Hermetic – Dreamyoga

Whilst I was in hospital I came upon this UK TV series on Netflix. It seemed that I had already started watching it according to Netflix. I did not recall this. So I started to watch again. So far it is enjoyable.

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A Discovery of Witches is a British fantasy television series based on the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness, named after the first book in the trilogy.

Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, unexpectedly discovers a bewitched manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. This discovery forces her back into the world of magic in order to unravel the secrets it holds about magical beings. She is offered help by a mysterious biochemist and vampire Matthew Clairmont. Despite a long-held mistrust between witches and vampires, they form an alliance and set out to protect the book and solve the mysteries hidden within while dodging threats from the creature world.

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Discovery of Witches is a 2011 historical-fantasy novel and the debut novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness. It follows Diana Bishop, a history of science professor at Yale University, as she embraces her magical blood after finding a long-thought-lost manuscript and engages in a forbidden romance with a charming vampire, Matthew Clairmont.

When Diana Bishop returns to Oxford University, her life is flipped upside down. While researching in the library, Diana requests a book called Ashmole 782. This manuscript, also known as the Book of Life, has been missing for over 150 years. As soon as Diana touches the ancient manuscript, her powers are activated. Frightened by her clear cosmic connection to Ashmole 782, Diana returns the book. It appears, however, that her discovery had already caught the attention of other creatures, which results in a series of events that slowly brings her witch heritage and family back into her life.

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Diana is cast as a young academic investigating Alchemy partly autobiographically inspired on behalf of the author. The first few episodes are very good for Oxford university tourism. The photography is top notch.

Ashmole was a founder member of The Royal Society and this is his coat of arms.

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Note Hermes bearing the golden Caduceus top right. Note also the Breton symbol around the lower central panel.

Aside from founding the Ashmolean museum he is famous for collecting things like this:

Theatrvm chemicvm britannicum : containing severall poeticall pieces of our famous English philosophers, who have written the hermetique mysteries in their owne ancient language

by Ashmole, Elias, 1617-1692; Cross, Thomas, fl. 1632-1682; Vaughan, Robert, 17th cent; Goddard, John, fl. 1645-1671

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Given where I did my Ph.D. and my interest in things witchy and Alchemy related I have found something to look into a bit while I recuperate.

A new thread to explore?

There is a very real likelihood of ancient non mainstream, dare I say it, non-peer reviewed knowledge, being undervalued and forgotten. Some manuscripts have been kept. This one has a publication date of 1710 by Limojon de Saint-Didier, Alexandre-Toussaint {approximately 1630-1689}. These are {inter alia} in the internet archive and at Wellcome Collection library, there are other Alchemical texts.

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I have seen a 1699 frontispiece for this.

Peter the Philosopher was made famous by J. K. Rowling. In the Hermetic mercurial tradition, there are references on turning quicksilver into gold. Here silver {quick} is matter and gold is spirit. Transmutation of consciousness is out of gross form to achieve liberation {nirvana} and cease the endless cycle of rebirth and hence death. One never dies again; one ceases to be mortal and hence achieves im-mortality. It does not mean living in meat, incarnate, for ever and ever {or a very long time}. It means not being reborn. No more dying.

Just as in esoteric Vajrayana Buddhism there are Hermetic mandalas:

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The symbolism in sketches like this is extensive and cannot be understood entirely rationally. That approach gets nowhere other than intellectual masturbation. The thought form has to be built with care and the consequences of making it, managed in “real” meaty life. It is the battle royal of soul in matter. The Caduceus in not solely two dimensional. People imagine, incorrectly, that the stone, the rock, Pierre is a thing, a talisman, a magic artefact. They may fuck around in a chemistry lab trying to synthesise it.

One can only grasp and attain these mandalas fully when one is ready. Whoever drew this one was no novice….

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It is a shame that required orthodoxy often squanders knowledge and burns books. Socio-political position and self-advancement so often overshadows. The powerful often destroy knowledge, wisdom and science if it threatens their power base. Because knowledge is power, in a sense, those in search of mundane power seek to handicap and destroy it. Anything not catholic enough in terms of the papal edicts, whatever shape or form they may be, is ostracised and attacked.

Soon New-speak and The Ministry of Truth rule the roost and all dissidents are punished.

In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king.

This pattern is a historically repeating one.

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Sometimes the esoteric can survive in the shadows. Sometimes things are lost for ever. We will never know, by definition, what is lost already.

The orthodoxy always ridicules and talks down, bad mouths, that which does not conform or obey. It has always been thus and it will probably continue to be…

Tag: Hermetic

A Discovery of Witches – Thread

Aux vrays difciples de Hermes – Immortalité