Journey to the Centre of the Self - An Expedition into the Soul, Understanding the nature of the self and overcoming emotional trauma through holistic healing, spiritual practice and psychology - 4: You Are What You Eat

Quite literally, everything we eat and drink affects our bodies in ways we can even begin to imagine, and this physiological effect has a knock-on consequence for our mental, emotional and spiritual states as well. In fact, it's not just what we consume which affects us, but also the air we breathe, the people we interact with, the places we go and our exposure to certain energy such as concentrated electromagnetic fields from electricity pylons. All of this affects our bodies and our emotions, and I will briefly explain some of the things that I have discovered in the last couple of months regarding this.

As I mentioned in a previous article in this series, I was tested for diabetes, hypoglycemia, anemia, and other such blood related issues which could have contributed to or caused my emotional imbalance; I tested negative for the above, but found that I had sub-clinical hypothyroidism which was so minor that it could not have caused the issues which I faced. After some deep thought and discussion with my wife, we decided to look at other lifestyle factors, and perhaps experiment with tiny changes to see if this helped to improve matters; of course, the first thing we looked at was diet. Despite my blood sugar levels being fine, as well as my cholesterol, white blood count and platelets, I discovered via some articles in the British Medical Journal, that there are in fact many different types of sugars which affect our bodies in different ways. I had been ingesting the most common form of processed white cane sugar in high quantities which, other than registering in my blood test as normal, was wreaking havoc in my system by inhibiting release of certain hormones which was affecting my endocrine system. I immediately changed to organic natural brown sugar in small quantities and noticed an improvement within two weeks, though this extended only so far as not feeling sick in the mornings, not having the sensation of being full of thick, viscous liquid being squeezed with every movement. My next major change was the consumption of a considerably higher volume of water. Dehydration is the most common cause of 80% of all ailments recorded by GPs in the UK according to the BMJ, for it can result in migraines, nausea, muscle pain, hallucinations, mood swings, depression, hair thinning/loss, weight gain or fluctuating weight, dry/itchy skin rashes, stomach and mouth ulcers, weak immune system resulting in susceptibility to infections, and loss of apatite despite feeling hungry no matter how much you eat. I realised that I had experienced many of the above symptoms, and so took immediate action, drinking my recommended 2-2.5 litres (4-5 pints) of water per day in accordance with my height and weight ratio. within two days, the headaches stopped, my ecsthma went away, my energy levels increased and I felt generally healthier which had a positive effect on my moods overall. If there is one lifestyle change I would recommend to every person, and I mean every person as it benefits everyone in the same way, it would be to cut out fizzy drinks and drink more water, at least a two litre bottle every day; it has helped me tremendously and I know it will help you too.

As well as changing my diet to include less processed sugars and drinking more water, I also looked at how the colour of food can also be an indicator of what one needs to heal the body and soul. For this I looked to Indian and East Asian traditions, and the Chakra system which aids in governing the processes of the human body. for those of you who haven't looked at Chakras, they are basically points or vortexes of energy in the body which influence the glands in the corresponding areas. For example, the Root Chakra, located at the base of the spine, governs one's survival instincts such as the fight or flight response and the need for food etc., by affecting the lumbar system and the adrenal glands and other such internal systems which govern our ability to adapt and survive, while the Sacral Chakra influences our sexuality, parental instincts and aggression due to its link with the gonads, testicles and prostate gland in males, and the ovaries in females. Each Chakra is associated with a colour in the light spectrum due to the energetic frequencies which they emit, thus the Root is Red, the Sacral is Orange, the Solar Plexus (personality, creativity and confidence) is Yellow etc., progressing through green, blue, indigo and violet respectively. with this information in mind, it is easy to see how the Vedic and ancient Chinese traditions came to use red fruit to stimulate the Root Chakra and green or blue fruit to counteract the root Chakra while stimulating the Heart and Throat Chakras. I used this idea to determine which fruits and vegetables to eat; I focused on each of the negative aspects of my health and my thought processes to uncover which Chakras were the most out of balance (either overactive or blocked), and ate the fruits and vegetables of the colours which corresponded to those Chakras. I ate white grapes and green apples to stimulate my Heart Chakra which was blocked by fear and anger emanating from an overactive Root and Sacral. I ate blueberries to improve my eyesight and ease my dreams as they are deep blue like the Third Eye Chakra, and I drank lemon and grapefruit juice to stimulate an under active Solar Plexus for creativity and self confidence. Grapes and Apples help to thin the blood, preventing thrombosis and encouraging healthy cardiac function (helps the Heart), while also relieving blood pressure preventing stress and anxiety (counteracting the Root); Blueberries are rich in Vitamin B12 which stimulates blood flow around the ocular muscles and strengthens neuron-transmission through the optic nerve (helps the eyes), while also stimulating secretion of melonin which is the building block for serotonin and melatonin, as well as dimethyltryptamine from the pineal gland resulting in more regular, restful sleep with vividly lucid dreams (helps the Third Eye); Lemon juice is full of antioxidants and helps to detox the body resulting in good digestive health, clearer skin and stronger hair and teeth, resulting in an increase in confidence (helps the Solar Plexus). This to some may seem like mere coincidence, but in my experience, there is no such thing as coincidence. The ancients knew that colour correspondent food could heal the Chakras, and this is being backed up by modern science, albeit in a different way, and I have experienced this first hand and can attest to the noticeable health benefits of eating consciously in accordance with the Chakra system.

Speaking of Chakras, that brings me to my next contributing factor in physical and emotional illness, energy. I was told by a friend online a long time ago that I have experienced too much negative energy in my past and that it has been stored up inside and stagnated resulting in my generally pessimistic attitude. She told me that I needed to clear this negative energy and suggested Reiki. Reiki is an Eastern practice in which the Master/Healer 'feels' the energy emitted from the Chakras to find out which of them is out of balance, and then proceeds to project his/her energy into those Chakras to restore them to their optimum function. This may sound like new age mumbo jumbo, but the practice (or others very similar) can be traced back thousands of years to Shamanic Healers stretching from Europe to China, from Siberia to Indonesia. I have had only one experience of Reiki treatment, but the intensity of the therapy has convinced me of its effectiveness. I will write about the experience in full in a separate article, as well as other experiences of meditations, rituals and encounters with spirit. Suffice to say that the treatment relieved pains which had plagued me for years, back pain from slouching, chest pain from damaging my ribs as a child, shoulder pain from dislocating the joint two years earlier, all of it just melted away. As well as my physical pain, I also felt my emotional pain slip away, I felt lighter as though a load had been lifted from my chest, and my sadness and anger simply weren't there anymore despite the memories still being at the front of my mind. I felt happy and healthy, as I did when I was with my wife and my friends and could forget the pain, only this time I was present and could perceive the difference. This demonstrated to me that we, humans, are not just sacks of meat animated by electrical impulses, but rather that we are 'energetic' beings also, being governed by and embodying subtle energy on numerous dimensions. This opened my eyes to how people interact with the world and each other. For example, social studies demonstrate that the poorest members of western society live in or near heavily industrialised areas, and that it is in these areas when a majority of crime is committed and where one may find a majority of dysfunctional families. This could be because people with money don't want to live in industrial towns and so the prices there are lower so poorer people can afford to live there, and the only reason they are dysfunctional and resort to crime is due to their lack of wealth, poor education and sub-standard living conditions, however I see it the other way around; such people are poor and uneducated due to the situations they were raised in by the previous generation, but they develop neuroses and become dysfunctional because of the area they are raised in, polluted with chemical fumes and electromagnetic interference from telegraph poles, electricity pylons and heavy machinery in factory buildings, all of which pollutes the body on an energetic level as well as a physical level. This leads to generally poor health, thyroid conditions, obesity, heart trouble, as well as addictions to alcohol, drugs and gambling. The body is unable to heal itself because the internal organs and glands are not working as they should due to pollution and unbalanced Chakras. In contrast, people who live away from industrialised areas tend to be generally more relaxed and friendly, if somewhat suspicious of strangers. families in rural areas appear to be stronger with less domestic disturbances, and addictions are less frequently seen. Of course this is a general overview and there are notable exceptions to this on both sides, but the point remains the same, we are heavily influenced by the energetic output of the world around us.

