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Esotericism 

The esoteric stream of knowledge has a long and rich history.  How far back in time it reaches is a matter of speculation although it is commonly thought among esotericists that it reaches back much farther than recorded history.  “Much farther” could mean many centuries before written history up to millions even billions of years before recorded history.  The universe is an old one and it is a mysterious one.

The word esoteric itself means “that which is hidden and lies within the individual.”  Occult, by definition, means “that which is concealed from view.”  This speaks to an important point.  Esoteric knowledge is a positive stream of knowledge.  That is, the purpose of it is to encourage each person to recognize the interconnection among all in reality – all beings, all planets, all galaxies, all consciousnesses…everything.  Esoteric knowledge points its followers along the path of unity, harmony, freedom, acceptance and forgiveness.  It encourages people to look for the truth hidden within their own consciousness and to know these truths are accessible to all.

This is in direct contrast to occult knowledge.  Occult knowledge can be seen as the negative side of this stream of knowledge.  Occult knowledge breeds elitism and slavery.  Its purpose is to divide people into a small upper elite class that sits at the top of the pyramid and controls not only all wealth and power on a planet, but it also seeks to control all people – their bodies and minds.  Occult knowledge points its followers along the path of separation, ignorance, greed, violence, control and manipulation.

These are important distinctions that need to be recognized for those who choose to study this knowledge.  The confusion arises due to the fact that these two sides come from the same source.  They often use the same symbols, although sometimes the symbols are inverted in one case or slightly altered to reflect either the negative or positive path.  The major difference is how the information is used.  Like all tools, it can be used for the positive or the negative.

A hammer is a neutral tool.  However, depending upon the intention and belief system of the human being holding the hammer, it can either be used to build something helpful, beautiful or uplifting, or it can be used to smash in another’s skull, effectively destroying them.  It is not the hammer to blame.  It is the consciousness of the one holding the hammer that is responsible.  Esoteric knowledge is the same way.  The information is a tool or toolkit for spiritual growth.  One can choose to use these tools to advance their own individual selfish good, or one can choose to use these tools to advance the greatest good of all beings, including their own good.  The power lies in the Choice.  It is a choice that each of us must make – not once – but every day, at every moment that life offers a choice to move forward.

 

As we have noted, this knowledge by its very existence relates to something that is ‘hidden from view’.  It is not obvious knowledge.  It takes much contemplation and study to understand this knowledge and then to learn how to put it to proper use.

Historically this knowledge was veiled to the larger masses.  The point was not to keep a portion of the population down.  The point was that someone had to work for the knowledge before they received it.  It was hoped that each and every person would learn to work for the knowledge, seeing the greater interconnection among all in reality, thus transforming societies, populations, and even planets for the positive.

It is obvious to see how this information has been misused throughout the ages.  It is still being misused.  Manly P. Hall writes, “With the decline of virtue, which has preceded the destruction of every nation of history, the mysteries became perverted.  Sorcery took the place of the divine magic.  Indescribable practices (such as the Bacchanalia) were introduced, and perversion ruled supreme; for no institution can be any better than the members of which it is composed.”

 

Right now at this point in time, here in the twenty-first century, we are at an important crossroads.  It is now time for this information – all of it – to come out into the light – not just for secret initiates of mystery religions or secret societies – but to every single human being on the planet.  This is actually one reason for this Cosmic Core website and its extensive selection of articles.  We, of course, are not saying that everyone should change their religion or scientific belief system to follow this information.  People can do whatever they choose to do.  But we are saying that each and every person needs access to these perspectives so that they can weigh them and either accept or reject them according to their will.  Whether one chooses to believe or study this information is less important than just being able to hear this perspective in order to better understand human history, religion, spirituality, science and consciousness to a larger, more comprehensive degree.  It is like hearing all sides to an argument.  You cannot make an informed decision unless you hear and attempt to understand all sides.  At that point, the choice is yours.

 

 

Concepts of the Esoteric Stream of Knowledge 

Mark Booth, in The Secret History of the World, shares with us many concepts and beliefs about the esoteric stream of knowledge.  He tells us that esoteric thinking has always sought to undermine and subvert conventional, habitual, mechanical modes of thought, lifting our minds from the mundane and superficial and towards the cosmic and spiritual.  He writes, “It is a natural human impulse to wonder if life has a meaning.  It would perhaps not be surprising if every intelligent person reaches a time in life when he or she wants to consider the great questions of life and death and whether or not life and the universe has meaning, and has to cast about for answers. Esoteric philosophy taken as a whole represents the richest, the deepest and the most fascinating body of thought on these questions.” 

Above all, esoteric teaching is about loving in the right way. It says that when you cooperate with the gracious forces that form the cosmos, the force flows through you in such a way that you may become conscious of it. This process is called thaumaturgy, or divine magic.

All “magic” is a power of mind over matter.  As we are beginning to see, esoteric philosophy is concerned with methods for developing the faculties of the mind so that natural laws can be manipulated.  Consciousness is the creator of reality.  This means our beliefs, thoughts and emotional states directly affect matter outside our bodies.  This is the philosophical concept of idealism – that consciousness creates and directs matter, and consciousness is the source of all in physical reality.

 

At the core of the esoteric stream of knowledge is this belief in idealism that the Universe was created by Mind for minds.  Emanations from the cosmic mind should be understood as working downwards in a hierarchy from the higher and more powerful and pervasive principles to the narrower and more particular, each level creating and directing the one below it.  This hierarchy is not a negative hierarchy of power.  It is a cosmic hierarchy.  Each human being will make their way through each of these levels, even though in the physical reality we can only experience one level at a time.  These are not permanent hierarchies in the sense that if something is on one level it will forever remain on that level.  Evolution is a spiral and every consciousness was meant to experience all levels from the mineral through the plant, animal, human, planetary, galactic and cosmic.

