Mandala – Kālacakra and Tarot

Mandala can be thought of as models or re-presentations of a reality. They are a way of arranging and making partial sense of observed phenomenon. They can be a short-form to a much wider corpus of thought forms and images. Having been a scientist I have used models to convey scientific knowledge to students. I have often wondered if the traditional setting of image collections of mandala is culture specific.

If one was bilingual one might see more commonality than difference.

The Kālacakra mandala is famous in Tibetan buddhism.

The kabbalists have the tree of life-

And the Jewels of Awareness or Tarot can be arranged according to a compass of N E S W.

These have a very mandala-like flavour.

Cagliostro – History and Agenda

It is raining today. I’ll make some comments.

There is a lot of cut and past without attribution “stuff” on the internet. There is a lot of re-hashing

I’ll speculate that laziness has prevented good research.

I’ll comment that the level of scholarship may not  be high.

In this document seemingly in his own words.

The man who takes on the name Comte de Cagliostro describes the fact that his place of birth was unknown and that he was initially raised in a Muslim household and that he visited Mecca. He was allegedly an orphan.  It is possible that amongst his  studies of the sciences he did optics and astronomy. He says that he learned many languages.

There is perhaps a Christian bias against Islamic science and scholarship which is promulgated in the easily available material. The fascination with politics and courtly goings on is emphasized in the available material, soap opera stories entertain. Elsewhere he describes a kind of power struggle with the Christian theocracy and power brokers.

1766 has him travelling to Rhodes and Malta where he takes on the name Cagliostro and adopts Christian dress. He is well received by the Knights of Malta. Later in the text he suggests that his date of birth was 1750 {by subtraction} and that he arrived in Strasbourg in 1780. From his narrative he had access to some high ranking and important geezers. Pretty soon he ends up in the Bastille. The memoire is dated March 1783.

“The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789.”

This text already differs from the Wiki page. He does say that he travelled to Sicily.

In the text he glosses over travels in Egypt and Asia.  Which would have had him exposed to  Vedic and Buddhist thought . Other texts on the various masonic rites points at a Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda influence in Egyptian masonic traditions.

{I have only scan read}

He goes to Rome incognito and is invited to see Cardinal Orsini…

“The Orsini are one of most important families in Italian history. At the height of their influence, in the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the Orsini were crucial players in Italian politics; they were closely allied to the Medici, with whom they were tied by several high-level marriages. The family produced three popes, about thirty cardinals and 62 senators of Rome, as well as several electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, and grand masters of the Knights of Malta.”

Of a Sunday morning one can see that quite a lot of stuff on the internet may have an agenda and a bias.

It is a bit strange reading 18th century French…

Ashmole 972 and Tarot 20

The Bodleian Library has a number of the so-called Ashmole documents partially digitized and published online.

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Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, vol. 2.

Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 972

This one looks like Tarot 20 and has a very similar feel.

Some of the other images on line look very proto-tarot.

In one other llustration it suggests that there are concealed answers for a freed Soul which can be revealed from understanding the symbols displayed..

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Ashmole

Medieval and early modern manuscripts and papers donated to the Bodleian by antiquary Elias Ashmole (1617-1692).

Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) was born and educated in Lichfield. He began his career as a solicitor, but in 1644 entered the service of the Crown as a commissioner of excise. He entered the Office of Arms as Windsor herald after the Restoration, and retired in 1672.

His collection comprises important medical, astrological, and alchemical manuscripts, and is also strong in heraldry, local history, and, to a lesser extent, in Middle English and 17th-century poetry. The foundation of his Museum at Oxford was made possible by his acquisition by bequest from his friend John Tradescant of a large collection of ‘curiosities’. They arrived when the building was ready in 1683, and it was here that his bequest of manuscripts was housed until their transference to the Bodleian in 1860.

Are Prophecies Powerful?

Insofar as they have a huge hold on the wish-life of human consciousness, yes. They also add spice to the narratives in fiction and cinema. Who has not heard of the four horsemen of the apocalypse? The prophet Higgs foretold a boson which now bears his name, billions of dollars later. The newspaper red tops like to quote the utterings of a blind eastern European woman. We may need to excise and inspect the entrails of an ox. The tea leaves foretold a dark handsome stranger though they did not mention his HIV status.