We are not just what we eat, but also what we say and do and feel. If one were to walk into a room full of strangers, and every person in the room was in a really bad mood, even if they said nothing and sat still in an effort to hide their negative mood, the room would still be charged with their emotions emanating outwards; in the same way, if everyone in the room were excited for an event but had to sit in silence like waiting for a book signing in a Library, then the room would be charged with anticipation and excitement, even if one can not see it on the surface. If we operate on the assumption that people absorb as much energy as they emit, then it is reasonable to assume the by being in the presence of one or more negative people, one is being poisoned with negative emotions and thoughts via those people's energetic fields. This would explain what my friend meant when she said 'too much negativity', the people I was surrounded by in childhood were often drunks and drug users, sometimes violent individuals and criminals, but this energy was counteracted by the positive emotions emitted from other members of family who took care of me, by my friends who didn't know anything about the troubles, by the animals I spent time with. This is another key to my shift in health, spending time in nature; I love being outside, always have; in fields, woods, hills, by steams or by the sea, in the mountains and wherever there is plenty of plant and animal life. I believe that this is because of the positive energy that plants and animals emit, and that this energy has helped to neutralise the negative emotions locked up in my unconscious mind.From a Psychological point of view, this is simply a form of escapism, seeking seclusion in nature to forget the troubles of day to day life. This is incorrect as far as I am concerned, for it is in these periods of seclusion and escape that I contemplate that which has come before, when I can face up to what troubles me and understand it and in doing so, overcome my own issues; and the only reason I can do this is because I have been emotionally and spiritually grounded by the plants, animals and people around me.

In conclusion, I have discovered through my own research and experience that my ill emotional and psychological health has been due, in part, to chemical imbalances in my body, and even further through energetic imbalances resulting from my past experiences and the people I have grown up around. I have discovered that water plays a huge role in balancing the body, even on an energetic level for reasons which are too numerous to list in this article, I instead direct you to this wonderful video from the Spirit Science team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtDennZr5fA. I have witnessed the power of 'sympathetic magick' through the corresponding colours of food with the Chakras and I have succeeded in tempering my emotions by focusing on my physical and spiritual well being and surrounding myself with positive people which has helped to ground me in order to discuss openly and understand internally all that has caused my lack of control. Of course the issue is still present, but it is much easier to deal with lately, and when I feel the stirrings of frustration or anger I can reign it in and keep it in check. Now I must find a way to neutrilise such feelings completely or channel them into other things such as martial arts. I shall continue to look at other alternative therapies and keep you updated on my progress at each step on the journey. Until then, to all of you, I wish you the very best for the New Year. May the Gods watch over you and be with you always.

Enki Endymion. O(

Journey to the Centre of the Self - An Expedition into the Soul, Understanding the nature of the self and overcoming emotional trauma through holistic healing, spiritual practice and psychology - 3: Probable Cause

“There is a means to every end, a root to any cause. Sometimes the root is more evil than any cause, though it’s the cause that is usually the most vilified” – Michael Connelly, The Poet.

As mentioned at the end of my previous article in this series, I have recently had a series of blood tests for hypoglycaemia, diabetes and anaemia. The results of these tests were clear for the most part, though one did reveal that I have sub-clinical hypothyroidism which can result in sensitivity to temperature changes, dramatic changes in appetite, cognitive function and mood. However, when I asked if my case was severe enough to cause the immense swings in physical and emotional stability, my GP simply laughed and replied, “it was barely picked up in the test, it is highly unlikely that what you describe is as a result of hypothyroidism to such a small degree.” At this point I feel it is safe to rule out blood related conditions as a cause of chemical imbalance in the brain. If my troubles are resulting from such a chemical imbalance, then I feel it is likely congenital in a similar vein to autism or bipolar disorder. This is something which I will research in more depth later on.

While examining the various triggers for my emotional fluctuations is indeed insightful, it is merely an observation of that which is symptomatic of a much deeper problem. I am, for instance, not prone to angry outbursts in response to spilt milk because I genuinely despise the spilling of milk, but the spilling of the milk triggers an outburst because it is but one example of my flaws as a human being; though the spillage may not have been the direct result of my own clumsiness, for some reason my mind interprets that event as such, and thus I become frustrated at myself, despite not being to blame. But again, this is but one step on the ladder which descends to the darkest roots of the problem. My frustration at my perceived ineptitude stems from a deep rooted self-hatred, which is a direct result of a number of contributing factors from my childhood:

1. I blame myself for the instability of my family. This is highly irrational, but it is typical of children growing up in unstable environments to feel responsible for the unrest between their parents, and given the impressionable nature of a child’s mind, this idea becomes encoded in the subconscious and can last long into the person’s adult life if left unchecked.

2. My inadequacies were repeatedly highlighted as a child, and I was regularly scolded for my lack of understanding or ability to follow instructions which were far beyond my level of comprehension. As a result, I have been subconsciously programmed to judge myself harshly against a set of unrealistically high standards which, when they are not met, triggers an emotional response similar to that which was directed towards me by adults in my youth.

3. My inability to perform certain tasks acts as a constant reminder that I am only human. As odd as this may sound, for everyone knows that they are only human and that all humans have flaws, I immersed myself in a fantasy in which I was capable of anything as a means of escaping the perceived reality of being unable to live up to the expectations of my elders. In doing so I could forget that I was inadequate and pretend that I was not a disappointment in order to make myself feel better emotionally, and of course some remnant of that childhood fantasy endured and solidified in my subconscious mind so that when it is broken, it reminds me that I, at least in my own mind, was always inadequate which brings back those feelings of self-hatred, anger and guilt.

By the same token, my propensity towards aggression in arguments stems from my witnessing such behaviour as a child, and thus coming to the conclusion at that early age that such behaviour is not only acceptable, but also the only effective method of prevailing over another of an opposing outlook. For years I saw my elders overcome domestic arguments with both verbal and physical violence, which left an imprint on my psyche, especially in my early teens when this behaviour became directed at me. Naturally a simple argument would descend into a verbal slanging match, with me merely replicating what I had seen and heard so many times before, and eventually escalate into spontaneous bouts of lashing out at one another until we ended the conflict with one or both us in pain and tears. These encounters were never the result of a premeditated resolution to hurt one another, but rather just happened as a result of both of our instinctual reactions coming into play in response to certain psychological stimuli. It would appear that many of my more problematic emotional traits are in fact inherited from my mother, perhaps through genetics, or perhaps through environmental conditioning and mirror neuron response. It is difficult to know, though I am inclined to think it is due to both in equal measure, for she too suffered trauma in her early teens which I will not discuss for that is her history, not mine. Another reason for my aversion towards aggression is likely due to a desire to establish authority or control over a situation based on the mirrored behaviour of my parents. I suppose it’s true that often the victim of bullying becomes the bully, for I find myself demanding obedience and respect from those around me where it is not due, and my anger flares up when people do not conform to my way of thinking or behaving, just as I saw my elders become angry when people didn’t do as they wanted; so it occurs almost naturally for me to become angry and resort to aggression when things or people don’t go as I want them to.

So, my short temper and explosive rage is partly due to being mentally scarred by witnessing domestic violence, and partly due simply to bad parenting? That may be so, but I can’t help but be plagued by the same questions that I posed in the last article. If that were the case then surely I would have adopted other behavioural traits such as alcoholism, drug abuse, contempt for society and a penchant for rebellion? It is my intention to circumvent this problem with reference to some controversial science, the dichotomy of Nature versus Nurture. As I have outlined above, the “Nurture” aspect of my psychology is wholly inadequate to explain why I have adopted one set of personality traits but not others, and so it is to the “Nature” aspect that we must now shift our focus, the nature of hereditary personality traits through genetics. To begin I will examine my Mother’s side of the family. She herself has a very short temper, as well as a disregard for authority and a weakness for alcohol. Her mother, my grandmother, has none of these traits and is instead a kind, patient and docile woman with a great degree of self-discipline. Instead we should look to my grandfather, who does have a short temperament, enjoys his drink in moderation and can become very hot headed just like his father before him. Both were military men, and both held old fashioned values regarding discipline of children. This, one might assume, is the root of the problem; but it’s not quite the whole picture. My mother’s brother, far from being a chip off the old block, is less prone to letting his emotions get the better of him. He is indeed ruthless when it comes to getting what he wants, and he is impatient, but he rarely loses his temper over anything. This directly contradicts the assumption that genetic traits in the paternal strain are passed directly to the next generation of males and thus bypassing any female offspring. Instead the complete opposite has happened and the female has adopted more personality traits from the father while the male has adopted traits from the mother.

