And with that crushing and yet encouraging speech, delivered with a trace of leonine fire, mild Mr. Jones seemed to Sir John definitely beyond all doubt the genuine article: a true Adept. Then, without mercy, Jones dumped ten books on Cabala upon Sir John, told him to master them thoroughly—and nearly torpedoed and sank him forever.
Babcock, previously, had studied Cabala only as a historian, learning enough of its terminology and theories to trace its influence from the early Hermeticists like Pico della Mirándola and Giordano Bruno through Dr. Dee and Sir Francis Bacon, onward to Freemasonry and Illuminism. Now he found himself confronted with the necessity of mastering the entire Cabalistic theory of the universe, which was about a thousand times more complicated than the periodic table of chemical elements Uncle Bentley kept in his study.
According to Cabala, the cosmos is governed by symbolic correspondences between many planes of being, visible and invisible. That seemed simple enough; but the correspondences themselves had no logical connections at all—“Cabala transcends logic,” Jones reminded Sir John. The correspondences could only be learned by brute force and rote repetition until they finally embedded themselves in the memory. Even after being memorized, the correspondences would not be understood by the student, Jones cheerfully remarked; true understanding, he said, could come only through intuition or through direct experience of the invisible planes, by techniques to be taught when Sir John graduated from Probationer to Neophyte.
Q: Give three concise examples of Cabalistic logic.
A: [1] All Hebrew words having the same numerical value must have equivalent meanings; therefore, ACh D (unity) which equals A(l) + Ch(8) + D(4) or 13, is the same as AHBH (love) because A(l) + H(5) + B(2) + H(5) also equals 13; ergo, unity is love and love is unity. [2] Since the Holy Unspeakable Name of God (YHVH) = Y(10) + H(5) + V(6) + H(5) = 26, which is 2 × 13, God is love + unity. [3] Since 7 of the 22 Hebrew letters also correspond to planets, the proportion 22/7 is very important; and, indeed, 22/7 = 3.1415 … etc., the value of TT, or the ratio of the radius of a circle to its circumference.
Q: Give an example of Cabalistic logic running into trouble.
A: Since God is unity, and the first Hebrew letter A (Aleph) = 1, A symbolizes God. But A (Aleph) written in full Hebrew is ALP which = 111, showing that God is a triple unity; well and good for Christian Cabalists, although annoying to Jewish and Moslem Cabalists. But 111 also = APL, Darkness, and ASN, Sudden Death. Is God therefore, equivalent to Darkness and Sudden Death?
Sir John spent days, weeks, then months rote-reciting over and over, peering into the books again each time memory slipped: “Aleph is the first Hebrew letter and means ‘ox.’ The principle correspondences are the Fool card in the Tarot, the color yellow, the element air, the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, the Breath of God—what’s that?—Ruach Elohim, the Breath of God, in the Old Testament, the path from Kether to Chockmah on the Tree of Life and, uh, oh, God, uh …” Back to the books.
“Beth is the second Hebrew letter and means ‘house.’ The Juggler in the Tarot, the color scarlet, the planet Mercury, Thoth in Egyptian, Hermes in Greek, Odin in Norse, the path from Kether to Binah, the monkey-god in Hindu … Oh, Christ, what’s the name of the monkey-god …?” Back, again, to the books.
Jones would travel to Babcock Manor and test Sir John occasionally.
“Nun,” he would say, “what Tarot card is that?”
“Death.”
“The Hebrew meaning?”
“A fish.”
“Very good. The medieval equivalent of the Chariot card in the Tarot?”
“The Holy Grail.”
“Excellent. The Hebrew letter for the same?”
“Uh, uh, daleth …”
“Wrong. Won’t do at all, my boy. No carelessness allowed. Memorize, memorize, memorize!”
Sir John memorized.
“Work on the first two words of the Bible,” Jones suggested then; and Sir John found himself seeking the hidden meanings in BRAShITH ALHIM. “In the beginning, the Gods.”