Esoteric philosophy, then, calls for a rediscovery of the spiritual hierarchies ranged above us, and, intimately connected with that, a discovery of the divine capabilities ranged within us. This was the secret preserved and nurtured by geniuses as diverse as Plato, St Paul, Leonardo, Shakespeare and Newton.

However esoteric teachers had always known their wisdom looked foolish to the uninitiated.  This was another reason this knowledge was kept well hidden. They had always focused on the tricky paradoxical nature of the cosmos, which many find difficult to understand.

 

Plato said that all philosophy begins with wonder.  Or as Albert Einstein said, “Life. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the source of all art and science.  He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

Mark Booth writes, “Modern science is killing off wonder, by telling us that we know it all. Modern science is killing off philosophy, by encouraging us not to ask the big Why questions. These questions are strictly meaningless, they say. Just get on with it. Today’s scientists try to insist that theirs is the only way to interpret the basic conditions of human existence. They like to dwell on what they know. In their view, the known is like a vast continent occupying nearly everything there is. The men and women who have been described making history [through the esoteric stream of knowledge] have preferred to dwell on what they don’t know. In their view, the known is a tiny island floating on a vast and very strange sea…

“Science is not certain. It is a myth like any other, representing what people in the deepest parts of themselves want to believe. Rudolf Steiner once said that people who don’t have the courage to be cruel often develop cruel beliefs. To propose that we don’t live in a reciprocal universe is needlessly cruel.  If we accept these cruel views we are allowing the say-so of experts in their own field to take precedence over our own personal experience.”

You see, for science the great miracle to be explained is the physical universe. For esoteric philosophy the great miracle is human consciousness.

 

One of the main objects of esotericism is to teach the doctrine of Oneness, Unity and the interconnection of all in reality.  It also endeavors to teach the resurrection of humanity to “eternal life” through cosmic evolution; the dignity of the human soul; and to lead people to see the beauty, magnificence and splendor of the universe.

It is devoted to instructing humanity concerning the operation of divine law in the terrestrial sphere.  It is moralistic rather than religionistic and philosophic rather than theologic.

As Manly P Hall writes, it is meant to teach humanity to “use their faculties more intelligently, to be patient in the face of adversity, to be courageous when confronted by danger, to be true in the midst of temptation, and most of all, to view a worthy life as the most acceptable sacrifice to God, and his body as an altar sacred to the Deity.”

Hall then says, “The Mysteries were organized for the purpose of assisting the struggling human creature to reawaken the spiritual powers which, surrounded by the flaming ring of lust and degeneracy, lay asleep within his soul.”

The esoteric stream of knowledge from all over the world highlights the spiritual body of humanity.  This includes the octave of energy centers, or chakras, as well as energy meridians.  The body, particularly the nervous system, is considered a “vegetable” body. The nervous system, specifically the autonomous nervous system, is about regulation of what happens inside oneself, but not of what happens around oneself.  The chakras are considered “flowers” upon this tree and they operate as its organs of perception.  We discuss the chakras in great detail in the ‘Human Life’ section of Cosmic Core.

Furthermore, esoteric thought is essentially reincarnational.  It regards reincarnation as absolutely essential in the process of spiritual and cosmic evolution.  It is not primarily concerned with traits passed on through genes.  That is, it is concerned with our reincarnational history, or the core of our selves across many lifetimes, rather than our genetic history, which is a superficial aspect of the qualities we have in one single body or lifetime.  Jesus Christ came to do away with bloodlines as a way of transmitting clairvoyance and wisdom.  This worship of bloodlines is firmly rooted in the negative side of occultism and always breeds the elitism/slavery dynamic.  Christ taught that love was to be freely chosen rather than instinctual and tribal.

 

As you can see, the esoteric stream of knowledge is all about not only encouraging humanity to undertake the adventure of spiritual evolution, but also to explain why this is necessary as well as giving positive instructions on how to undertake this most important cosmic journey.  This path of spiritual evolution has many parts, as it is a spiral.  There are many experiences a person must go through as they journey upwards and onwards to discover the nature of their cosmic reality.  One on this path must go through the experience of kama loca, or purgatory, where the soul and spirit, still united, are attacked by demons.  Demons in this regard are considered as negative forms of consciousness such as doubt, fears, regrets, hatred, jealously, suffering, powerlessness and so forth.  These are the demons that can never be cast out, but that can be transformed.  Transformation of the body, mind and spirit is the name of the game.

There is a larger concept of transformation however.  This concept is the idea that the whole of humanity is to undergo something like an initiation.  Mark Booth tells us “The secret societies were preparing for this event, helping humanity to develop the sense of self and other qualities that would be needed during the ordeal…[and] the time has come to get to grips with this elusive concept which lies right at the heart of the esoteric view of the cosmos and its history.”