While this may not aid in discounting the role of genetic predisposition in my own behaviour, it does demonstrate how genetics can be overridden, just as many of the environmental factors have been overridden in my situation. Therefore, it could be concluded that neither genetics nor environment are fully responsible for our behavioural composition; but before we jump to that conclusion, let us now look at my father’s side of the gene pool. My father is a man prone to stress, yet his inability to stop himself from working acts as a major contributing factor to this. Despite this he is patient, persistent and well disciplined, as well as a perfectionist which explains his being a workaholic. Neither he, nor either of his parents has any problems with their temper, and all are extremely patient and willing to persevere in order to help others. Finally, none of them have any kind of addiction. Despite my not knowing my father or his family for over twenty years, I seem to have inherited many, if not most of his personality traits as I have grown up, being guided away from certain behaviours which were prevalent in my mother. So why is it, that my genetic makeup is configured in such a way as to guide me on the better path? How, having no contact with my father and being raised by my mother, have I adopted most of the traits of the former? While I cannot deny that genetic predisposition plays a huge role in my behaviour, I cannot help but feel that my “acceptance” of some genetic traits and my “rejection” of others is influenced by something outside of and greater than myself. One explanation for this comes from the scientist Rupert Sheldrake in his thought provoking literary work The Science Delusion with his theory of “Morphic Resonance”. This theory postulates that all beings and objects of the same kind develop in accordance with the collective “memory” of all others that have come before them; so a rat in London will learn a new skill, after which time all other rats around the world, having had no contact with the first rat, would begin to learn the same skill with greater ease all at the same time, and the more rats that learn the skill, the faster all other rats around the world learn it. In the same way, it might be possible that I have adopted aspects of my father’s behaviour, and the behaviour of his parents before him through the principle of Morphic Resonance, without having any contact with any of them and without being told of their behaviours in order to emulate them. I simply am like them in so many ways. This theory is still in its infancy however, so I cannot comment on this further at this point in time.

Whatever the cause of my psychological, emotional and behavioural composition, I do feel that the number 3 has significance throughout the universe – 3 primary colours, red, blue and yellow; 3 primary categories of growing things, animal, vegetable, mineral; 3 states of elements, solid, liquid, gas, etc. - and I have come to the understanding that every individual on this Earth is constructed from three primary sources; the genetics of his or her parents, the environment in which he or she is raised, and predetermined intention of an external force or consciousness. This may seem like quite an absurd assumption with no fundamental basis in relation to that which I have discussed hitherto, I have accumulated enough life experience, as well as knowledge from a veritable library of books to come to the conclusion that the fore-mentioned statement is a fact of life that is little recognised by the vast majority of people. While my behavioural and emotional states can, for the most part, be attributed to the genetic inheritance from my parents, the very fact that another part of my genetics guided me away from succumbing to the influences of my immediate environment demonstrates to me that those elements that we inherit from our progenitors are not entirely random, but rather selected by something beyond our physical being, or at the very least influenced by some external force or energy. So what is it that makes me...me? What truly influences the formation of our genetic code? What is it that selects those elements of that code and constructs them in such a way as to determine what kind of people we will grow up to be, regardless of adverse living conditions and potential negative influence of our parents and peers? This is what I will be examining and contemplating through the course of the next few articles, though some thought must first be directed towards contributing factors of a more terrestrial nature, such as diet and exercise. For now, there is a lot of research, soul searching and introspection to be done, so I will be back with my next installment soon. Love, light and peace to all.

Enki Endymion. O(

Travelling Through the Ether - A Mystical Experience

“The thing that is so powerful about psychedelics is that they perform on demand, which almost in principle you cannot expect of a mystical experience because that would be essentially man ordering God at man’s whim, which is not how it’s supposed to work.” – Terence McKenna.

There is much that can be said for leading a normal life; some say it is the best way to live, some say that normal is safe and therefore the better way to be, others complain that normal is just too boring for them. But no matter how normal or adventurous you life is, it will never be quite the same after having a mystical experience.

Many people misunderstand the word ‘Mystical’ and often associate it with ‘Mythical’, passing it off as the stuff of fairy tales and superstition; but the origin of the word comes from Middle English and was first recorded in writing in the early 1600’s, meaning ‘hidden meaning’, thus its close knit relationship with the word ‘Occult’ which also means ‘hidden/concealed’. Mystical experience is anything which ‘inspires a sense of spiritual mystery, awe or fascination’ and can also be defined as that which has ‘spiritually symbolic or allegorical meaning which transcends human understanding.’ In truth, mystical experiences do not transcend our understanding, they simply challenge it, and force our minds to work in ways we never knew or believed they could. Don’t be misled by my opening citation; mystical experience is not solely dependent on psychedelics to be attained, but this is one of the fastest methods through which shamanic practitioners can project the consciousness into other dimensions of perception. Alternative methods for attaining mystical experience are dancing, chanting, rhythmic drumming, meditation, hypnosis, breathing exercises, Yoga, Thai Chi, mantra, drawing Sacred Geometry, sun/moon gazing, scrying (in flames, reflections etc.) and practicing lucid dreaming. All of the practices listed above can alter the wavelength in the human brain, stimulating heightened perception, hallucination, precognition, telepathic communication and Out-of-Body experiences (O.B.E.). I will be looking at a number of methods for attaining mystical experience, and describe to the best of my ability, my recollections of those experiences for anyone who has either had an experience but doesn’t know how to make sense of it, or anyone who is thinking about trying to pursue the mystical experience.

My experiences, in order of intensity-significance ratio, lowest to highest are as follows.

1.Breathing exercise – Intensity: low-medium, started slowly then gained in intensity. Symbolic significance: Medium, simple lesson conveyed through basic symbols. I used to suffer from extreme stress to the extent of making myself physically ill. So a friend of mine suggested a couple of basic breathing exercises to calm me. I tried them whenever I felt the familiar tightness in my chest, but it only served in alleviating the anxiety for a short period of time. One day I was sitting in my bedroom, having no work to do, nothing to worry about and no one to disturb my solitude. I had this vague feeling that I should try doing the breathing exercise despite not feeling the onset of stress, but I decided to try it anyway. The little voice in the back of my mind urged me to be patient and focus on my breathing, so I inhaled slowly, counting the ticks of the clock until I hit eight, then held for two more ticks before releasing the breath slowly, counting four ticks, then finally held for another two seconds before repeating.after the first two repetitions I felt my muscles begin to relax. After eight repetitions I could no longer hear the ticking of the clock, nor any other sound beyond my breathing and the beating of my own heart. After twelve repetitions I began to see images behind my eyelids, as one does when dreaming. The images were fleeting at first, fragmented and never holding their form like whisps of smoke in the blackness of my closed eyes. I attempted to focus on them but when I did they faded, so I returned to focusing on my breathing and soon the images returned. The smoke danced and swirled and there appeared to be colour, red and blue, and then the smoke became a small bird in flight. It fluttered through the inky black and blue haze around it until it began to leave a trace, almost like a smoky trail of red which grouped together to form flames. The little bird was consumed in the flames and vanished, then the red flames merged with the blue haze turning it purple. The purple then changed, transitioning through each colour in the light spectrum until it became a mixture of orange and green from which emerged the little red bird again, as if hatching from an egg. I then felt my arm slide off of the edge of the bed as i drifted towards sleep and jolted back to full wakefulness. After the experience I looked up the symbolic meanings and correspondences of each of the colours, as well as tried to find the species of bird that I saw. After some research I learned that the bird was a Lark. Larks are associated with the sun and daybreak. They are known primarily for their beautiful singing and represent the warmth and vitality of the sun and therefore are correspondent with the direction South. This ties into the fact that the Lark was red, which is the colour associated with the South and the alchemical element of Fire. This represents masculine energy and vitality and again is sun related. The message of the vision was to openly express and manifest my male creative energy through music. The blue haze represents stability, wisdom, loyalty and communication hence its association with the Throat Chakra; so the red flames merging with the blue signifies the application of the creative energy to communicate wisdom or knowledge to others. Purple is the colour of regality and higher knowledge, attributed to the Crown Chakra; from manifesting my ideas in the world I will elevate my consciousness. The colours changing to a mix of orange and green can be symbolic of the Chakras again, for between the Sacral Chakra (orange, sexual energy) and the Heart Chakra (green, love and compassion) lies the Solar Plexus Chakra (yellow) representing creative expression and self confidence from which the Lark of joy and creativity is reborn. This is just one way of interpreting the vision.

2. Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) – Intensity: medium-high, experience itself wasn’t intense but the after effects were. Symbolic significance: medium-high, too many images to remember in order and thus difficult to analyse and translate. I was introduced to the idea of DMT when I stumbled across a book in Waterstones entitled The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby. I found this book fascinating and definitely recommend reading it, for it put so much into perspective on the thorny issue or drug use versus shamanic tradition. I asked around and finally made a contact through a transfer student in my University who was able to acquire a very small amount of crystalline DMT. The substance turned to liquid very quickly under high temperature so had to be mixed with dried sage which acted as a binding component without adding any mind altering effects which would disrupt the effects of the DMT. The mixture was smoked in a pipe, yielding only two tokes, but that was perfectly sufficient. within minutes a began to feel light headed which intensified into a feeling of sea-sickness inducing very mild nausea. After about a minute of this discomfort I ‘took off’; it felt as though, despite being seated on a sofa, that my body had dropped into the seat but left my mind/spirit/consciousness standing upright. My friend had Jurassic Rock playing quietly on his laptop and the ambient sounds of guitar and keyboard carried me through the oil painting which was our dorm room with a feeling of being freed from captivity, a bliss amounting to euphoria. The sequence of images that I saw is impossible to relay accurately in full order in which I saw them, but I remember seeing a giant snake with wings, I remember flying across a vast desert on its back and seeing the clouds beneath me change into rocks then back to clouds again, transmuting the formations of nature from vapour to solid then to vapour again. I remember moving through seemingly endless tunnels of light, changing colours constantly with infinitely complex fractal geometric patterns. I recall apoint where I was seeing the music, the sounds translating into light and then into coherent visual patterns like ripples from water droplets on the surface of a still lake. All the while there was this feeling that I was accompanied by something, a hyper intelligent being which was trying to teach me things through the images I was presented with. I was taught about the structure of matter, about plants and animals, I was shown the patterns in nature, spirals and vortexes of energy, the communication between all things animate and inanimate. I tried to question what I was seeing, to have it explained to me, to keep it fixed in my mind to be studied and to make sense of it, but I was told to not ask questions, to not wonder in that moment and to simply ‘be’ and let the images come. There were dozens of other sensations and emotions, colours, shapes, images, people, places, symbols which I saw on my journey, but I cannot remember them, plus I would be here forever trying to write them all down. Over all, the visual journey itself was nowhere near as vivid or terrifying as some people have described, but it did grow in intensity, reaching a peak then slowly drifted back to wakefulness, and some of the images I recalled afterwards are ones which have been seen by many people in exactly the same way, the feathered/winged serpent for example. This suggests to me that there is some fixed nature to the ‘world’ we are transported to when on DMT, and that each experience is not entirely subject to the individual’s own mind but rather there is some objective truth which is shared by all who experience it. As stated, the after effects of the experience were more intense. When I opened my eyes, the dorm room did not seem real to me. Everything was too straight, too square, too rigid. My mind had become accustomed to perceiving the loose, free-flowing energy of the higher dimension and had difficulty in processing the static, boxed in dimensions of physical reality. It felt as though the walls wanted to bend and flex to match the way my mind was working, but they were unable to do so resulting in disorientation and a degree of frustration at the fact that I could not make the walls more fluid to ease my constrained perception. Strangely the whole experience was only supposed to last for 15-20 minutes, but I was journeying for up to 45 minutes before starting to come down. In total the effects lasted for 1 hour and 7 minutes. It was by no means an unpleasant experience, for it was mind altering, enlightening and liberating, but very difficult to translate into coherent messages unlike the vision from the breathing exercise.

3. Guided Meditation – Intensity: High, occurrences in the vision were experienced on a physical level, sounds, smells, textures and sensations. Symbolic significance: High, everything in the vision meant something or represented part of my psyche/soul/higher being. An old friend of the family spent many years as a working psychic and spiritual healer, and had ample experience in hypnotherapy and guided meditations for the purposes of Soul Retrieval. One afternoon I was visiting and our conversation came to the subject of spiritual healing. I had no experience of spiritual practice at that time, and the only internal visionary experiences I had had were random and incoherent at a young age. She suggested guiding me into my first meditation to meet my spirit guides and, in my youth and zeal, I agreed enthusiastically. I was seated in an arm chair and made comfortable. I was given a glass of water before we began, then I closed my eyes and listened. My tutor described roots growing out from the soles of my feet and digging into the ground, down through the crust of the Earth, through the mantle of lava and into the Earth’s core. She had me picture the roots sucking up the heat and the light from the molten metal sphere and channel that heat ad light back into my body, spreading up from my feet and into my legs, stomach, chest, arms, head, until finally it would erupt from the top of my head and the light would spill down around me until I was encased in a safe shell. As she described this I could feel and see in my mind, the energy moving through my body like a fiery snake. Once enveloped in the protective light field, my tutor talked me through the colours of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, having me focus on the colours in order in my mind, seeing them behind my eyes, feeling them in each part of my body. Once I had violet fixed firmly in my focus, she had me impose a shape, any shape, into my mind and to imagine myself walking towards the shape; I pictured a heart. I was guided through the centre of the heart like a door or portal and found myself standing in a field full of wild flowers of blue, pink, and white interspersed with small yellow buds. behind e was a mountain, to my left was a sunlit forest and to my right was a forest shrouded in mist and shadow. Ahead of me, sloping downhill, the field ended in the distance at the shore of a lake over which sat a red sun as if setting into the water. Above me the sky was clear and light blue but with pinky orange clouds of dusk despite there being another sun, golden and blazing at its height. I was drawn to the left hand forest so was instructed to go there either by walking, running, flying or teleporting. I could feel the grass between my bare toes (even though in the waking world I had shoes on), and I could smell the flowers. flew across the field, feeling the gut wrench of G-force at high speed and the wind rushing past me, and came to a red arch bridge across a narrow, slow moving river inhabited by little red fish swimming in circles amongst smooth, flat stones. I looked at my reflection in the water and saw that I had three pairs of dark brown wings. I marveled at them and mused on the fact that the sound of running water was so clear in my mind along with the sound of birdsong; I could even feel the wings on my shoulders as if I had phantom limbs which I could move. I then ventured into the forest, down a dirt path lined with small brown mushrooms. A stag appeared out of the bushes and jumped across the path from right to left in front of me, with seven bluebirds flying around it’s head. The path led me to a clearing in which there stood a large stone which vaguely resembled pride rock in the Lion King. upon it were carved Runes, though the words that they spelled when translated were Greek. I didn’t find this out until a long time afterwards when looking back over my original notes from the session. I sat in contemplation by the stone thinking of what to ask my spirit guide when I met it. while I was thinking, a green snake appeared in the long grass at the edge of the clearing amongst the golden saplings of Ashes and Elms. The middle of the clearing was lit by a strange golden light which didn’t come from either of the suns, and I felt its warmth on my skin. I proceeded down another path which was darker with no mushrooms or animals, until the trees thinned and I stood in a long gorge, covered in grass and wild flowers, the same as the first field. There was a pi-balled horse frolicking in the grass and a silver wolf playing with it, and the sight of the two animals in harmony filled me with a warm happy feeling making me smile inside and out. in the side of right hand cliff was a cave which wound up through the rock and came out at the top of the cliff where my spirit guide resided. I took a seat on a bench beside a campfire near the cave mouth and waited patiently. after a while a small ball of white light emerged from the cave and became an owl which perched on a post opposite me and spoke to me of my confusion, my self doubt, my anger, my feeling of inadequacy and told me that I needed to take up the path of the Hermit, to look within and travel the realms of spirit to learn my true name, who I really am and what my purpose on the Earth is. The owl presented me with a bronze crown and told me that the weight may sometimes be difficult to bear, but I must never relent or remove it from my head. We conversed for what felt like an hour, then I was instructed to go back to the field from whence I came as night was drawing near, and that I could not be there when night time approached. I retraced my steps noting slight differences along the way; in the clearing the saplings had become fully grown and perched in one of them was the owl holding the green snake dead in its beak. There was a third path which had not been there earlier which was dark and forbidding so I avoided it and went down the path to the open field on which there were no more mushrooms, but instead there were bright red berries growing on the bushes which I couldn’t eat. Back in the field I could see stars as the second sun followed the first into the lake, and in the sky I could see the heart shape I had arrived through and was drawn back through it to full wakefulness, seeing the sequence of images from the start of the meditation going in reverse until I finally opened my eyes. If anyone is interested in knowing the symbolic interpretations of this vision then do send me a message and I’ll be happy to discuss any aspect of it with you.