Of course, he knew from Pico della Mirándola that BRAShITH [“In the beginning …”] has the numerical value of 3910, the number of years according to occult tradition from the “Fall” of humanity (due to the unfortunate trauma of the first contact with Higher Intelligence, coded into the serpent myth of Genesis) to the birth of Jesus. He discovered for himself that ALHIM (the gods: God-in-the-singular as YHVH or Jehovah not appearing until the second chapter) contains, by the permutations of ternura, 3.1415, or pi accurate to four places. Then he noted that BRA, the first three letters, form by notarikon the initials of Ben, the Son; Ruach, the Holy Spirit; and Abba, the Father.
“Very good,” Jones said when this was reported. “There is much, much more there. For instance, Agape, the word for ‘Love’ in the New Testament, has the Cabalistic value of 93. Add that to the 3.1415 of ALHIM and you get 3.141593, pi accurate to six places. Keep working on it until you find the Golden Proportions of the Masonic lodge in it.”
Once, Sir John had the temerity to ask Jones about the Mysterious Holy Guardian Angel which the Golden Dawn training was intended to evoke.
“Usually,” Jones said, “that is explained three different ways—for Probationers, Neophytes, and those of higher rank who have yet not attained it. In your case, considering the mixture of scholarship and romanticism I detect in your temperament, I will give you all three explanations simultaneously. One: it is a metaphor that signifies, roughly, learning to receive communications from your own unconscious mind without the usual distortions. Two: it is not that simple at all; the Holy Guardian Angel speaks to you through your unconscious, but is literally a separate being of evolutionary status as far beyond us as we are beyond the first invertebrates. Three: yes, it is a metaphor, after all, but for something so far outside our ordinary consciousness that it doesn’t matter a rap whether you think of it in the scientific terms of my first answer or in the mystical terms of my second answer; it transcends both. When you have the experience, you will find your own metaphor for it, which may result in a scientific theory never known to the world before, in a work of art, or just in a change in your life toward sanctity or compassion or something more traditionally ‘religious.’ Do more of the work and ask fewer questions, if you want to advance faster.”
Eventually, nine months after Sir John’s initiation, he had completed his reading course in world mysticism and was able to pass all of Jones’ Cabalistic quizzes easily. By now, he was also totally confused and was beginning to wonder if he or Jones or both of them might not be a bit mad. After all, what did an ox have to do with a man in Fool’s garb, or either of them with the color yellow or the Holy Spirit? If Thoth and Hermes were the same god under two names, well and good; that made sense historically. But why were they in correspondence with the Hebrew word for “house”? Or what the hell did the planet Venus have to do with the letter daleth and the goddess Demeter? Was Cabala all a complicated Jewish joke at the expense of those who tried to comprehend the suprarational by rational means?
It was when Sir John had begun to seriously consider this last thought that quiet, fatherly Mr. Jones gave him his first real test, right between the eyes.
“You are familiar,” he said, “with the letters that appear atop every Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Crucifix, I.N.R.I.”
“Yod Nun Resh Yod,” Sir John replied at once, giving the Hebrew equivalents.
[“I nearly reached India.”]
“Very good. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches, of course, explain this in childish terms, for the simple minds of the masses. Are you, perhaps, familiar with that explanation?”
“It’s supposed to be Latin,” Sir John said happily; this was easy. “Iesus Nazarinus Rex Iudorem—‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’”
“Excellent,” Jones said. “Now I must inform you that there was an esoteric Gnostic meaning in those initials long before the creation of the exoteric one you have just supplied. It requires Caba
listic knowledge and the true faculty of intuition to decode it. That will be your assignment to complete before we promote you to Neophyte. Call me whenever you think you have the answer.”
Sir John spent a week nearly going mad over this conundrum. On the seventh day he made up a table in which he deliberately listed only the most nonsensical and illogical correspondences, to force himself to think in the meta-logical manner of the true Cabalists. The table looked like this:
He tried letting his mind drift through the images, avoiding words and associations: hand, fish, head, hand; hand, fish, head, hand; hand, fish, head, hand … Dozens of ideas came to him that were original and dazzling (he once began to see evolution as a pre-written scenario …), but nothing came up that didn’t seem like empty and windy nonsense when he re-thought it later.