So “If you can think so deeply that you can rediscover the spiritual roots of thought, if you can recognize thoughts as living, spiritual beings …

If you can develop a strong enough sense of your own individuality that you can become aware of your interaction with the Thought-Beings that weave in and out of yourself, yet not be overwhelmed by this reality …

If you can recreate the ancient sense of wonder and use this sense of wonder to help awaken the willpower that lies sleeping in your deep, dark recesses …

If the fire of love for your fellow human beings rises from your heart and causes you to weep tears of compassion …

… then you have been working on the Four Elements. You have begun the process of their transformation.” ~ Mark Booth

 

 

As an esotericist I look at all the different underground or hidden streams of knowledge to find what is similar among them and then  focus on those concepts, highlighting the common source and common teachings that are found.  Below we have provided a list of the major spiritual traditions, social movements and individual figures of the esoteric stream of knowledge.  Over the course of the ‘Culture’ section in Cosmic Core we will discuss these in full.  However, this is far from a comprehensive list, but it is a good place to start.

 

 

Major Figures, Literature and Social Movements of Esoteric Knowledge

Esoteric thinking has had a profound, determining influence on human development that is almost wholly overlooked in modern times.  The formative and transformative influences on human consciousness through the ages lie within these various branches of esoteric knowledge.

Manly P. Hall writes, “There is every reason to believe that all so-called secret schools of the ancient world were branches from one philosophic tree which, with its root in heaven and its branches on the earth, is – like the spirit of man – and invisible but ever-present cause of the objectified vehicles that give it expression.”

Some of these worked within the positive side and others within the negative side.  Some seemed to have knowingly or unknowingly worked for both.  These lists will continue to be added to.  So far, they include (in alphabetical order):

 

Spiritual and Religious Traditions

  • Alchemy
  • Ancient Chaldean traditions
  • Ancient Egyptian Anthropocosmic traditions
  • Ancient Greek traditions
  • Ancient Persian traditions
  • Anthroposophy
  • Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism
  • Celtic and Druidic traditions
  • Gnosticism
  • Hermeticism
  • Hinduism
  • Indigenous Shamanic traditions
  • Kabbalistic traditions
  • Luciferianism (negative stream)
  • Masonic traditions
  • Mystic Christianity
  • Mystery Religions a.k.a. “The Mysteries”
  • Native Indigenous traditions from the world over
  • Neoplatonism
  • Shamanism
  • Sufism
  • Taoism
  • Theosophy
  • Vedic traditions
  • Yoga
  • Zoroastrianism

 

Social Groups and Social Movements

  • Aborigines of Australia
  • Aleister Crowley and the OTO (negative stream)
  • Ancient Egyptians
  • Ancient Phoenicians
  • Ancient Sumerians (Chaldeans)
  • Astrology
  • Atlantis – tales and history of Atlantis
  • Cathars
  • Chinese Science and Medicine
  • Dagon Tribe of Africa
  • European Cathedrals with their fusion in stone of Islamic mysticism, ancient Celtic spirituality and Neoplatonic Christianity
  • Feng Shui and Geomancy
  • Freemasonry
  • Hippie Movement
  • Illuminati and Adam Weishaupt (negative stream)
  • Knights Templar
  • Labyrinths
  • New Age Movement
  • Numerology
  • Rosicrucians
  • Sacred Geometry
  • Supreme Mathematics – Five Percent Nation

 

Important Literature

  • Bhagavad Gita
  • Dante’s Divine Comedy
  • Dhammapada
  • Egyptian Book of Living and Dying
  • Gnostic texts and Apocryphal Books of the Bible including the Book of Enoch
  • Grimoires
  • Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey
  • I Ching
  • Plato’s Timaeus & Critias
  • Tao de Ching
  • The Law of One
  • The Mahabharata
  • The Seth Material by Jane Roberts
  • The Temple of Man by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz
  • The Upanishads
  • The Vedic Texts – the Rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda, and Atharva-Veda
  • Thoth Hermes Trismegistus – The Emerald Tablets and The Divine Pymander
  • Tibetan Book of the Dead
  • Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali

 

 

Individual Figures (Literary Figures, Artists, Scientists and Writers)

(Brief definitions will continue to be added)