These are just three of many Mystical Experiences I have had over the years, and as demonstrated, my encounter with psychedelics was far from the most vivid. Try out the breathing exercise for yourself and perhaps have a friend or relative try to guide you into your own inner world. Whatever you see, hear, feel in there is a clue to who you are as a person and as a soul, and can also offer clues as to something which ails you while offering solutions to your problems. Mystical Experience is a great form of therapy and one which I would recommend to anyone, though perhaps the use of psychedelics should be avoided if possible, as UK law prohibits it’s use and depending on your personal health, it you might not have the same experience that I had. Deep meditation, particularly on symbols or images can help you connect to the energies associated with them. Rhythmic dancing and drumming helps to synchronise your body and mind to a slower wave length making it easier to achieve and altered state of consciousness. Sometimes, however, the individual doesn’t need to seek out the Mystical Experience; sometimes the experience happens randomly, triggered by some subconscious workings being realised through symbols, words, music, pictures or an emotion. This can manifest as sudden moments of clarity, inexplicable bouts of happiness and laughter, sudden appreciation for everything in life, suddenly noticing the beauty and complexity of nature, images when you close you eyes accompanied by a high pitched ringing in your ears, and even a new perspective on space and time allowing you to conduct a lot of things in your day in a very short space of time, the feeling that your day has gone when in fact only an hour has gone by while you have done so much! You may start to have extremely vivid dreams, dreams which will either feel so real that you’re not sure if you have woken up at the end, dreams which come to pass a short time later, dreams in which a person will appear whom you have not seen for a long time only to bump into them in waking life. All of this is classed as Mystical Experience, and all of this is possible if you are willing to open yourself up to the possibility. I hope this has inspired you or given you some ideas. In all that you do, all that you are, and all that you will become, I wish you good luck. Namaste!

Enki Endymion. O(

Defining and Defiling the Sacred - The Devolution of Humanity's connection to Spirit

Often I hear people asking "is nothing Sacred anymore?" and I find myself wondering whether people take the word Sacred for granted. In a world where materialistic atheism is the order of the day, and where the drive for progress and expansion results in the abandonment of tradition, the word 'Sacred' is one which has been severely devalued almost to the point of being a mere colloquialism.

The origin of the word 'Sacred' is found in ancient Latin with the word 'Sacer' meaning 'holy'. other words derived from this include 'Sacrare' denoting 'to devote' and 'Sacren' meaning 'to consecrate'. 'Sacred' widely refers to that which is properly dedicated to a person or deity with the purpose of veneration at the centre of one's daily life. In ancient Rome, as well as in many other ancient cultures, the lives of the people, from the bottom of society to the top, revolved around service to and worship of the Gods and the divine order of the Universe. It was believed that the Gods governed every aspect of their lives in accordance with the divine order, from commerce to safe travel, to longevity of household items, to victory in battle. Worshiping the Gods was quite literally a matter of life and death as far as the ancient world was concerned, and therefore it was seen fit that particular objects, texts and places be dedicated solely for use in service to the higher powers. A devotee of Mars would likely have an altar to the God of War and Victory, and upon the altar would be placed an array of items which could not be touched or moved except for when conducting a ceremonial act to the God. This in and of itself rendered such items as Sacred. Furthermore, said items would have had to have been blessed in accordance with the tenets laid down by the priesthood for them to be worthy of dedication to the specific God/Goddess. The act of blessing an object or place with the pure intention of honouring a tradition held by one's ancestors for centuries imbues them with heavenly power, making them infinitely more valuable than any mundane item. In this sense, a dagger forged from Iron would be more valuable than one of Gold for the simple reason that Iron is a metal which is directly linked to the God of War, so if said Iron dagger was used in dedication to Him, it would become even more sacred. The same was true of buildings, caves or forest groves which were prepared and consecrated solely for the use of the initiated to venerate the Gods and their divine order; to enter such a site without due respect or appreciation for its function and significance was to corrupt the site with worldly ignorance and interrupt the connection between the site and the Gods and/or 'Spirit of Place' (guardian spirit of the site). Failure to adhere to these principles was commonly thought of as the primary cause of all misfortune, for the devotee had not maintained the cosmic balance between their soul and their Patron God/Matron Goddess.

The Sacred Valley of the Inca, a gateway to the Gods and location of vast numbers of temples.

In ancient Greece, the students of Pythagoras held reverence for what we know as the Five Platonic Solids, for within them was encoded all of the divine mathematical principles governing symmetry and proportion derived from the Phiφ ratio (1.618), visual representations of the divine blueprint of the Gods. They held the Dodecahedron in highest regard for it is the most complex and therefore the most perfect geometric form in all existence, and as a mark of its importance, the students were forbidden from speaking the word aloud outside of the Pythagorean school in fear of unenlightened folk overhearing the name of the Sacred form. Breaking this law resulted in the student being killed instantly by the guards if it became known they had transgressed. Later, Aristotle relaxed this rule, but even then would not speak about the Sacred form publicly.

The Platonic Solids, geometrically perfect in every way.

Sacred Geometry, evolving out of the Phiφ ratio in the Flower of Life (fig. 1)

In later religious cultures, even more emphasis was placed on Sacred objects and places as a symbol of status for the spiritual elite. As 'divinely appointed leaders' and 'representatives of God on Earth', it was imperative that the priesthood should adorn themselves with regalia to distinguish themselves and each other from 'the profane' (or those who had not been initiated into the mysteries of God.) such clothing became Sacred because none other than the priesthood could wear them. The same was said of the tools used in their ceremonies for the same reasons as outlined above. The word of God had become the law which governed the lives of no just individuals but entire empires, and such laws if broken, could could bring the kingdom of God crashing down upon itself and thus failure to adhere to these Sacred Laws was punishable by death, such was the severity with which they were upheld. Despite the choice context of the church's use of 'Sacred', the word still held weight and when applied to the majesty of nature as God's creation, it lead to a reverence for nature and a general unwillingness to damage of destroy it  other than to harvest that which was necessary for survival. This view of Sacred Nature can be seen in texts from the Old Testament, which is wonderfully encapsulated in the Film adaptation of Great Flood, Noah (2014), starring Russel Crowe, in which Noah explains to Hem how every plant and animal is important in God's plan and by taking that which they do not need to survive and not giving thanks for the plant/animal's sacrifice, they are disrupting that plan. Such views were shared by indigenous cultures across the globe, from the Aborigines of Australia to the Native American Tribal confederation. It is this belief which drives people of tradition even today, and which has sparked the outrage towards the Dakota Pipeline plans resulting in the Standing Rock protests. The pipeline threatens to poison the water which gives the plants, animals and people life; it threatens to rupture or explode, scorching the Earth which is the home to all things, and the resulting fires would pollute the air through which their ancestors communicate to them through the stars, the wind and the birds that dwell there. Tribal traditions around the world maintain that everything in the world is connected to everything else, "in a circle, in a hoop that never ends." and that in hurting nature we are in fact hurting ourselves. Disregard for nature in the pursuit of more efficient means of accumulating material wealth are tantamount to killing for money, casting one or more lives into the ether and tearing them away from those who care for them so that one may live in more comfort than is required or deserved. This is why nature is Sacred.

However, since the 'Enlightenment' era, emphasis has shifted away from the concerns of heaven and Gods, and towards the understanding of the physical universe and mastery of the forces of nature. During this time, the word 'Sacred' took on another dimension of meaning, for it denoted those aspect of science which could be so empirically demonstrated so as to never be questioned. Newton's fundamental laws of motion are one such example, for at the time it was agreed that what went up always came down, and that objects always needed more force behind them to go faster. And so, over time the Sacred nature of the very word was diminished in value, though not so much as to not be taken seriously.