He tried the astrological correspondences: Virgo, Scorpio, the Sun, Virgo. A virgin, an insect, the Sun, and the virgin again. That was even less helpful than hand-fish-head-hand. He tried Virgin-hand, insect-Death, head-Sun, Virgin-hand. This gave rise to a line of thought which made him quite embarrassed and caused him to doubt again if he had the purity of heart to pass through Chapel Perilous successfully.
The Greek correspondences were resonant with eerie imagery. Chronos, god of Time, could be visualized gruesomely by recalling Goya’s terrifying painting, Chronos Devouring His Children. Hades and the world of the dead were easy to invoke by remembering the descent of Odysseus to the underworld. Apollo reminded Sir John of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas and was harder to deal with. But what was the meaning of the sequence itself: Chronos, Hades, Apollo, Chronos?
Sir John tried contemplating the images on the Tarot cards:
The Hermit: an old man carrying a lantern in the dark. But what did that have to do with yod, the hand, except that you need a hand to carry a lantern? And why the correspondence with scorpions and virginity?
Death: a skeleton on a great white horse, mowing down King, Bishop, Mother and Child in his path. But what did that have to do with nun, a fish? Although it fit Hades, God of the dead, of course.
The Sun: a naked child on the same great white horse with the sun rising in the background. And what did that have to do with resh, the head? Although it fit the astrological correspondence for once.
And the old Hermit carrying his lantern again …
Was it a psychological parable about the path of initiation itself? The student’s mind begins as an old man (social tradition), wandering in the darkness of ignorance, guided only by the lantern of intuition; becomes transformed through the death of its conditioned aspects—the links with King (the State), Bishop (the Church), Mother and Child (family); is reborn as the sun-child (“Unless ye become as a little child ye shall in no wise enter the Kingdom”); and then—and then—why the return to the old man wandering in the dark? It was just more nonsense, when he thought he was on the right track at last.
Hand, fish, head, hand …
Old man, death, newborn babe, old man …
I.N.R.I., Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
Chronos, god of Time (and destruction); Hades, lord of the dead; Apollo, god of the Dawn Sun; Chronos, damn it again …
The mental ordeal went on. And on. And on.
Sir John tried Gematria, which is the Cabalistic method of taking the numerical value of a mystery-word and relating it to all other Hebrew words having the same number. Yod was 10, nun was 50, resh was 200, second yod was 10 again. Total: 270. He plunged for days into his Hebrew dictionary and found only one example: , levers or bars.
Another blank wall.
The next night he awoke from a dream of buzzing goblins in honey-suits with the sentence clear in his head: I Never Risk Inquiry. He was sure this was a most profound revelation and hastily scribbled it down in his bedside notepad. In the morning he read it again and could only laugh.
But an hour later, in his library, a most peculiar accident occurred. He was reaching for his Hebrew dictionary again, looking for at least a second word with the value 270, when another book somehow got dislodged and fell at his feet. He bent to pick it up and found it was a seventeenth-century alchemical treatise, opened at page 270. Coincidence? The first paragraph began:
The secret of the Great Work is given to all true Christians by the formula I.N.R.L, which, properly interpreted, means Igni Natura Renovatur Integra.
The translation leaped into Sir John’s mind in a blinding flash: All of nature is renewed by fire.