  • Abraham and son Ishmael – Patriarch of Christianity, Judaism & Islam.  Abraham was from Uruk, around 2000 BC. Nimrod attempted to murder Abraham as a baby, but failed.  Ishmael is the son of Abraham and Hagar (daughter of Egyptian pharaoh) who was to become the father of the Arab nations.  Abraham learned his knowledge from the Egyptian priests.  After Egypt, he went to Palestine.
  • Achilles – Greek hero of the Trojan war and the greatest warrior of Homer’s Iliad. He was the almost-invincible last of the demigods.  For the people of the Iliad there is no such thing as introspection.  The gods told the people what to do.  Achilles said “Better to be a slave in the land of the living than the king of the shades.”
  • Akhenaten (1370s BC) – Ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty (a.k.a. Amenhotep IV). There is a high probability that Akhenaten and Moses were the same person.  The title of “Moses” was strictly an Egyptian title of respect for blood lines.  Both of these characters preached monotheism to cultures rooted in polytheism.  They both grew up as Egyptian princes and were educated in the Egyptian mystery teachings.   “Akhenaten (Moses) had acquired knowledge and a belief system from the teachings of YAWHE, the Annunaki regional direction of the lands of Canaan.  Amongst this extra-planetary heritage were Annunaki or Archonic concepts in societal control which had already been trialed in Sumeria and Babylonia such as: a non-hieroglyphic alphabet system, the so-called “Hammurabi” civil hierarchical code of law and punishment, and the monotheistic, monarchical doctrine of absolute obedience to the one King and one God.  With his life under threat Akhenaten (Moses) fled to an outpost in Sinai with Israelites and other monotheistic loyalists.  Tutankhamen, his ten year old son, took the throne of Egypt in 1360 BC.  The 19th dynasty began with Ramses I and Set I.  These Pharaohs forced the band of Israelite and Bedouin followers of Akhenaten to begin their desert pilgrimage back to their ancestral land of Canaan.  Akhenaten (Moses) died before reaching the “promised land.” Before he did, the young king’s angry father, Akhenaten, had his son tortured and hung, thus making Tutankhamen a historically contorted prototype for the sacrifice of Jesus.  This event regarding Jesus, according to Christian belief, was also commanded by the will of the Father and for the ideal of monotheism.” ~ Robert Lawlor.  There is more to say about these characters in other articles.
  • Alexander the Great (356 BC – 323 BC) – King of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and an elitist to his very core. He was tutored by Aristotle until age 16.  He created the largest empire the world had yet seen.  He was a ruler of genius and an unbeatable military commander.  He was initiated into many mystery schools and his whole life was a quest to understand the origins of his divine power.
  • Apollinaire, Guillaume (1880-1918) – French, poet and proto-Surrealist writer. “Inspired by teachings of the secret societies, the Surrealists wanted to destroy entrenched ways of thought, to smash scientific materialism.”  He was in search of a hidden and mysterious reality.
  • Ariadne & Theseus – characters of Greek mythology associated with labyrinths and the myth of the Minotaur. Ariadne represents divine love as the only path to find your Higher Self.  Because of this divine love Theseus was able to slay the Minotaur (his lower beastly self), escape the labyrinth and become his Higher Self.
  • Ashmole, Elias (1617-1692) – eminent Freemason, soldier and collector of rare manuscripts and antiquities. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford was built around his collection and was the first public museum.  He was a student of alchemy, mysticism, astrology and botany.
  • Augustine (Saint Augustine of Hippo 354-430 AD) – the greatest theologian after St. Paul and an initiate of a later Persian Mystery school (Manichaeism). He gave a comprehensive account of Church doctrine in terms of Platonism and his account was based on his direct, personal experience.  He had seen with “the mysterious eye of the soul” a brighter light than the light of the intellect.
  • Bacon, Francis (1561-1626) – He was an infant prodigy born into a family of courtiers. He wrote books that dominated the intellectual life of his day.  He wrote The Advancement of Learning, Novum Organon and The New Atlantis – a vision of a new world order that would be very influential to esoteric groups.  He was a member of the secret society the Order of the Helmet.  He was fascinated by secret codes and numerological ciphers.  He was a member of the Freemasons and Rosicrucians.  He inspired the great scientific revolution.  In all likelihood Francis Bacon wrote all the literature ascribed to Shakespeare.  “The world of human values, where, whatever happens, it is human happiness and the shape of human lives that are at stake.  The world of Bacon is one where human values have been stripped out.  Human experience is the tricky, paradoxical, mysterious and ultimately unpredictable thing that Shakespeare dramatized.  Bacon taught humankind to look at the physical objects that are the contents of experience and to note the predictable laws they obey.  He devised new ways of thinking about the contents of experience.  He advised the discarding of as many preconceptions as possible while gathering as much data as possible, trying not to impose patterns on it, but waiting patiently for deeper, richer patterns to emerge.”
  • Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827) – Famous German composer and pianist. “Beethoven found himself hearing a new musical language, feeling and expressing things that had never been felt or expressed before.  Like Alexander the Great he became obsessed with trying to identify this divine influx, the source of his unstoppable genius, reading and rereading Egyptian and Indian esoteric texts.  For him his Sonata in D Minor and the Appassionata were his equivalents to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the most explicit expressions of his occult ideas.”
  • Bernard de Clairvaux (1090-1153) – French founder of the Cistercian monastic order and the most influential churchman of the day. He wrote the ‘order’, or rule book, of the Knights Templars in 1128.  He recommended a systematic training of the imagination in order to get closer to the spirit of Christ.  Cistercian architecture is considered some of the most beautiful medieval architecture. The Cistercians also contributed to agricultural technology, hydraulic engineering and metallurgy.
