the silent night, lit by the cool, beautiful light of the stars. A land under that Northern star,
whence blew the sweet winds that cooled the feverish desert air. A land of wholesome greenery,
far, far away. Where were no scheming and malignant priesthood; whose ideas were to lead to
power through gloomy temples and more gloomy caverns of the dead, through an endless ritual of
death! A land where love was not base, but a divine possession of the soul! Where there might be
some one kindred spirit which could speak to hers through mortal lips like her own; whose being
could merge with hers in a sweet communion of soul to soul, even as their breaths could mingle in
the ambient air! I know the feeling, for I have shared it myself. I may speak of it now, since the
blessing has come into my own life. I may speak of it since it enables me to interpret the feelings,
the very longing soul, of that sweet and lovely Queen, so different from her surroundings, so high
above her time! Whose nature, put into a word, could control the forces of the Under World; and
the name of whose aspiration, though but graven on a star-lit jewel, could command all the
powers in the Pantheon of the High Gods. And in the realisation of that dream she will surely be
content to rest!
In Love and Patience we are taught the secret of true immortality - not the repulsive
reanimation of corpses ( anastasis nekron) of Christianity, nor the vague confusion of
reincarnationists - but the infinite radiance of one’s MindStar by its most magnificent
expression, and with a serene transcendence of natural time.
The last two souls are unique in that they must arise from the individual, and require initiate
consciousness to do so, per the formula Xepera Xeper Xeperu (“I Have Come Into Being and
Created That Which Has Come Into Being.”).
7. Sekhem
The neter-emanation. While the term sekhem is ordinarily translated as “power”, this is
misleading, because it is power in a very rarified sense - that emanating from the neteru
themselves. For this reason it is also described as “the power of the stars” through which the
neteru manifest in the natural universe. The sekhem combines with the ab (as, in effect, a temple
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within one’s consciousness), to draw down the essence of one or more adored neteru to indwell
therein.
Activation of the sekhem has another effect: every incidence infuses the Initiate with more of
the neter invoked, to the cumulative degree that the Initiate’s personality becomes accented by
the neter’s: seeing as that neter sees, speaking as that neter would speak, acting as that neter
would act. Hence it is the sekhem which makes possible, and ultimately consecrates priesthood
of a neter in the individual so aligned. Once this transformation has taken place, it cannot be
undone; at most it may be sublimated or repressed, but only at great cost to the priest’s or
priestess’ very sanity.
8. Akh
The star-emanation. Beyond the priesthood of the sekhem is the akh, in which the Initiate
rises to the company of the neteru as one of their essence, if not of them absolutely. Such one is
indistinguishable from the actual neteru except by the neteru themselves. Such a mode of
existence departs completely from all concern with physical displacement within natural-
universal references or boundaries, manifestation, or action, and affects otherness only by the
radiance of its presence. While it does not destroy any of the other emanations, it permeates all
of them, such that henceforth they all exist in conformity and concert with it.
L. Consciousness
Having established and defined the OU/SU environment in which existence occurs, it is next
necessary to discuss who or what exists to perceive and interact with this environment. A
phenomenon of distinction from that environment is essential, and it must be aware of itself to
recognize and appreciate that distinction. It is inherently a function, not a thing, traditionally
called “consciousness”.
Consciousness is both easy and difficult to establish - easy because its presence is obvious:
the mere awareness [of self and/or anything else] characteristic of a living, sentient being.
Having achieved this realization, the possessors of consciousness have found its constitution
maddeningly elusive.
Over the centuries theologians, philosophers, and scientists have sought to portray and
advocate consciousness as something either supporting or refuting the existence of what is really
their concern: the “soul”.
1. Metaphysics: Consciousness as an Entity
Since conventional theology regards consciousness as “the soul in action”, it has generally
been happy to just blur the two concepts into a single, nothing-further-needed axiom of religious
faith.
Philosophers seeking to escape the label of such mere faith found that the moment they
strayed from the simple act of self-awareness, they were actually addressing other issues, such as
whether physical sensory input is/was occurring, whether such input is reliable, and indeed
whether the mental processing of concepts and information (e.g. “thought”) should somehow be
either a requirement or evidence of awareness. René Descartes’ famous “cogito ergo sum” (= I
think, therefore I am) is an example of such off-the-mark confusion; arguments both pro and
con this maxim have all focused on the act of thinking rather than mere self-awareness.