An old man, death and rebirth—Time, Death and Resurrection—Crucifixion and Redemption—the Lord of Time, the Lord of the Underworld and the Golden Dawn. All of nature is renewed by fire. The Greek and Christian symbols flowed together and merged with the Tarot cards. Sir John’s gropings toward a new theory of evolution, midway between his father’s Lamarckian heresies and Uncle Bentley’s Darwinian othodoxy, became agonizingly concrete as he experienced the struggle out of the caves, the raiding nomads who swept down from the deserts, the snows, the storms, the plagues, the pain, the constant death, death, death. And the onward struggle: the birth toward true consciousness, flickering dimly in all, blazing into fiery illumination occasionally. It was the cosmic birth experience relived and relived and relived until the agony and the joy became mingled and inseparable. He was the single cell swimming in the amniotic ocean, remembering the searing ecstasy of his creation: the tenderness of the first moments at the tit: the caves of Trolls he had imagined becoming real as dark archaic forces moved all about him: swimming in the hot sun, at peace: and then the terror and the horror of life again: the hunger and the violence and the lunacy: the victims of the Inquisition screaming for centuries on the torture racks of insane Faith: the devils and demons unleashed from the fantasy of terrified minds into the experience of millions: people in solitary confinement: soldiers with their arms and legs and genitals burned off: children beaten and whipped and starved: death on the operating table under the scalpel of drunken and sadistic doctors: while the carnivals and dances go on, the blind merry ones oblivious to all the agony of their brothers and sisters in the hell of man’s inhumanity to life: mothers weeping over stillborn infants: the horror in the mouse’s eye as it knew itself trapped: gigantic halls of enormous godly statues of peace and wisdom: eternity of mountains and oceans: the undying trees talking silently forever: carrying the cross up the hill, accepting the burden, willing to take all the pain and all the agony forever, to redeem at last the blind struggle and complete the planetary birth. Yes: the Vril was moving in him, the alchemical heat was rising: he saw far, far beyond the tiny cell called John Babcock and was one with the billions of years of the single organism that was Terra.
Was it a minute or a thousand years? Sir John didn’t know; he merely knew that he and the whole world of his perception was remade by fire.
ACTION SOUND
EXTERIOR. VALLEY OF PYRAMIDS, EGYPT. DAY.
LONG SHOT.
The pyramids alone in a hot white desert. Voice: “I adore thee, Evoe! I adore thee, LAO!”
EXTERIOR. SAME, CLOSE-UP.
Statue of Horus as falcon. Same voice-over: “O thou laughter re-echoing from the tombs of the dead! I adore thee, Evoe! I adore thee, LAO!”
INTERIOR, DARK BACK ROOM. CLOSE-UP.
A box of money being opened. Same voice: “O thou ever-turning Wheel of stars and fates! I adore thee, Evoe! I adore thee, IAO!”
INTERIOR, SAME, MEDIUM SHOT.
LENIN is opening the box of money and counting it. Across from him, offering the money, is an ambiguous figure. The Merry Widow Waltz. Lenin: “This will pay for some very important business.”
“Here is my answer,” Sir John said steadily.
Jones took the Magickal Diary Babcock handed him and read slowly the latest page:
Igni Natura Renovatur Integra: all forms are temporary and illusory, mere constructs of the imagination. The old Hermit will be struck down by Death, but the form behind the form, the life-energy, will be reborn as a new Child,
which will in turn age and become the old Hermit again. Chronos, the Lord of Time, leads each of us inevitably to Death and Hades, Lord of the Underworld; but we rise again as Apollo, Lord of the Golden Dawn, rises again each morning. Christ Crucified is indeed a re-telling of these Greek death-and-resurrection myths, as rationalist historians keep telling us; but the rationalists do not understand that the myth recurs because it is profoundly symbolic of the great cosmic truth: consciousness, like matter and energy, is neither created nor destroyed. The cycles repeat and repeat and repeat endlessly, but the same recurs always, because the Platonic Archetypes remain, unchanging themselves, beyond Time.
“There is no right answer,” Jones said. They were dining, this time, at Claridge’s, and Jones had brought along a very small pamphlet instead of the usual stack of fat old books. “Or, I might as well have said, there are many right answers. Someday, not in the near future, we shall have a very profound philosophical discussion about that, but for the present it shall suffice to say that your answer is right for you, at this stage of your training.”
“But,” Sir John said, feeling deflated, “I felt it, even before I understood it. The Vril energy, flowing through me as it flows through all things. The continuous process of destruction and recreation—the world remade by the fire of the Holy Spirit. I felt it,” he repeated, a bit lamely.
George Cecil Jones sighed profoundly. “You have taken your first step,” he said sadly, “but you don’t even know yet in which direction to walk. Pray contain your self-congratulations and, for God’s sake, really apply yourself to the exercises in this little pamphlet. We have scheduled your initiation as a Neophyte for next month sometime, but if you do not perform these exercises rigorously, at least four times a day, until then, it will be a false initiation—a hollow shell, a mere play-acting. Do not delude yourself that you have arrived before you have even learned how to travel.”
Masks of the Illuminati Page 7