  • Beuys, Joseph (1921-1986) – German Modernist artist with work grounded in humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy. He recognized that art had the potential to transform society.  He, along with other Modernists such as Picasso, Joyce, Malevich, Gaudi, Borges and Calvino, had the desire to undermine and subvert the prevailing scientific materialism.
  • Blavatsky, Helena P. (1831-1891) – Influential Russian occultist, philosopher and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875.  She was an initiate of several Mystery schools and translated many sacred texts
  • Bruno, Giordano (1548-1600) – great Italian hero of science and student of esotericism. “It’s often assumed that Bruno was burned at the stake by the church for championing the modern, scientific view that the earth revolves around the sun.  In fact it was his esoteric views that really frightened the Church.  His experiences of the spirit worlds led him to claim that there are an infinity of interlocking universes and dimensions.”  He believed in reincarnation, pantheism, an infinite universe and a plurality of worlds.
  • Cagliostro, Count Alessandro di (1743-1795) – the great 18th century magus, adventurer and Mason who began life as a poor Sicilian boy, a.k.a. Giuseppe Balsamo. He reinvented himself and rose to the top of European society and was known for trickery as well as his talent for prophecy.  He established the Egyptian Right Freemasonry in 1782 which would be highly influential in France and America.
  • Calvino, Italo (1923-1985) – modern Italian novelist who has followed the ancient and mystical philosophy with a desire to undermine and subvert the prevailing scientific materialism
  • Cayce, Edgar (1877-1945) – American clairvoyant who answered questions on healing, reincarnation, wars, Atlantis and the future. He is influential in New Age circles.
  • Cervantes, Miguel de (1547-1616) – Spanish writer and literary genius who tried to illustrate the point that in esoteric philosophy imaginings are real. “What Cervantes is saying is that if, like Don Quixote, we good-heartedly decide to believe in the essential goodness of the world, despite the brickbats of fortune, despite the slapstick tendency in things that seems to contradict such spiritual beliefs and make them look foolish and absurd, then that decision to believe will help transform the world – and in a supernatural way too.”
  • Charlemagne (742-814) – The Holy Roman Emperor who inherited the spear of Longinus, believed to have pierced the side of Jesus Christ on the cross. He believed it gave him powers to foresee the future and forge his destiny.  He prevented the Muslims from overtaking Europe in the Middle Ages and united the majority of Western and central Europe at the time.  He founded the Carolingian Empire.  He founded the Holy Vehm (Secret Tribunal of Free Judges or Secret Soldiers of Light) with secret ciphers and signs to exclude the uninitiated.  The Achen chapel was added to Charlemagne’s palace.  It was the largest building in the world north of the Alps and was shaped like an octagon.  From the first floor gallery one looks up to the imposing throne of the Holy Roman Emperor made from slabs of white marble.  In the center of the chapel is a solid gold casket containing Charlemagne’s bones.  Above it hangs the ‘Crown of Lights’ – a gigantic wheel-shaped chandelier, hanging like a crown chakra ablaze.
  • Clement of Alexandria (150-215 AD) & Origen of Alexandria (184-253 AD) – Clement was the first bishop of Alexandria. His pupil was Origen.  They both believed in reincarnation.  They operated in the Neoplatonic esoteric tradition.  They both taught their advanced students the diciplina arcani, devotional practices which today we would classify as magic.
  • Comte de St Germain – a mysterious figure that suddenly appeared in European society in 1710 seemingly about 50 years old. He initiated Cagliostro into Templar mysteries.  He met the composer Rameau in Venice in 1782 and appeared to not have aged at all.  He was seen as late as 1822.  It is believed that he was the reincarnation of Christian Rosenkruez who was a reincarnation of CHiram Abiff.  Germain was a messenger of peace and it is believed he coined the term “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”.
  • Conscious Hip-Hop – Conscious hip hop, or socially conscious hip-hop, is a subgenre of hip hop that challenges the dominant cultural, political, philosophical, and economic consensus, and/or comments on social issues and conflicts.  Conscious hip hop often seeks to raise awareness of social issues, leaving the listeners to form their own opinions, rather than aggressively advocating for certain ideas and demanding actions.  Some examples: Blackalicious, Jurassic 5, Blue Scholars, Macklemore, Kendrick Lamar, Common, Public Enemy, The Roots, TI, Logic, J.Cole, Vic Mensa…
  • Copernicus, Nicholas (1473-1543) – Polish Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer. Published On the Revolution of the Celestial Bodies in 1543 that showed the earth goes around the Sun.  He acknowledged his ideas came from reading texts from the ancient world.
  • Daedalus – father of Icarus with his wings of wax who flew too close to the sun. He was an inventor, engineer and architect.  He did not use magic but was a forerunner of the first scientists.
  • Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) – Italian poet and author of The Divine Comedy: The Inferno; Purgatory & Paradise. In this work Dante took the erotic-spiritual impulse of the Troubadours to another level.  He expanded his love for Beatrice to embrace the whole cosmos.  It also mirrors Dante’s own underground secret initiation into the Mysteries.  His work is meant to be read on several levels: the astrological, the cosmological, the moral and the alchemical.  “The Commedia is, on one level, a guide to the afterlife, on another a manual of initiation and on a third level an account of the way that life in the material world – quite as much as the afterlife – is shaped by stars and planets.  The Commedia shows how when we behave badly in this life we are already constructing a Purgatory, a Hell, for ourselves in another dimension that intersects with our everyday lives.  We are already suffering, tormented by demons.  If we do not aspire to move up the spiral of the heavenly hierarchies, if we ‘make do’ with purely earthly successes and pleasures, we are already in Purgatory.”
