On This Page:
The Zodiac Portals
Introduction: Reflections on Destiny
Rite 1. The Golden Ball
Rite 2. The Choice
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy
By
Olivia Robertson
Tara of the Oracles
The Alchemical Twins Face the Fates
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
Introduction to Zodiac Portals: Rituals One and Two
Reflections on Destiny
As a puzzled recipient of occasional pre-vision, I sympathise with the Greek Prophetess Cassandra, who nobody believed. My fate is the opposite. I find people believe my predictions and then I worry! I have the feeling that when you tell a future event - it may not happen … I used to channel my gift through giving Tarot readings. This was when I did not understand psychic readings. Yet even as a girl I was successful in reading palms. But until I obtained some rationale for such a curious gift, I distrusted it. After all, my father was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and did not accept scientific validity for Astrology.
There has been an unfortunate fission between exact sciences and religion. People born with psychic gifts, are disapproved of by both parties. For instance Anton Mesmer performed remarkable healing which he claimed came through “Animal Magnetism.” To the religious he was a heretic, because he did not claim ecclesiastical authority. Scientists ridiculed him because academic scientists of the 18th Century declared that Animal Magnetism did not exist! He was disgraced - branded as a charlatan and heretic. Nowadays, both parties, ecclesiastic and scientific, hail him as a pioneer of hypnotism. His reputation is saved. He was simply in error in his naïve belief in this Animal Magnetism.
I believe both parties were in error, and not Mesmer! What he called Animal Magnetism was Etheric energy termed Kundalini - Melusina - Chi. This energy is known to occultists but not yet accepted by religions or scientific establishments. As for heresy, I believe he used just the same healing method as did Christ and other spiritual healers. As an energy healer myself, I was drawn to the Marseilles pack of Tarot. This strange pack I believe, was inspired by an Initiate of Energy Power. The very patterns and symbolism describe the awakening of the seeker, “The Fool.” Enlightenment is gained through the awakening of the Divine Spirit through the Crown Centre - “The Lightning struck Tower.” As the Apprentice, The Fool makes his journey, he becomes the Magus. It is the hand of the Magus/Maga, that controls the four elements of the suits of earth, air, fire, and water.
There are three gifts bestowed upon the newly awakened Welsh Magus, Taliesin, when as apprentice Little Gwion, he tastes three drops from the Cauldron of the Goddess Ceridwen. These are Inspiration, Prophecy and Shape-Shifting. During my account of the alchemical adventures of the twins Aiden and Elaine, I dealt with Inspiration through the stars in “Ishtar of the Starry Heavens.” Through “Brigid of the Rainbow Planets” I dealt with practical lessons derived from the energy centres within our own bodies, related through the sacred planets, reflectors of the stars.
I found dealing with Shape-Shifting a challenge. To attain cosmic consciousness, various mystical states are experienced. Omnipotence - power - deals with the practical use of occult forces through the planets. Omniscience - all science - deals with the universal language of symbols, emblems, hieroglyphs - that are the keys to linking the spheres of ascent and descent.
The most friendly form of greater consciousness is omnipresence. My sister-in-law, Pamela, had the gift of communion with trees and plants. This omnipresence was the inspiration behind the great New Age movement that swept through young people during the sixties and seventies of the last century. Now the swing is towards omniscience, using symbols to attain wider consciousness. This leads to the spread of symbolic Art.
I enjoyed describing the Alchemical Twins experiencing Shape-Shifting - extreme omnipresence - because this is an antidote to that paranoia - “I am the Highest” - that can afflict those “on the Path.” To become a whale, a centipede, a hen, is an effective cure for acting as Queen of Atlantis, Emperor of Lemuria. (Yes, I’ve met them.) By all means do the Celebrity role if you have very low self-esteem. But for its reverse, there is nothing more down to earth than to find yourself a contemplative sow!
Now I propose taking the twins on a zodiac pilgrimage through the Tarot, because this brings them into contact with fellow pilgrims. They start off alone and end as part of a spiritual family. Well, that is to be hoped! If they fail - they can always try again. There is all the time in the world.
Tara of the Oracles
The Alchemical Twins Face the Fates
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
Introduction to Zodiac Portals: The Golden Ball
Ritual No. 1
A Child Shall Lead
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
Priest Alchemist: (To Twin Apprentices Aiden and Elaine) To obtain Admittance through the Gates of the Labyrinth of Destiny, we need to invoke the Goddess Ariadne, Mistress of Past, Present and Future.
Priestess Alchemist: I invoke Thee, Ariadne, to guide pilgrims through the Labyrinth of Fate so that Divine Consciousness is attained through the spirals of Space and Time.