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2. Physics: Consciousness as an Illusion
Modern physical science is adamantly materialistic; any hint of a metaphysical presence or
activity is tantamount to heresy. If consciousness exists, therefore, it must be explainable [away]
as the physical brain generating some form of illusory self-imagery.
In support of this theory, scientists note that if the brain is anæsthetized, the individual
“blacks out”. Also when the body and brain sleep, consciousness either blacks out or becomes
merely a spectator to hallucination (e.g. dreaming).
Upon examination both of these scientific claims fail to be conclusive. As ordinary
consciousness is accustomed to being reactive to physical sensory input, the sudden muting of all
such input by anæsthesia throws the consciousness into a sudden non-sensory mode with which
it has no experience. The result is temporary inactivity, though below the level of sensory
imagery it continues to receive stimulus signals from the physical body.
In certain anæsthesia applications, moreover, the body’s transmissions to the consciousness
are muted while that consciousness remains alert and communicative. If it were merely a
function of the body’s normal physical sensory processes, this would not occur.
Where sleep and dreaming are concerned, it has already been established that the quality and
coherence of the act of thinking is an entirely different concern than self-awareness per se.
Where ordinary sleep and dreaming are concerned, once again awareness must not be
confused with thinking. In short, the random imagination characteristic of dreams, or the
absence of such experiences if the resting brain has so lowered its sensory transmissions, has no
relevance to awareness. Being self-aware does not require this to be continuous.
3. Inconsequence
The phenomenon of
self-awareness is as a simple incident essential to validating the
distinction between the individual and the OU. Beyond this, however, it is not a component of
either a “soul” or the physical brain/body which can be used to verify either premise. Indeed in
the search for the “soul” awareness is something of a red herring, being confused with the
thinking process by agenda-advocates.
4. The Platonic “Pyramid of Thought”
The concept of an individual’s transcending a “threshold of consciousness” is among the most
ancient of recorded human experience. In various cultures and countries it has been known as
“initiation”, “enlightenment”, “illumination”, “awakening”, etc. [This is not the same thing as
bodily “rites of passage” involving puberty/admission to an adult community. Those of course
happen to all in that community; by contrast only a relative few encounter and confront
initiation.]
Human consciousness consists of both self-awareness and the sensation of phenomena that
are “not the self”. At the most base level, these are little more than instinct and stimulus/
response. An individual can [and many do] go through an entire physical lifetime in this mode of
dull relaxation. In Book VII of his Republic Plato symbolized this as a “cave” in which ordinary
humanity is “chained facing the inner wall, on which only faint reflections can be seen”. The
initiate (Plato’s “philosopher”) breaks free or is freed by an initiator. What he then confronts and
experiences is the challenge, ordeal, and promise of initiation, as summarized by Raghavan Iyer
in his Parapolitics:
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The upward ascent, which involves pain and struggle, will only be valid because of an
exact correspondence between levels of reality, modes of knowing, and states of being.
Who a man is reflects and determines what he really knows, which is connected with
what he regards as real.
Man determines what and to what degree things, objects of desire, and values will be
real for him. To this extent it is tempting to agree with Protagoras that “man is the
measure of all things”.
But as a reality-assigning agent, man is confronted with the philosophical question
which Protagoras, a sophist and epistemological relativist, did not face: What is it about
the world of nature that allows the existence of such a reality-assigning agent?
There must be a sense in which there is a reality independent of individual minds
and wills. There is also a subtle interplay between the reality that cannot be wholly
grasped by the individual, and his own capacity to make that reality come alive through
the self-conscious exercise of his reality-assigning function. He is able to grow in a
direction that is in harmony with the whole of nature.
If a man truly embodies what is implicit in the ascent from the Cave, he must realize
the extent to which time and nature are on his side. He must prevail, but this idea of
prevailing is much subtler and more elusive than any crude conception of survival or
power.
His moral growth is marked by an increase in the intensity and potency of his power of
thought and ideation. The crucial assumption is that the mind of man, at any stage,
is engaged in a mode of participation in planes of awareness divided into
objects existing in relation to interdependent categories of space, time, and
perception.
There are four stages of cognition on the “divided line’ [between intellectual and
sensory knowledge] that may be viewed in this way.
At the lowest level of eikasia are instantaneity and localization, the prison of the
“here and now”. To be caught up in them is to be so lacking in critical distance from a
given setting that nothing else can be seen.