  • Darwin, Charles (1809-1882) – discovered the evolution of the species bringing an ancient idea to the forefront of modern scientific knowledge. The evolution of the species was encoded in the zodiac and written down by initiates such as Jacob Boehme and Robert Fludd.  It was also preserved by certain groups in the Freemasons and Rosicrucians.  Darwin was interested in spiritualism and esoteric philosophy and was a close friend of Max Muller, early translator of sacred Sanskrit texts that encoded the evolution from fish to amphibian to land animal to human.
  • Dee, John (negative stream) (1527-1608) – Queen Elizabeth’s court astrologer and magus. He was overwhelmed by a desire to experience the spirit worlds directly.  He was friend of Tycho Brahe.  In the late 1570s he formed a circle called the Dionisii Areopagites with Sir Phillip Sidney and Edmund Spenser.  The Cabala was central to all his studies.  He helped direct the Queen’s foreign policy.  At the height of his fortunes he had ownership of Canada.  He coined the term “British Empire.”  In 1582 he summoned negative spirits with help from Edward Kelley.  This marked the beginning of his decline into madness and paranoia.  Dee was trying to bring magic and contact with the spirit worlds back.  He told the Holy Roman Emperor that if his occult techniques of ceremonial magic were introduced, every church in Christendom could enjoy apparitions every day of the week.  “The world Church would again become a magic Church.  This was Dr. Dee’s great evangelical vision.”
  • Dionysus – There are two different Dionysus figures. The first, Dionysus Zagreus, was the last of the Greek Olympic gods who represents a new form of consciousness.  Dionysus the Younger traveled from Atlantis via Europe to India after the flood to teach the world agriculture and writing, as Enoch had done before him.  He also forbade cannibalism and human sacrifice.
  • Dionysus/Bacchus – Dionysus was the ancient Greek god of wine, wine-making, grape cultivation, fertility, ritual madness, theater and religious ecstasy. He was called Bacchus in Rome.  He was worshiped as early as 1500-11000 BC by Mycenaean Greeks.
  • Dostoevsky, Fyodor (1821-1881) – Russian novelist, writer and philosopher. “Dostoevsky’s heroes are poised over an abyss.  There is always a heightened awareness of how much our choices matter – and also that our choices come to us in different disguises.  In Dostoevsky we encounter the paradoxical notion that those who confront this evil, supernatural dimension, even if they are thieves, prostitutes and murderers, are closer to heaven than those whose cozy worldview deliberately shuts evil out and denies it is there…Dostoevsky’s journey through Hell, like Dante’s, is partly a spiritual journey but it is also a journey through the Hell on Earth that humanity has created.  There is in Dostoevsky a new impulse which would come to characterize the arts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – the desire to know the worst that can happen.”
  • Duke of Aquitaine (William IX 1071-1127) and the Troubadours – The Troubadours reflect the archetype of the ‘wise fool’. They were Provencal poets from Provence and the Languedoc who adapted the Arabic-Andalusian poetic forms.  “As well as crossing class barrier, the Troubadours reversed the traditional subjection of women to men.  In Troubadour poetry men enslave themselves to women.  Marriage had worked as an agent of social control, but now the Troubadours encouraged a new form of love that was not arranged but spontaneous, and could flow between individuals of different social status…Being in love in this new way made people feel more fully alive…the experience of being in love was given the deep structure of the process of initiation.”  The rose was their most popular symbol – an obvious allusion to the chakras.  The Duke of Aquitaine was the earliest Troubadour whose work has survived.
  • Durer, Albrecht (1471-1528) – Painter, print-maker and theorist of the German Renaissance. He was an initiate in sacred mysteries and the painter of the first still life.
  • Dylan, Bob (1941-present) – American folk singer, musician and poet. In some ways he is heir to the poetic tradition of William Blake.  Dylan has explored certain spiritual practices relating to hooking up breathing techniques with sexual energy and using them as a force for spiritual good.
  • Elijah
  • Enoch and the Book of Enoch from the antediluvian period “before the flood”. He taught the world the arts of agriculture and writing.
  • Francis of Assisi
  • Fraticelli (Spiritual Franciscans) – extreme proponents of the rule of St. Francis of Assisi, especially in regards to poverty. They regarded the wealth of the Church as scandalous.  They were forced into open revolt against the Church and were declared heretical in 1296.
  • Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) – Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer called “father of observational astronomy”, “father of modern physics”, “father of the scientific method”, and “father of modern science”.
  • Gandhi, Mahatma (1869-1948) – Indian activist and leader of the Indian independence movement. He was a student of theosophy.  He was a spiritual seeker of truth which involved self-realization, nonviolence, vegetarianism and universal love.  “He believed that the cosmos is governed by truth and by the laws of truth and that, by acting in accordance with these laws, and individual would gain Satyagrapha, the force of truth and love.”  He believed “the spirit of self-sacrifice should embrace the whole world.”
  • Gilgamesh & the Sumerian civilization – Gilgamesh was the bull hero of the Sumerian civilization from early 3rd millennium BC. He was king of Uruk in 2100 BC.  “With the death of Gilgamesh we are in the time of the greatest ziggurats.  The story of the Tower of Babel, the attempt to build a tower up to heaven and the resulting loss of a single language uniting all humanity, represents the fact that as nations and tribes began to become attached to their own tutelary spirits and guiding angles, they lost sight of the higher gods and the great cosmic mind beyond that gives all the different parts of the universe one destiny…the Tower of Babel was built by Nimrod the Hunter” who is actually Enmerkar, the first king of Uruk.  Nimrod was the first man to seek power for its own sake.