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS ARIADNE
I could not be your Guide if I had not entered and faced the Labyrinth myself. So it is with all those Deities Who incarnate as humans: Brigid, Isis, Quan Yin, and Osiris, Maitreya, Christ, Krishna. The innate divinity within each being is concealed that it may be discovered, and divinity won through hard work, goodness and wisdom.
Those who enter the physical path of spiritual attainment face the hardest ordeal, and therefore are the most honoured. Even failure only means a swift return to the Mothers.
So have good heart! The sphinx wishes its riddle to be solved: the creator of the Labyrinth plans for its paths to be found. Have courage! The labyrinth is within My Mind and so is open to all who understand and love Me.
Priestess Alchemist: We give thanks to the Goddess Ariadne.
Priest Alchemist: (To Aiden) Aiden, you have chosen the Hermetic Path of the Mysteries. You long to solve riddles: to discover the meaning of symbols. So we choose for you the pilgrim path of the Tarot, which some claim to be the Lost Book of Thoth, Egyptian God of Wisdom, friend of Isis. Do you accept the challenge?
Aiden: With good heart I do.
Priest Alchemist: Then you need to put aside all your acquired knowledge, and to make a fresh start. No longer are you an Initiate. Entering this more advanced plane, you are The Fool! Study this card from the Marseilles Tarot pack and describe what you see. (hands Aiden card)
Aiden: This is the first card yet it is marked Zero. I know that zero was once condemned for use as being heretical! It starts the Fibonacci sequence leading to the Golden Mean. It depicts “Le Mat,” a Fool guided by Mercury – there are wings on his hat – and he holds a bag. He is looking back over his right shoulder at a dog - no, I think it is a cat - who has torn a large hole in his breeches, thus exposing his right buttock! This is a ridiculous emblem - so I suppose it is profoundly shamanic …
Priestess Alchemist: You learn little in this way using your knowledge. You need to enter trance and so begin your journey. Describe what happens. We shall be with you but may not help you.
Trance Journey
Aiden: There is smoke - it slowly fades leaving me standing on a desolate plain. It seems to be made of lava and before me is a hill which I recognise as the mountain behind Knossos in Crete. Ah! I must be facing the Ordeal of the Labyrinth! But where it is? I see nothing but extending plains of cracked grey lava, with small plumes of smoke coming from it. How can I face the ordeal if there is no Gateway, no building?
Suddenly I hear a laugh. A small girl stands before me, wearing a T-shirt and short black skirt - a school uniform. She is holding a large computer. She says: “You’re looking in the wrong place. It’s right under your nose!”
I find her rather impertinent. I ask her who she is. She says, “I’m not sure of my own name - we are all Ariadne. I’m called Indigo. The real Me is in stasis with my friends - in a far-off star.”
I find this hard to believe. “Then you hardly need that,” I say, pointing to the computer. I dislike computers. Never use them if I can help it.
She seems to read my thoughts. “This one won’t spoil your dreams,” she says, “because it works through dreams.”
I don’t care for know-all children. So I ask sharply, “All right - if you do know, show me the entrance to the Labyrinth!” “You just follow your guide,” she says.
“You?”
“No no, I’m much too big. There he is!”
I expect Anubis, Guide of the Pathways. I see no-one.
She points.
I see a tiny scarab beetle scurrying on the edge of the lava. Suddenly he disappears down a crack. “There’s your entrance,” the girl says, and runs off. I feel I have been too casual with her. I call her back. But she has taken from her skirt pocket a gleaming golden ball which she is throwing in the air and catching it. It glitters in the sun. So I have to run after her. She runs off and I hear her voice receding into the distance.
“Follow the ball. It will bring you through the Gates.”
I chase after the rolling ball - and at first nothing happens. I trip and fall… The sun has disappeared. I am falling - falling - into total darkness.
I am terrified. I see the beetle, which has become enormous. No! I am tiny. I have somehow fallen through this lava tube, down an endless abyss. Save for the glimmering ball I am in total darkness. But now I am so small, the ball has assumed gigantic proportions! It is like a sun. To my astonishment I see that the beetle has spread out its wings and flown into the orb. I overcome my fear of fire and I too throw myself in this sun ***
I find heavenly light within me and I am filled with joy. Standing before me is the girl, but now she is a Shining Being holding a Golden Thread she is unwinding from the sun!
“I told you I am Ariadne,” She says. “My Golden Thread joins spirit to spirit throughout the starry universe. You have found the key to the Labyrinth. It is within yourself.”
End of Trance
Reports are shared and thanks are given to the Deities. Aiden is told he has won his degree.