People can look to prophetic fulfilment and imagine that they are acting in accord with a pre-ordained destiny if they strive to manifest what they think a prophecy means. How they try to manifest  prophecy may suit their preferences and biases. They may refer to their holy books and say, “God ordained that this was our land”. This as if a human authored text is binding in a court of international law. Proof of authorship my Lord? We can get into arguments as to whose God is bigger, harder, more omniscient and more important. Whose God has shares in Lockheed Martin. Many people have died according to human interpretation as to what God is alleged to have said, wished and desired. One could say that it comes down to whose imaginary friend is the more potent. One may seek to precipitate Armageddon because it was written. One has no idea as to which prophecies people are trying to enact or are perhaps beholden to.

The notion of prophecy and things foretold runs through human history, human imagination and human religion. Were it not for the dreams of the pharaoh and Joseph, the Egyptians would have starved. Foretelling is an attractive notion. People hold prophecies in their religious texts as gospel, literally. There is something otherworldly about prophecy and even the ardent sceptic senses something, a hint of it, wafting on the breeze. Prophecy around the campfire and by candlelight enraptures more, a sophisticated ritual oracle becomes near definitive. The shaman says and so it will be. People may resist the prophecy only for it to manifest verbatim in a totally unlikely and perhaps infeasible way. To doubt prophecy is to spit arrogantly in the eyes of the Fates, to defy the will of Olympus.

Humans may not be as scientific and rational as they profess. Some things run primordial in our veins.

Of course the most powerful prophecies are the secret ones, hidden, far from the eyes of the profane. These secret prophecies are only for the adepts, the in-crowd and the big cheeses. They are written in arcane runic script by the Bards for eyes of their Kings. They are etched in stone and jewel. And these prophecies are often about power and things of global import. They speak to the fate of the planet, of kingdoms and of mankind. The prophecies of climate change are discounted because they lack the shaman’s hocus pocus. They have spectacles and beards, simulations and error bars. They are cold and graphical. Time will tell on the incoming disasters wrought by human folly, the belief that there is always tomorrow. If true the foretold will come around no matter what the nay-sayers wish. It was written and prophesised thus and in peer reviewed journals.

A flavour of the enticing nature of prophecy can be found in The Secret Doctrine.

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Yet this secrecy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening, since they alone – the Initiates of India and Tibet – could thoroughly dissipate the thick mists hanging over the history of Occultism, and force its claims to be recognized. The Delphic injunction “Know Thyself”, seems for few in this age. But the fault ought not be laid at the door of the Adepts, who have done all that could be done, and have gone as far as Their rules permitted, to open the eyes of the world. Only while the European shrinks from public obloquy and the ridicule unsparingly thrown on Occultsists, the Asiatic is being discouraged by his own Pandits. These profess to labour under the gloomy impression that no Bija Vidyǎ, no Arhatship (Adeptship), is possible during the Kali Yuga ( the “Black Age”) we are now passing through. Even the Buddhists are taught that the Lord Buddha is alleged to have prophesised that the power would die out in “one millennium after His death”.  But this is an entire mistake. In the Digha Nikǎya the Buddha says:

Hear, Subhadra; The world will never be without Rahats, if the ascetics in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts.

A similar contradiction of the view brought forward by the Brahmans is made my Krishna in the Bhagavd Gita, and there is further actual appearance of many Saddhus and miracle-workers in the past, and even in the present age. The same holds good for China and Tibet. Among the commandments of Tsong-Kha-pa there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats) to make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the “white barbarians”, every century, at a certain specified period of the cycle. Up to the present day none of these attempts have been very successful. Failure has followed failure. Have we to explain the fact by the light of a certain prophecy? It is said that up to the time when Pban-chhen-rin-po-chhe (The Great Jewel of Wisdom) condescends to be reborn in the land of the P’helings (Westerners) and appearing as Spiritual Conqueror (Chom-den-da), destroys the errors and ignorance of the ages, it will be of little use to try to uproot the misconceptions of P’heling Pa (Europe): her sons will listen to no one. Another prophecy declares that the Secret Doctrine shall remain in all its purity in Bhod-yul (Tibet), only to the day that is kept free from foreign invasion. The very visits of Western natives, however friendly, would be baneful to the Tibetan populations. This is the true key to Tibetan exclusiveness.

Page 396, The Secret Doctrine, Volume V, Adyar Edition, (1950), H.P.Blavatsky,

The Theosophical Publishing House, London UK.

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Written long ago she writes of Tsongkhapa and the Panchen Lama. The succession in Tibet now of political import after the invasion decades after her writing. Now there are “two” Panchen Lamas and an ageing Dalai Lama.

The problem with prophecy is that political narrative can be adapted to fit and thereby claim provenance. Human resourcefulness remains. The desire to spin and use propaganda is strong and a prophetic belief in supremacy can fuel war and destruction. The crusader set sail to the {un} Holy Land to claim some turf in the name of his God. Imagined Divine right fertilises the soil with blood, bone and sinew. The cleavage of body by sword and munition seems justified in the minds and perhaps hearts of the brutal, punitive and primitive.