  • Ginsberg, Allen (1926-1997) – American Beat poet who opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression. He was a student of Eastern religions and studied under Tibetan Buddhist Teacher Chogyam Trungpa.
  • Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832) – German writer, philosopher, statesman, scientist and artist. “It is Goethe perhaps who writes best about what it feels like to be an idealist in modern times.  He writes about feeling the real presence of living interconnections with the natural world and living connections with other people, even though such connections may not be measureable or visible.  And crucially he writes about the great universal spirits that hold everything together.”
  • Grey, Alex (1953 – present) – American visionary artist, author and teacher.
  • Gaudi, Antoni (1852-1926) – Spanish Modernist architect with a desire to undermine and subvert the prevailing scientific materialism. “Gaudi’s Arab-influenced architecture, flamboyantly surging arabesques in which animal and human forms merge and morph into each other, invites the visitor to walk into an altered state of consciousness.”
  • Gurdjieff, G.I. (1866-1949) – Great 20th century Armenian/Greek mystic, philosopher and initiate influenced by the Sufis and Tibetan Lamas. “G.I. Gurdjieff said that exactly what is needed truly to become master of oneself in this life is what is needed to survive as a conscious being in the afterlife.”  He also said, “Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies.  As a result of this each person perceives things from a completely subjective perspective.  He asserted that people in their typical state function as unconscious automatons but that  person can “wake up” and become a different sort of human being altogether.”
  • Haroun Al Raschid – (766-809) – Caliph in his early twenties, he quickly made Baghdad the most splendid city in the world. He drew to his court all the great writers, artists, thinkers and scientists of his day.  He ruled from 786-809, during the peak of the Islamic Golden Age.  At the court of Haroun al Raschid and later among the Arab peoples, science had made great leaps forward, particularly in mathematics, physics and astronomy.
  • Hassan-I-Sabbah, the “Old Man of the Mountains” (1050-1124) – An initiate of the House of Wisdom – a school for esoteric philosophy in North Africa. He was a holy man and alchemist and master of palmistry, languages, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and geometry.  Hassan-I Sabbah founded a small sect which in 1090 captured the castle of Alamut in the mountains south of the Caspian Sea in modern-day Iran.  From his mountain fastness he sent his secret agents all over the world to do his bidding, exerting a puppet master’s control on distant rulers.  He was leaser of the Assassins (Hashshashins).
  • Henry Miller
  • Henry Thoreau
  • Heraclitus – Greece
  • Hercules – Greek hero and man-god. “Hercules wanted to be left alone to get on with his material life, to enjoy worldly pleasures – getting drunk, feasting, brawling – but he was repeatedly interrupted by his duty to follow his spiritual destiny.  A stumbling, bungling, sometimes laughable figure, Hercules was torn between opposing cosmic forces.”  The life of Hercules illustrates the pain of being a man.  He is ‘Everyman’, trapped in a cycle of pain.
  • Hermes Trismegistus/Thoth
  • Hesiod (750 BC-?) – Greek poet
  • Hieronymus Bosch
  • Hiram Abiff, the Phoenician and builder of Solomon’s Temple
  • Homer – legendary initiate poet of ancient Greece who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey. Thought to date from around 1200 BC.
  • Hugo de Payens
  • Hypatia
  • Iamblichus
  • Ibn Arabi
  • Isis & Osiris – important god and goddess of ancient Egypt
  • Issac Luria
  • Issac Newton
  • Jacob Boehme
  • James Joyce
  • Jason of the Argos – tells the tale of one of the last hurrahs of the demigods and heroes. Jason was the leader of the Argonauts who quested for the Golden Fleece, symbol of authority and kingship.
  • Jerome, great scholar of the Cabala
  • Jesus Christ
  • Joachim of 1135 AD
  • Joan of Arc
  • Johannes Kepler
  • John of the Cross (St. John Chrysostom)
  • John Michell
  • Jonathan Swift
  • Julian, nephew of Constantine
  • Jung, Carl (1875-1961) – famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist who worked to show the idea that our minds contain psychological complexes which are independent of our centers of consciousness. He explored physics, vitalism, Eastern & Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, literature, the arts, occult topics and mysticism.
  • Karl von Eckartshausen
  • Keith Critchlow
  • King Arthur & Merlin
  • King Khusraw of Persia
  • Kircher, Anathasius
  • Krishna – There are two Krishnas. One was a war god from Atlantis who fought to defeat the negative forces of desire and delusion.  The other was born in 3228 BC.  He was a shepherd and prophet and a forerunner of Jesus Christ.  Krishna features in the Bhagavad Gita.  With the death of Krishna in 3012 BC the Kali Yuga, or Dark Age, began.
  • Lao-Tzu – China
  • Latini, Brunetto (1220-1294) – Italian philosopher, scholar and statesman. The initiator and mentor of Dante.  He wrote The Book of Treasure which included occult teachings on the planetary qualities of precious stones.
  • Lazarus
  • Led Zeppelin
  • Leibniz, Goffried Wilhelm (1646-1716) – German philosopher, mathematician, alchemist, inventor and co-discoverer of calculus. “In Leibniz’s case his discoveries arose out of fascination with cabalistic number mysticism which he shared with his close friend, the Jesuit scholar of the occult Athanasius Kircher.”
  • Leon Battista Alberti
  • Leonardo da Vinci
  • Levi, Eliphas 1810-1875 (negative stream) – French occult author and ceremonial magician. He was influential to Aleister Crowley and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.  He was the first to declare that an upside down pentagram representing evil.
  • Lord Byron
  • Magnus, Albertus (1193-1280) – German Catholic Dominican friar, bishop and alchemist. There is a legend that he was architect of the Cologne Cathedral.  Author of Liber Constructionum Alberti which contains the secrets of the Operative Freemasons including the laying of the foundations of cathedrals along astronomical lines.
  • Mani of Manichaeism
  • Manly P Hall
  • Marley, Bob (1945-1981) – Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter and musician. He believed in unity, particularly unity of Africa.  He was an anti-imperialist and cared about financial equality and independence among poorer nations.  He preached “One Love” among the people.