End of Rite
Sources: “The Metamorphoses,” Ovid, translated by Joseph Davidson, edited by S. G. Owen, Oxford University Press, 1959. “Parallel Lives,” ‘Theseus,’ (volumes 1 - 12) Plutarch, translated by Bernadotte Perrin, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, United Kingdom, originally published in 1914, contemporary reprints available. “Description of Greece,” (books 1 - 10, in five volumes), Pausanias, translated by W. H. S. Jones and (vol. 1 - 2), W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Omerod (vol. 3 - 4), R. E. Wycherly, translator and editor (vol. 5), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, United Kingdom, 1926 - 1935, contemporary reprints available, Loeb Classical Library series. “A Classical Dictionary,” John Lempriere, George Routledge & Sons, London, 1911. “The Greek Myths,” (vol. 1 - 2), Robert Graves, Penguin Books, London and New York, 1959. Books on Crete.
Website: About.com: Greece Travel, by deTraci Regula, Greece Travel Guide: http://gogreece.about.com/
Specific links to Crete on About.com: Greece Travel:
http://gogreece.about.com/od/crete/Areas_Crete.htm
http://gogreece.about.com/od/cretesights/ig/Hiking-the-Samaria-Gorge/
Tarot of Marseilles (French: Ancien Tarot de Marseille), earliest known variants dating possibly to fifteenth and no later than seventeenth century. A standard Marseille Tarot deck first issued by B. P. Grimaud, 1930, Paris, France, is the version used for these rites.
Note: Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives,” often referred to simply as “Lives” is probably his best known work. The biographies surviving to the present day are those of Alexander, Alcibiades, Aristides, Brutus, Cicero, Demosthenes, Dion, Julius Caesar, Marius, Mark Antony, Nicias, Pericles, Philopoemen, Pompey, Pyrrhus, Romulus, Solon, Sulla, Themistocles, Theseus and Timoleon.
Tara of the Oracles
The Alchemical Twins Face the Fates
Fellowship of Isis Liturgy by Olivia Robertson
Introduction to Zodiac Portals: The Choice
Ritual No. 2
When the Wise Man Fails, the Fool Finds the Way
The Octagonal Temple of Alchemy
Priestess Alchemist: (To Twin Apprentices Aiden and Elaine) Both of you seek the same goal though each has a separate path. The Sun Goddess of Japan, Amateras has shafts of Light that illumine each path however varied.
Priest Alchemist: Holy Goddess Amaterasu no Kami, may your Sun arise in us, that we may be drawn to You Who reigns in highest Heaven.
ORACLE OF THE GODDESS AMATERASU NO KAMI
I am high and I am low. I am present in all that is, but my presence is concealed as a precious jewel in rock. Those who seek me with vainglory will never find me. Only the humble in heart, who honour the least insect and flower, know me and feel my penetrating ray of Love.
Those who demand My Power for their own use, perish by that very power. For my rich store concealed within the smallest speck of stone can reduce the proud to dust.
I ignore the liturgies of the cold minded, but I rise in my glory to the simple minded, to children, to dreamers. So I rose from my cave when the earth was darkened, not drawn by invocations of the learned, but by laughter at the wild dance of a mad girl, Uzumi.
Heed my words. You can only restore the polluted skies and waters and earth, not through your science but through your own inner goodness.
Priestess Alchemist: We give thanks to the Goddess Amaterasu no Kami for Her Oracle.
Priest Alchemist: (To Elaine) Elaine, you long to enter the inner Mysteries. To seek admittance to their Portals, you need to use this French Tarot Card, “Le Mat” as your key (gives card to Elaine). What do you make of it?
Elaine: I see a Jester who in his folly enlightens Royal Courtiers by laughing at them! His bag of tricks is slung on a white moon rod held in his left hand, while his right hand keeps him down to earth with a staff. A cat warns him of the danger of his ways - by exposing others follies - he reveals his own! His hat of Mercury shows that his wit comes from his mind. His Zero indicates an enigma.
Priestess Alchemist: You have spoken clearly as you always do. Now enter the mystic path through trance to find inner reality. We shall be with you but not help you.
Trance Journey
Elaine: I am filled with excitement. What is going to happen? I see many colours. This is not like Aiden’s lava plain … rather I see rich gold and crimson curtains, and there is a low murmur of voices. Before me are fantastically clad men and women in the costumes of old Japan! Am I to appreciate the wit of The Mikado? I hope not. Oh Good. A very modern looking Producer in T-Shirt and black trousers approaches me, holding a script. He explains that he is producing a modern version of the myth of Amateras and Uzumi, but with an up-to-date relevance. He introduces me to the author, obviously distinguished, as he is signing autographs. He has a shock of white hair and brilliant black eyes.