People holding to the traditions of their forefathers viewed scientific exploration as profane, for it disregarded the sanctity of life for the pursuit of knowledge, cutting down ancient trees to count the rings to determine their age, so to speak. "How high does the sycamore grow? If you cut it down, then you'll never know." - Pocahontas. It became acceptable, and eventually normal to dissect animals and humans in order to explore their inner workings, in extreme cases while the subject was still alive; such practice propagated the theft of dead bodies from mortuaries and cemeteries, further cheapening the idea of the dead and their resting places being Sacred and incorruptible. Of course, with the advent of Nihilism and hyper-rationalism, even the elementary principles upon which science was founded were stripped of their tenuous sanctity and called into question. Aristotle's 'Scientific Method' became a punchline to proponents of modern science who held that nothing was true, even if proven with empirical evidence, for new evidence could always overturn the old. The word Sacred, was further demoted and applied to those aspects of everyday life which an individual believed they could not live without, and so national sporting events came to be described as a 'Sacred Tradition' from which feeble minded spectators could not deviate for fear that they would have nothing to contribute to the pointless analytical conversation with their work colleagues the following day; meanwhile the true Sacred Traditions of indigenous peoples were systematically disregarded, ridiculed, oppressed and annihilated from history to make way for the Progressionist movement. So when I hear people asking "is nothing Sacred anymore?" when coverage of their favourite sport is aired on Sky Sports 2 instead of 1, I like to think that everything is in fact Sacred, the Gods and Goddesses, ancient cultural traditions, the trees and wildlife, the Earth, Water and Sky upon which we depend for life, our beliefs and moral principles, our freedoms, our love for one another... though maybe not prime time sports coverage. Keep life Sacred! To all, Namaste.

Enki Endymion. O(

Journey to the Centre of the Self - An Expedition into the Soul, Understanding the nature of the self and overcoming emotional trauma through holistic healing, spiritual practice and psychology - 2. Itchy Fingers

“My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring” – The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Itchy Fingers, it’s not as dodgy as it sounds. In fact, this article will be concentrating on one of the most immediate yet illusive aspects of emotional disturbances, triggers. Life, just like a nervous bank robber, has a very itchy trigger finger; and more often than not, the smallest things get the biggest reactions. It is as though I have another person living inside of me, one who loves to hate, and is always eager to start Armageddon in response to being hit with a pea shooter... my very own Mr Hyde. As a sufferer of emotional instability, I find that most of the time I explode over trivial matters, like the trouble with the dog as mentioned in the last article; and yet for some reason, big events or serious troubles such as finding out I’m in debt, don’t have as much of an effect on my emotions. Why is it that we can suddenly become angry, sad, depressed or anxious over apparently nothing, while at the same time seeming indifferent to matters which could spell disaster for us? Of course, I acknowledge that not everyone is the same, and that some people reading this might suffer extreme fluctuations in mood no matter the problem be it big or small, but I hope that despite using my own experience as a focus for analysis, this article may be applied to anyone, with any problem and to any degree of intensity.

So, the thing that really has me going supernova most often is opposition. I hate arguing, but paradoxically I am often the one that turns a debate into an argument without realising it. I have grown up seeing any and all arguments result in shouting, screaming, slanging matches, punch-ups and destruction of inanimate objects, and it is difficult to break that programming. Naturally I am preconditioned to resort to yelling to get my point across, but to me it only seems as though I’m stating my opinion in an assertive tone. I can usually distinguish between assertiveness and aggression, but when my moods suddenly swing towards anger I don’t notice the transition between the two, and often wonder why other people shout at me. This is the trigger for a blow-out, having someone, from my perspective, shouting at me for no reason when I’m trying to convey a simple opinion. It is only afterwards that I either realise upon reflection, or are told that I was the one who yelled first, thus sparking the argument. It is very important that one keeps track of one’s tone and body language, consciously taking note of how one is standing, one’s facial expressions, and of course the way in which one is speaking. It is so easy, for me especially, to get swept up in the passion of a debate and not pay attention to what I am saying or the way I’m saying it, which far too often leads to misunderstandings and overreactions. Other times, if I have been set into a negative mood by the general misfortune of the day then I have a short fuse from the offset, and can only tolerate a certain amount of opposition before I lose myself to anger. Even something as small as “why am I the only person who cleans the house?” can quickly spiral into a full blown rant, and if anyone argues with me or tries to persuade me that I’m wrong in an effort to stem the tide of resentment, they simply add fuel to the fire resulting in a potentially destructive overflow of frustration. What bothers me is the fact that, as much as I acknowledge these triggers, I still have no idea why they act as such, why they are the buttons that need to be pressed to detonate the bomb inside.

Everyone gets annoyed when life doesn’t go their way, and I am no exception to that rule. I can feel really down when I have a bad day; sometimes I get angry, which is the easiest emotion for me to feel, but other times I simply feel sad, melancholy, or even depressed. The unfortunate part of this is that such emotions are in response to virtually nothing. It seems that if I have had a bad dream, even if I can’t remember it the next day, it still makes me predisposed towards a bad mood for the whole day. When my mood is up, I would not even bat an eyelid over a spilled drink or a stack of clothes being knocked over, or tripping on loose wires, but when my mood is low these things have a deep and lasting effect on me, and all of the little mishaps through the day accumulate into the equivalent of a whole week of accidents and losses. This problem persists despite my acknowledgement of the minor causes, and I find it difficult, if not impossible to change my mind set and to be optimistic. Part of the reason for this, I have realised lately, is to do with my diet and lifestyle which I will write about at length once I have done further research. I am most susceptible to mood swings in the morning before breakfast and in the evenings before dinner, though there are days when life gets in the way of eating and I go for most of the day without food, in which cases I often become volatile in the afternoons. Mood swings also seem to go hand in hand with fatigue; if I have had a particularly long day then I tend to have a much shorter fuse than usual, and the same applies when I have had a long week and have not been able to catch up on sleep. Under these circumstances I find that I am most sensitive to mood changes with much finer triggers.

Perhaps the worst experience is when my mood will change for absolutely no reason at all. One example was only a couple of weeks ago, I had had one of the best, most fun days out that I’d had in a long time, so I had nothing to get me down. No annoying little accidents had happened, I had had plenty of sleep over the preceding days so I was not tired, and I had eaten regularly throughout the day. There was no reason why my mood changed so suddenly, but it did. I was sitting comfortably on my sofa having a nice conversation, when suddenly I felt as though I had just had the worst day of my life. At the same time I felt my energy dissipate, as if someone had pulled a plug out of my body for my soul to drain away. In a matter of seconds I was tired and miserable, so I went to lie down and rest hoping that my mood would improve. But it was also as if my run of good luck and vitality had expired, for every couple of minutes something would happen to interrupt my rest or to simply get on my nerves; I stubbed my toe on the coffee table, then I dragged up the edge of the carpet when I opened the door, then I dropped my phone in the hallway, then I knocked a pile of books off of the shelf as I entered the bedroom to find that the covers hadn’t been made up which became a battle in itself, then the phone rang with someone whom I really didn’t want to speak to, then the doorbell rang with people selling windows....the list went on. And with each addition to that list my mood turned more sour, to the point where I stormed into the bedroom, slammed the door behind me, then lay on my bed and screamed into the pillow so that no one could hear me for what seemed like half an hour, before breaking down into a fit of tears which helped me fall asleep, if only for 20 minutes. After the blow out I felt better. My energy had returned, my mood had gone back to how it had been all day, and nothing else occurred to drag me down again. This sort of thing doesn’t happen too frequently, but when it does it hits me hard, and I have no idea why it happens. A couple of people have suggested that all of the above are connected as symptoms of diabetes, and that I should be tested. While this is a credible theory, I feel that it does not necessarily explain everything, for if it were all simply the result of diabetes then why do both my mood and my energy levels improve after an emotional release and very short doze? Surely I would have to eat or drink to restore my blood sugar levels to their optimum balance? Regardless, I have a blood test booked with my GP and we shall see what the results hold. Meanwhile I will endeavor to explore other explanations for my emotional phenomena in other fields. Until my next installment, love to all! Namaste.

Enki Endymion. O(

Magickal Theory in Practice - 3/The Other 96% - 4: Pantheism, the Path of the Perennialist and the Unification of the Gods

"Old Myths, old Gods, old Heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at he bottom of our mind, waiting for our call. We have need for them. They represent the wisdom of our race." - Stanley Kunitz

I often get asked "so are you, like, religious then? Do you believe in God?", to which my stock response is "yes, many." As a Perennialist I find myself trapped between non-religious people trying to make sense of the fact I believe in any God, and religious people trying to make sense of me believing in many Gods, and Polytheistic people trying to make sense of me believing in gods from different pantheons; admittedly, my personal system of belief is a little cluttered, so I'll do my best to explain my understanding of what Perennialism, or Perennial Pantheism means. The word Pantheism literally means 'All Gods' or 'All as God', from a mixture of the English 'Pan', meaning 'all', and the Greek 'Theos', meaning 'God, or Gods', there is no distinction made between singular and plural. This denotes that everything is within God, the one, the Pythagorean Monad, the Unified or Source Field, or it can mean that all Gods are one, all facets of a single energy or consciousness. Both are correct in my estimation, and you will hopefully come to understand why. Perennial means 'lasting or existing for a long or apparently infinite time; enduring or continually recurring.', so Perennialism is the Spiritual Philosophy that all traditions hold pieces of a Universal Truth, that all Gods are different facets of the same consciousness which pervades all things, and that no matter how often the Truth is obscured or corrupted, it will always endure in some form and rise again, meaning that every cultural interpretation is valid to some degree.