This mole-like life is restless, fantasy-ridden, and competitive in the extreme. It is
often characterized through analogies with rodents or insects. At this level of existence we
engage in activities demeaning to the human status and even abdicate the privilege of
being human.
Such analogies usually tend to malign animals, because people cannot do what animals
do with the natural precision of instinct. Nonetheless this stage of consciousness is quite
recognizable.
Above it lies a second stage, pistis, which is much more dangerous than the first
because it is the realm of pseudo-absolutization. It is characterized by opinions and
ideologies that are only relatively true and therefore relatively false.
The knowledge gained by comparison and contrast is contingent and not necessarily
true. Many questions relative to space and time arise. Suppose someone advances the
view that it is human nature to be selfish. One might ask what makes him say this? Where
did he pick it up? What does it mean to him? How does he interpret it? Such questions
begin to bring out the relativity of such assertions.
Human beings at this stage, however, do not like the relativity of their opinions to be
shown, and tend to convey their assertions without qualification as if they were totally
true. They are made to look like immutable maxims, although if they were they would give
strength and enable individuals or societies to maintain themselves without need of
constant reinforcement. They would not leave people afraid of questions, or unable to
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consider the possibility of other ways of formulating similar truths. But pseudo-
from outside by polls and by power, by this, that, and the other.
In the third stage, dianoia, there are still limitations of space and time, but with a
relative freedom from the “here and now”, and a cleaving to universal generalizations of
given axioms.
The supreme example is mathematics. Yet even the most central axioms in
mathematics are conventional, and are based upon apparently arbitrary assumptions.
In the third stage the degree of freedom from the relativities of space and time may be
secured at the cost of being unaware of lurking presuppositions which can act as mental
blinders. This problem can be mitigated by critical distance wherein assumptions serve as
aids to further questioning, leading to their step-by-step removal by treating them as
hypotheses and stairways of ascent until the fourth stage is reached, or at least sensed.
The fourth stage is nœsis, in which there is almost total freedom from the ordinary
limitations of space and time.
There is a need to be flexible in formulation to progress beyond the third stage. But
once the fourth stage is entered, there is a ready recognition that what is true without
qualification can only be incompletely articulated or partially intimated at lesser levels. It
can be embodied, but only imperfectly. Stenzel has described how “just as in the strict
sense there cannot be an appearance of the Good, so in the end there cannot be opinion
about it; the true Good can never become an object of opinion because it is an
unconditional final end”. 61
Magister Bruce Ware of the Temple of Set has succinctly summarized Plato’s “Pyramid of
Thought” thus:
In his quest to define a Philosopher-King, Plato must necessarily define wisdom, and it
is this effort of definition that generates the Platonic epistemology consisting of the
Forms, the four types of cognitive capabilities (also called the faculties, or in Greek
“dynameis”) and their fields of objects.
For Plato the highest and most fundamental faculty was noesis (sapience); its field of
objects was of the Forms themselves. For humans noesis is “the capacity for
knowing” (Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1170a 16). “It is satisfactory to call science and
reasoning ( episteme and dianoia), taken together, knowing ( noesis)” (Plato, Republic
533e).
Noesis is the full exercise of all the faculties of the reasoning mind. It comes intact
from the Greek, where it means “thought”, based on the verb noein (to think). The Latin
equivalent may be “cogito” or “sapientia”. Note that this word usually is translated as
“intelligence”, but I have determined that the word “sapience” is closer to what the
various writers were referring, while “intelligence” seems to have become a rather vague
term in recent years.
Dianoia (thinking) is the second faculty, reasoning, especially practical thought; the
Latin equivalent is “ratio” (meaning something closer to “calculation”). Its field of objects
is the human mind’s capability of generating conceptual definitions of the Forms. Plato:
“The converse of the soul with itself, without speech, is what we called thought ( dianoia).”
In the analogy of the Divided Line, Plato explains the difference between noesis and
dianoia:
61 Iyer, Raghavan, Parapolitics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, pages #43-46.
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But you want to distinguish that part of the real and intelligible which is studied
by the science ( episteme) of dialectic as having greater clarity than that studied by
what are called “sciences” ( technai). These technai treat their assumptions as first
principles and - though compelled to use dianoia and not sense-perception in
surveying their subject matter, because they proceed in their investigations from
assumptions and not to a first principle - they do not exercise noesis on (those
technai), even though with the aid of first principles they are intelligible. And I