Not a lot changes. Humans do the same thing over and over. They may even cite the supposed glory of victorious precedent. It is not very evolved.

The impact of prophecy on human doings and history is profound. So yes, prophecy is powerful. It is also very weird in the magical sense of the word weird. Prophecy is a harbinger of portent. It is a messenger of sorts. Of course all good prophecies need to be vague and to an extent open to interpretation.

These ones always comes true.

New Age – New Humanity

In the occult and esoteric literature there is promise of a New Age. This New Age will be radically different from the Woodstock – Wellness type of age. The change in human consciousness is mooted upward away from gonadic-emotional-concrete mind towards a fully intuitional or Soular consciousness. Such an age promises the understanding and perhaps attainment of The One Life. To get there it must cross the deserts of separative thinking. It must get past the we, me and mine towards a more global citizenship and to a wider ours. The old ways will not surrender easily. They will burn fiercely as they refuse to let go. Burn being the separation by fire and munition. They will burn for quite a while. People will justify death and fire to themselves.

For this new age an entirely new and evolving human vehicle is predicted one which is no longer so rigidly at face value heterosexual in the traditional and socio-political sense. The new humans will be configured differently. I take the whole so-called current “gender” debate as a hint, a precursor of what is to come. In time when fully Soul conscious, the entire notion of gender will no longer be important or something to soap box about. Gender roles will become historical. People will procreate according to the apparatus at birth, they will not feel out of place.  They will not feel the need to claim any gonadic based notion of gender. Which is illusory on the timescale of Soul. There will be more fluidity. The entire framework for living we currently have will become old-fashioned, a historical artefact.

The incoming beings of different make up will at first be few and far between. Their number will grow as more incarnating Souls require them. There will be oppression. Their lives will not be easy. The process will be decades even centuries long.

The transition to the new age will not be quick or painless…

The Somnambulant – Purple Wolf and Crocodiles Dream – 08-08-2025

Here is last night’s dream. I have taken recently to using a knee pillow to ease my nocturnal back pain. It means that I do not start the day with lumbar spine pain however I am now more aware of the hip pain. I am slightly easier to get going of a morning.

The dream starts in a metropolitan area part Kurfürstendamm Berlin and part The City London. It is pan European and upmarket, upbeat, expensive. Despite being smart it has a whiff of decadence and loose sexual mores. If feels a little dated though contemporary, as if things need to change.

I am with two others of my kind. We go into a night club past bouncers with a red rope barrier. We are among many entering the night club even though it is still light. People are leaving their jackets at the coat check. The clients age ~20-40 and are of mixed sex and nationality. They are somehow a part of the “in” crowd. This place is difficult to get into and has an air of privilege. I know that some are “content” creators.

We wander through the many levels of the night club, which is big, vast even. We see people dressed expensively made up with false eyelashes, there is evidence of tattoos and cosmetic surgery. All the punters have dilated pupils consistent with hallucinogen use. The look to be awake because of the pupils. But in fact they are more like walking dead, sleepwalkers, somnambulant. They are all there because it is the “it” place to be. There are floor after floor of them. There is however no music, no sound, no talking. They are zombified. The look animated but are not. The lack of music in the nightclub is very eerie and joyless as are the clientele. This is modern life. We are very surprised.

Now in a dark basement of the club. I am told that I have met the velvet, the purple wolf and that this is the mood. There is anger. I do not see him yet the feeling intensely subjective is strong. Purple is not a good colour. I know that in part this refers to Théun and that he is a bringer and symbol of all that refuses to change, stuck hard and fast in the old ways. There is a lush insistence on indulgence characteristic of the outgoing sixth ray which presents a major barrier to evolution. People are stuck in their ways and vehemently adamant that they are right, they will growl, fight and try to destroy any agent for change. There is a longing for times gone by which no longer are. I have met the purple wolf and that is an emblem of all that refuses to change. It shows that clinging on to old ways and out-of-date cultures, preserving, is not moving forward. There is more meaning to this meeting which will become apparent over time and indeed layers are coming as I type.

