Islamic "esoteric" circles; most likely candidates being Ismaili Shiites, spiritual descendants of famous Ihwan-al-Safa (men of learning, an encyclopedic group flourishing around 8/9 century C.E.) and dreaded and slandered (French scholar Henry Corbin has done much to rehabilitate them) Assassins, a secret society on its acme at 11/12 century C.E., until their mountain strongholds in the Caucasus had been destroyed during Mongol invasion in the 13th century.

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"It is the mark of an educated man to entertain an idea without accepting it." -- Aristotle

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