First and foremost, in Perennial Theology there is no such thing as Polytheistic or Monotheistic; no seriously, hear me out. All religious traditions throughout history have a source of all being (including the pantheon of Gods), and all maintain that beyond the pantheon there is a single creating entity which either cannot be understood by virtue of its abstract nature, or has simply been forgotten, even by the Gods themselves. Even though the focus of any Old World tradition is on the many Gods and Goddesses and their stories of how they contributed to the creation of the known world, all traditions are, at their core, Monotheistic. This does not mean that any one Monotheistic tradition is superior or inferior to any Polytheistic one, it simply means that anyone who is confused by the idea of one God or many, shouldn't be. All things have their point of origin, even the Gods. As Bertrand Russel put it, "If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause then it may just be the world as God." This statement can be taken in many ways depending on one's outlook, but what I have found is that the atheistic perception of God being an allegory for the Universe is not far off the mark, so when Mr Russel refers to it as 'the world as God' he could also have phrased it as 'God as the world'. I have mentioned in previous articles that God may in actuality be an all unifying force field of subtle energy which binds all matter and denser energy together, the Unified Field or Source Field as David Wilcock has termed it, and I have briefly mentioned toroidal fields in one earlier post. I feel that it is important for me to explain this now before jumping into the Pantheonic ball pool.

A toroidal field is a term in geometry which describes the motion of energy out from a single source, spreading in all directions until the energy reconnects to itself and flows back into the point of origin at the centre of the force field. The most common example of this is found in magnets, particularly bar magnets; electromagnetic energy is produced and emanates outward from one end of the magnet (North, or positive +), spreading inn all directions around it and being drawn in to the other end (South, or negative -) resulting in a roughly circular field of magnetic force which gets weaker at the extremities and strongest when closer to the source at the centre, almost as though the projection of energy creates a vacuum behind it which draws the energy back in. Think of it like sitting in the middle of a bath tub; you stretch your arms behind you and scoop a load of water around so that it is in front of you. by doing this you create an empty space behind you, and as you push the water forward it displaces all of the water around it which will then flow away from the source of the force, dispersing in a arc until it finds the empty space you have created and flows into it back towards the source of the energetic projection, you. And I know some people might argue that this only happens because you're in a finite space in which the water has to move, but the same thing happens in a swimming pool or in the Ocean, it just happens so fluidly you don't notice, you are simply propelled forward by the very force which you create. If the Source Field is so evenly distributed through all things, then surely this same effect would take place. If the Universe with all of its galaxies, stars and planets exist within a toroidal field then this explains a lot of problems faced by theoretical physicists at this time, for if everything emanates outwards from a singularity, then all stars and galaxies will have the appearance of moving away from the source and away from each other at a consistent rate, gradually slowing down as they seem to lose energy. This is the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, or the Deep Freeze theory in which all matter stops and the universe ceases to exist. An opposing theory is that the Universe will stop expanding and then reverse itself, dragging all matter back into the singularity and crushing everything into a point of infinity density. Two seemingly opposing theories, but both can be reconciled with the application of the toroidal field, for everything will indeed expand uniformally and slow down uniformally to a point of energetic entropy, but then the vacuum will begin to draw in matter from around it and bring all of the matter and energy in the universe back towards the point of origin at the singularity, at which time the Universe will appear to speed up again and all stars and galaxies will move towards each other at a rate relative to everything else. The end of this cosmic dance, however, is not total destruction in the 'Big Crunch', for as everything expands and contracts as it moves further and closer to the source, such a change in density is virtually imperceptible, and would manifest to us merely as a perceived increase or decrease of velocity, time running faster or slower. There can, therefore be no singularity, for as matter and energy are pulled into the toroidal centre, an equal amount of matter and energy is projected away from the centre in equal measure resulting in the never ending flow of of cosmic energy and constant motion in the illusion of endless space.

The Torus, the motion of creation and the return to source, cosmic death and rebirth.

If the 'First Cause', as Aquinas termed it, is the conscious conceptual energetic principle of creation and unity which flows through everything, and if that principle moves like water in a toroidal field, then it could be said, at least as far as we can contemplate and theorise, that God created itself; the source of all existence is also the source of itself through the cyclical nature of its being. Of course there would have to have been a genesis point for this cycle of self creation, but it is my belief that this arose from the chaotic value of non-existence. I will discuss my understanding of Chaos and Order in another article. This adds credence to Aquinas' argument that God is eternal with no beginning and no end, for from our perspective of existing within the toroidal field of God there would be no beginning or end, only the continuous cycle which we would perceive as eternity. Out of this First Cause principle is created the duality, the dichotomy between that which is and that which is not, the consummation of the two generating the third principle of what could be as described in The Other 96% - 2: Millon Dollar Questions. I may be focusing too much on scientific theories here, but it will help understand the Gods soon enough. It is said by many that we are all the Universe experiencing itself from different points of view, and this also applies to the Gods as well, for they, as emanations from the First Cause are, in their very essence, the First Cause taking on different forms to understand itself.

When looking at the Neters in the Egyptian creation story, they each embody a combination of the primordial principles of directing or nurturing, projectile or receptive, linear or cyclical. These terms are translated into a condensed form of masculine and feminine, positive or negative. There is another aspect to the primordial creator Gods which is missing, and which I think is intrinsic to their composition... Elements. There is much debate as to whether the alchemical Elements are important when relating to the creating forces, but it is my view that the Elements existed as concepts before the Gods, and combined in varying degrees to create them, who in turn created lesser forms to represent their preceding generative principles, namely Air, Fire, Water and Earth. A God like Apollo would have a greater degree of the Fire principle which is primarily projectile and linear, but with the feminine nurturing aspect of Earth, thus condensed into a 'positive masculine' energy for Apollo projects life into being then cares for it afterwards like the sun. In contrast Hera would have the cyclical aspect of Water and the receptive aspect of Earth, but with the directive aspect of Fire, thus she would be regarded as a 'negative feminine' for she forms the world gradually through cycles but is impatient with her creations, directing them in accordance with her Will in a heavy handed manner. Naturally, I am humanising the deities for simplicity, but one can see how these fundamental principles combine to create the generative forces in the Universe.

Alchemical emanationism within the framework of the Pythagorean Tetractys.