The night club has now changed into an underground theme park water ride. People are in “hollowed out logs” which are like little boats and are being driven around the “amusement” park by the flowing water. There are simulacrum rapids and now people are vocalising, shrieking. In some of the logs are people I know from the past in London.  I am on the side by a sluice in which is an adolescent hippopotamus. It is trying to get out into the wider theme park and succeeds. The hippopotamus is friendly towards me. I know that it wants to turn over the log-boats for fun. At the side of the water course there is a pool which is filled with mid length crocodiles, not full Nile size but a couple of metres long, lithe active and hungry. They are the crocodiles belonging to the people in the log-boats. I know that these crocodiles are the dreaming symbols for cumulative shortcomings of the people in the boats. There are many of them. One of the crocodiles is exiting the pond and starting to make to attack me. It is snapping at me. I pick up a slightly smaller crocodile and place it horizontally into the opening mouth of the attack crocodile. I know in the dream that the attack by the crocodiles of the people in the club / log boats will be ongoing and unlikely to stop anytime soon.

The dream ends.

Easterly Stalkers – Tarot 12 – Dream – 01-08-2025

Here is last night’s short dream.

The dream brings to mind the images of two tall women whom I have never met in real life yet who are public figures of different degrees. Their images are known. They hold positions of power, of different type. They are both based in London for their professional activities.

I see them in turn and know that they are both Easterly Stalkers. I have a knowing in the dream that I may meet them one day. One is more likely than the other.

I know this dream to be about time and the stalker’s in and of time.

The image of Tarot 12 comes to the fore. I know that this is again about forbearance. When things cannot be changed and are outside one’s ability or sphere of influence one must forebear. This is the jewel of the Easterly Stalker.

The dream suggests that things sophisticated and outside my “ken” or experience are afoot. They are socio-political. I know that I would be out of my depth in that happenstance and shenanigan but that I have zero need to fear it because I am not directly convolved or convoluted in to it.

In the dream I remember that I have felt one of these women at the edge of consciousness for a while and she has been getting closer over time.

The dream ends.

I hold Tarot 12 to consciousness on waking and bring it through to mind. It is here in the mind’s eye now.

Information and Context

Because people are lazy, they tend to treat information in a monopolar way, without actually acknowledging that. We have monopolar information. They are very confirmation bias oriented. The red caps might hear gospel from the don, the green caps from The Guardian and the anti-brown-Islam-o-phobes might want to hear Uncle Nigel pontificate. People perceive according to how they want to perceive, they believe what they want to hear. Perception is monopolar and not balanced or heteropolar. Bias is pandemic.

Taking a monopolar information source out of a wider context is rarely wise. Newspapers are sold to their biased audience and articles are targeted at that bias. Tell me what I want to hear and I will buy your newspaper, or clickety-click it on line so that you can get advertisement revenue.

I could say that I have a fair general knowledge. Out of context that is a lie. I would be shit at normal pub quiz general knowledge, because a) I don’t like soccer, b) I have no idea about current soap operas and c) I know nothing about package holiday destinations nor who is hot on social media. I would be a middling team member on a University Challenge quiz team.

I can say with a fair degree of confidence that I understand how academic science is enacted and reported. I may be rusty on nuance, but I have a good gist. I can read a Nature article and know to what extent I understand and if there are gaps in understanding which I might need to follow up on. If I watch a video on YouTube, I know that it is almost always surface and that people have a click generating agenda. Pass the Saxa salt, please.

I have read widely in the esoteric – occult – new age bookshelves of the library, the one with actual books in not on-line. I have intellectual access to that context something your common or garden scientist will not have. Many so-called scientists are disproportionately fearful of being labelled “whacko”. The gossip around “cold-fusion” is exemplar. Yet I have discussed over a cigarette on the steps of the Chemistry Department at Imperial College with a practising homeopath and staff member. We talked and speculated on quantum effects in water memory. Homeopathy is derided by many a sceptic yet demonstrably erudite scientist.

People are scared of the occult. It actually means “difficult to see” as in “an occult fracture of the T3 vertebra”. It does not mean that I am going to bite the head off a bat, spit blood to anoint the bone of goat and point that at you whilst chanting incantations for your demise.

People can and do get the wrong end of the stick.

It is possibly not illegal to file a patent application on “Quantum Telepathy” using the name Whacko McNutjob at the Intellectual Property Office in Newport, less eye catching perhaps at the European Patent Office unless the examiner was a Brit. One could ascertain if there was prejudice against Nut-jobs. We could define a new term, nutjobphobic.

I am confident that I can write an application of sufficient plausibility. I have three granted patents already.

People can over and misinterpret just about anything which they read on the internet. Rarely do they check understanding nor can they be arsed to read around or do further research. The gospel according to SEO optimized Google search returns is a highly skewed and paid for version. People forget and rely.

The informational fodder is not always the best fully nutritional meal for an avid clicker.