He is explaining to me the plot. I am thrilled to have a leading role as Uzumi. I’ve always felt I could make a good actress. He turns to me and gives me a resumé of His play. There are not actual goddesses and gods, of course. They are only archetypes. In his interpretation, Amateras represents nuclear power. Everyone wants what she has and they are busy making nuclear bombs, status symbols. However, there is the good side. In his play, life on earth is perishing, due to Global Warming. Energy sources have diminished.
How do I come in? As a modern Uzumi, I am the daughter of a nuclear scientist who had discovered a new immense source of nuclear energy. He had only time to write the formula on a piece of paper, when he died. He entrusted the formula to his daughter - Uzumi.
What is the story line? Dramatic, he says. As Uzumi I have the choice of giving this formula to my father’s colleagues and so save life on earth. Or, interrupts the Producer, hand over a force that may destroy not only all life but possibly the earth itself! How’s that for choice?
They put the piece of paper in my hand. I am pushed out of this theatre into a street - this must be “Street Theatre” where the public join in. I look around. This is realism indeed! I am in a failed modern city, with gaunt disused buildings, no vegetation, no lights. I see a dead dog in a gutter. Abandoned cars covered with mud are mixed with rusted refrigerators. Are they using a film taken of New Orleans some years ago? Some people are hanging around turning over garbage bins.
An ancient woman attracts my attention. She is making signs in the dust - a fortune-teller. I approach her, but she ignores me. I put coins in one of her gnarled hands with their long black-purple nails. She feels them and stares ahead with opaque eyes. She is blind. Suddenly she reaches forward and clasps my wrists. I say that I have to make a hard choice. What does she advise?
Instead of speaking she draws a hangman’s noose, a loop over a bent line. Or is it a form of Ankh? Then she speaks in a hoarse voice, and though in Japanese, I understand every word.
“Clever lady. You see clearly and walk straight ahead, and you have no answer. Why not stop thinking, shut your eyes and walk backwards?” How absurd! I burst out laughing, yet without thinking I shut my eyes and walk backwards ***
I fall heavily and hit my head on the ground. But there is no ground. I am falling down a shaft. I scream and struggle. It is hopeless. So I let it happen *** I find myself at the bottom, in a small circular room. It is illuminated by a flaming torch. Desperately, without hesitation, I put the precious formula into the flames. It burns to ashes.
Oh wonder! The torch becomes a shining halo of light around the Divine form of Amateras - transformed from the old woman who made me laugh! Once more she holds my wrists. She says: “You are a true Uzumi.” Majestically she rises above the earth and she brings me with her. And her golden Light brings love to the hearts of all creatures, and the elements of earth are cleansed from human pollution. The earth is saved. I am happy.
End of Trance
Reports are shared and thanks are given to the Deities. Elaine has won her degree, not through wisdom, but through laughing! Both she and Aiden have found the Inner Sun that unlocks all doors.
End of Rite
Sources: “The No Plays of Japan,” translated by Arthur Waley, with letters by Oswald Sickert, Grove Press, New York, 1920, reprinted 1922, 1950, 1957. “Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697,” translated by William George Aston, George Allen & Unwin, London,1956, (originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., London, 1896), later reprinted by Paragon Reprint Corp., Paragon Book Gallery, Ltd., New York, 1959 and 1967. “Kojiki,” translated with introduction and notes by Donald L. Philippi, University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, Japan, 1968. “The Goddesses of India, Tibet, China and Japan,” Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, illustrated by Anna Durdin-Robertson, Cesara Publications, Clonegal Castle, 1976. FOI contact, Tarot College, Rt. Rev. Professor Ohnuma, late of Tokyo University, 2 F 2-14-9 Ginza, Tokyo, 104-0061.
Tarot of Marseilles (French: Ancien Tarot de Marseille), earliest known variants dating possibly to fifteenth and no later than seventeenth century. A standard Marseille Tarot deck first issued by B. P. Grimaud, 1930, Paris, France, is the version used for these rites.
Notes:
1. “Amateras” is the singular form of Her Name. The full title of this Goddess in Japanese is “Amaterasu no Kami.”
2. No plays (also ‘Noh’ plays) are the oldest dramatic form preserved in Japan. The form used today was created in the Ashikaga court of the fourteenth century. No plays are performed around the recitation and dancing of a principal and secondary figure, who are accompanied by a seated chorus chanting the story, and music of drum and flute, on an otherwise empty stage with a symbolic pine tree backdrop.
The plays focus on legendary or historical events of a tragic nature, infused with Buddhist ideals. Intensity of the atmosphere is relieved by comedic interludes (kyogen) during intermission.
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