  • Max Muller
  • Meister Eckhart
  • Melchizedek – his secret identity is Noah, the great Atlantean leader who had taught humankind agriculture. He was the spiritual guide of Abraham.
  • Melevich
  • Michelangelo
  • Mohammed
  • Moses– Some say Moses was born around 1200 BC; others say in about 1540 BC. Moses was brought up as an Egyptian prince.  Moses led his people to the Sinai desert but proved to be a hard taskmaster.  He brought the concept of guilt to the people.
  • Napoleon
  • Nietzsche
  • Nikola Tesla
  • Noah – He is called Ziusudra in Sumerian; Atrahasis in Mesopotamia; Yima in Zoroastrianism; and Upnapishtim in Babylon. He was a great Atlantean leader who lived during the great flood.  He was a demigod.
  • Odysseus
  • Orpheus – a transitional figure who was a magician but also a forerunner of science. It is claimed that he measured the stars and invented numbers.  He was the mythical founder of the Greek mysteries.
  • Oscar Wilde and his masterpiece Picture of Dorian Gray
  • Pan
  • Paracelsus
  • Parsifal
  • Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662) – French mathematician, physicist, inventor and eminent philosopher of his day. He achieved a great illumination in his lifetime.
  • Patrick and Celtic Christianity
  • Perseus – Greek god and the legendary founder of Mycenae; son of Zeus. Perseus behead the Gorgon Medusa to save Andromeda.
  • Pessoa, Fernando (1888-1935) – 20th century Portuguese occult writer, poet and philosopher. “He wrote of holding inside himself all the dreams of the world and wanting to experience the whole of the universe – its reality – inside himself.”  He wrote under 75 different personas, was an avid astrologist and student of mysticism, theosophy and other occult topics.
  • Picasso
  • Pink Floyd
  • Plato and Socrates
  • Plethon, Gemistos (1350s-1450s) – mysterious figure and philosopher who came from Byzantium.  He was a student of ancient Byzantiumn esoteric neoplatonic tradition.  He believed in the Perennial Philosophy “of reincarnation and personal encounters with the gods of the hierarchies which might be achieved by ceremony and the ritual singing of the Hymns of Orpheus.
  • Plotinus
  • Poseidon – one of the 12 Olympians in the ancient Greek religion from the Bronze Age. Poseidon was also the first god-king of Atlantis.  In Plato’s Timaeus and Critias Atlantis was Poseidon’s domain.  Where the Atlantean and Greek deity the same person?
  • Pythagoras
  • Rabelais, Francois (1480s-1553) – French Renaissance writer and scholar who did not make a big issue of the supernatural – it is simply a given. “Imaginary objects are seen as at least as real as the mundane objects of the physical world.  Satirical and skeptical…[he is] undermining of reader’s assumptions and subversive of down-to-earth attitudes.  His esoteric philosophy is stated in Gargantua and Pantagruel.  His life and work was animated by the spirit of the Troubadours.  “The long struggle to wake up to the material world that had begun with Noah is finally completed and the result is sheer delight.  Love of light and laughter, food and drink, wrestling and love-making drives the densely packed, punchy prose.  In the pages of Rabelais, the world is not the terrible place the Church has made it out to be.  The Church’s world-denying philosophy is shown to be unhealthy.  ‘Laugh and face it out boldly whatever it may be,’ said Rabelais.”
  • Rama & Sita – Rama was a demigod who tried to help humans evolve freely. He was from the area of modern India and was disposed of his kingdom after the flood, but he did not want to regain his throne.  “The story of Rama encourages us to see beyond the conventional, to imagine ourselves into the mind of others and also, ultimately, to think for ourselves.”  For the betterment of humanity Rama could not remain with Sita and rule the world.  Through Rama and Sita we learn that “All love, if it is true love, involves a letting go.”
  • Ramon Lull, Doctor Illuminatus
  • Raphael
  • Rasputin
  • Richard the Lionheart, grandson of Guillaume of Poitiers
  • Robert Boyle
  • Robert Fludd
  • Robert Hooke
  • Roger Bacon, Doctor Mirabilis
  • Rosenbreuz, Christian (CRC) (1378 -1485) and the Rosicrucians – initiated into the secrets of the Sufis. He translated into Latin The Liber M, or Book of the World, said to contain the past and future history of the world.  He started the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, or Rosicrucians.  The Rosicrucians were the stuff of great legends.  Supposedly they knew ‘the secrets of nature’ and could command disembodied beings and exert their will magically, which they did mostly for the sake of performing healing miracles.  They could also supposedly read minds, understand all languages, make themselves invisible and project living images of themselves over great distances.
  • Rudolf Steiner
  • Salvador Dali
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  • Schubert
  • Shakespeare
  • Siddhartha/the Buddha
  • Solomon of the Bronze Age
  • Stoker, Bram (1847-1912) – Irish author who wrote Dracula. He was a member of the OTO – the Ordo Templi Orientis – a secret society practicing ceremonial magic.
  • Swedenborg, Emmanuel (1688-1772) – 18th century Swedish visionary, theologian, diplomat and inventor and the leading esoteric Freemason of the age.  He wrote detailed accounts of his journeys into the spirit worlds.  He was the first to discover the cerebral cortex and ductless glands, and he also engineered what is still the largest dry dock in the world.  He experimented with breathing techniques and sexual practices that enhanced his ability to experience the spirit worlds.
  • Teresa of Avila
  • Thomas Aquinas
  • Tutankhamen
  • Umberto Eco
  • Valentine Andae
  • Virgil (70 BC-19B C) – the great initiate poet of the founding and destiny of Rome
  • Voltaire
  • Walt Whitman
  • Walter Russell
  • William Blake
  • William Harvey
  • William Keats
  • William Wordsworth
  • Wu-Tang Clan
  • Yeats
  • Zarathustra & Zoroastrianism – There are two Zarathustras. One coming from the region we call Iran in 5067 BC, the other dates back to around 600 BC.  The wizard archetype with the cloak covered with stars and planets began with him.  He was a “sort of post-Flood mirror image of Enoch.”
  • Zeus – brother of Poseidon; called Jupiter by the Romans. Two of his children were Apollo and Athena.

 

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