Now here comes the interesting part; I'm going to skip the part where the Gods and Goddesses create emanations from themselves and combine the Elements in more ways to create the building blocks of matter which then combined and evolved in different ways to create out known Universe and innumerable others besides, and jump to the part where we, as humans and more importantly as Magicians, learn or remember the ways in which the creating forces work and how they can be directed in the physical realm. Since time immemorial, humans have sought to understand the formation of the Universe as a means of understanding the Gods that shaped it, and there are clues as to how these forces work hidden right before our eyes, clues which I will discuss in another article or we will never reach the end of this one. When one sees the patterns in nature on all levels of the cosmos, all the way down to the subatomic level, then one can truly get in touch with the Gods, no matter what pantheon they may be from. The names, personalities and everyday attributes of the Gods and Goddesses have been devised by mankind as a means of understanding the nature of the energetic emanation being focused on; so Aries, being a negative masculine energy having more Fire and Air than anything else within it, is shown as a hyper-masculine, highly aggressive, overtly sexual, competitive, arrogant, self confident, authoritarian warmonger, for that is what we associate with fire, pure, unbridled destruction if left unchecked. In reality, this cosmic energy is that of sacrifice for the purpose of new growth, dispensing with old things which no longer serve our greatest good and carving a new path through the thick brambles of adversity with the flaming sword of divine Will, conquering that which seems unassailable, leading others by the example of one's inner strength, mastering the self before mastering all that one surveys; this is what Ares represents as a cosmic creating force, the eternal battle to create something new in one's own image, to be as the Gods are. In this sense, the same can be applied to Thor in the Norse tradition, or Horus in the Egyptian tradition, or Shiva in Hindu tradition, and even in the Abrahamic tradition, Aries/Thor/Horus/Shiva, Mars can all be attributed to the angel Shamael, the Angel of Death, Lord of Fire, the Sword of God. What I have just done can be replicated with any and every God or Goddess from any pantheon resulting in a table of correspondence between all of them in one way or another. Sometimes the links are obvious, other times the links are seemingly loose, but this is because each culture will encounter these energies in a different context and draw a different understanding of each of them, sometimes encountering only a part of what that deity is and assign their own name to it as a separate entity. This limited perception and consequent lack of understanding results in their being multiple deities in one pantheon attributed to the same thing but with slight variations in temperament which is misunderstood as them being separate when they are in fact different sides or faces of the same deity. an example of this is the duality of Persephone and Hecate. Persephone is a young virginal Goddess of nature and beauty, associated with the fair seasons in which life blooms; she is abducted by Hades, Lord of the Underworld and he takes her as his bride. Demeter, Persephone's mother, enters the Underworld to negotiate her return with Hades, who agrees to allows Persephone to return to the surface world for 6 months of the year, but insists that she return to his side for the other six. Hacate on the other hand, enters the Underworld willingly, with her mother Astaria (who is often equated with Demeter) to find Persephone, but Hecate decides to remain in the Underworld to guide lost souls to their place of repose. In the same way, Persephone carries a lantern or torch as she leaves the Underworld, acting a a guide for souls to return to the surface world once they have served their sentence in the Underworld. Both Goddesses are Psychopomps, guiders of the dead, which creates another link to the Etruscan Goddess, Vanth, who lingers patiently near scenes of execution or battle to guide the souls of the dead into the afterlife. Since Vanth is seen as the chief of the Furies in Roman tradition, She, and the Furies serve as the prototype or contemporaries of the Norse Valkyries, winged warrior goddesses who guide the souls of fallen warriors to Valhalla. Returning to Persephone and Hecate, both represent nature and the divine feminine, though Persephone is in what many refer to as the 'Maiden' form while Hecate, as a patroness of childbirth, Magick and the wilderness, is in the 'Mother' or possibly 'Crone' form. This is a simple case of two characters being assigned to the same energy in different states, one positive, the other negative. A third deity could be linked in to the first two, the mother of both forms, Demeter. Demeter is still young and fertile, and births both Persephone and Hecate (who we can assume are one and the same). She is the one who traverses the boundary between life and death and thus helps to maintain cosmic balance. She is the one who effectively initiates Persephone into womanhood and therefore is synonymous with the 'Mother' archetype. This Maiden, Mother, Crone trinity is one seen throughout many pagan cultures, and a similar trinity can be applied to masculine deities also (though I like to use the Native American terms of Brave, Warrior and Chief in place of their feminine equivalents). This system can also apply to Artemis as the Maiden moon deity, Selene as the Mother moon deity who falls for a human, with Hecate again as the archetypal Crone figure as she too is associated with the moon. On the masculine side, one could say that Dionysus represents the Brave, the young man reveling in care-free youth, Aries is the Warrior form for obvious reasons, and Hades can represent the Chief form as the Dark half or 'negative twin' of Zeus, for we must all go through the journey of life, struggle and death, with which we become the ascended masters of our own being. by looking at each of the deities closely and finding those traits which allow them to fit into this archetypal triad, one can build a picture of which Deities are attributed to which cosmic energy and how they interact and link to one another. This practice has helped me understand my archetypes on a much deeper level and allowed me to become self empowered in all aspects of my life.

Confused? Good. It gets worse. Not only are the cosmic archetypes threefold in nature as demonstrated, but each has a masculine and feminine equivalent, though I prefer to think of them as other halves, forces of opposing nature to bring balance to each of the three aspects of the trinity. to explain this I will use the example of Aries and Aphrodite. If Dionysus is the 'Brave' to Aries' Warrior then Aphrodite's 'Maiden' form would be Athena who is chased and ostentatious, and therefore Aries' 'Chief' form as Hades would be mirrored in Persephone who is the Maiden of a different threefold system culminating in Hacate, the dark half of Persephone. If the 'Crone/Chief' aspects represent the ultimate masculine and feminine archetypes then this brings us back to the idea of Chaos as the primary source of all things, for both Hades and Hecate embody death and rebirth, returning to Chaos to rise again in another form. This is just one way of looking at one pantheon; the primary feminine trinity of the Norse tradition would be Freya as the Maiden, Frigga as the Mother and Hel as the crone to balance the masculine trinity of Thorr as the Brave, Tyr as the Warrior and Woden as the Chief. Freya is equivalent to Persephone, young, beautiful, a chased nature Goddess abducted into Jottunheim, Frigga is the Norse parallel to Demeter, a wife, a mother, a self determined Goddess ambiguously associated with the Earth, and Hel is synonymous with Hecate, a Goddess of life, death and rebirth. Thorr flaunts his masculine sexual energy and revels in youth as does Dionysus, Tyr is a warrior God embodying fire in same way as Aries, and Woden is a God of wisdom and death mirroring Hades. Woden is husband to Freya in the same way that Hades marries Persephone. The 'Chief' marries the 'Maiden' who then evolves and surpasses the Chief on her way to her ultimate Crone form. This, on a microcosmic level in human,s explains why females mature faster physically than males, as well as both mentally and emotionally, for the Maiden is equal to the Chief, and therefore the Crone is beyond the chief in her understanding of her own divinity.

Now I will add another layer to this Perennial Pantheist cake and link all of the above to the Abrahamic tradition. Through emanations, some angels in the heavenly hierarchy are lesser forms of one of the seven creating angels, or Elohim mentioned in Genesis and the Book of Enoch. I like to think of these seven creating angels or Gods as 'Oversouls' which envelope other angels which when combined, make up the overarching angel. Let us start with Archangel Michael. Michael is said to be the Hand of God, and slays the beast in Revelations using his sword, the Sword of God, which is a title given to the Seraphim, Shamael. Shamael is confused with the Devil for he is an angel of death who falls to Earth along with Shamyaza, but who later repents and is accepted back into the Heavenly Host. There is an intrinsic link between Michael and the Devil, which Christianity wrongly referred to as Lucifer or the Light Bearer, which has led many to believe that Michael and Lucifer were twin brothers. Another name attributed to the angel Lucifer is 'Lumiel', which from what little is written appears to be a female angel and could thus be seen as the female half of Lucifer. If Lucifer and Shamael are mixed up, and Lumiel is the female half of Lucifer, then she is thus the female half of Shamael, the Fire and the Light which are of the same essence. One interpretation of the early Judeo-Christian writings is that Lucifer is in fact not a single angel, but rather a title given to the union between Shamael and Lumiel, who are the masculine and feminine halves which make up Michael, which may explain the assumption that Michael and Lucifer were twins. Though this analysis, one begins to see how Michael is a threefold entity consisting of Shamael (Fire of the Lord), Lumiel (Light of the Lord) and Michael (beloved of the Lord). Because Judeo-Christian tradition was largely lost due to patriarchal focus on the doctrines and the conflicts which this created, there are not many female angels mentioned in the old scriptures, certainly not enough to build the same masculine to feminine mirror of trinities as seen in the Greek and Norse traditions, but it does tie in quite nicely when one considers that Michael was seen as the chief of the angels in the same way that Woden was the Allfather to the Norse, and Hades (as the dark half of Zeus) was the King of the Greek Gods. There are links everywhere, one simply needs to know where to look and what to look for. Use your intuition, it's the most powerful tool you have. If you are unsure about a particular deity and its associations, look at the Element it is linked with, the Planet that it rules, the Zodiac signs in which it dwells, the symbolism with which it is depicted, descriptions of its deeds, duties, temperament, or even look to its relationship to other Gods which you may have more information on to fill in the gaps. This is how I have built my panthoen, how I have chosen my masculine and feminine archetypes and guiding deities, and it's worked pretty well for me so far. Experiment, mix, expand your studies to all traditions and see what links you can find to your favourite Gods, Goddesses, Angels, or whatever you feel comfortable calling them. You may discover things about yourself which you never knew you could know! Good luck!

"You must understand that there is more than one path to the top of the mountain." - Miyamoto Musashi, Go Rin No Sho.

Namaste,

Enki Endymion. O(