A lion stands behind a seated woman facing us, in the nude. The lions forepaws rest on her shoulders. She warms her hands at a cauldron of fire. A nude man on our right, in profile, holds a cup of fire with both hands and drinks, burning the grass around his feet, and lighting his center. The figures are serene and attractive. The woman has golden hair. At top center there are two serpents, joined in a figure 8, alight with fire. In the background is the ocean. on our left a large, straight, golden serpent with blue forked tongue facing right emerges from a black box. The Book of the Deliverer describes a path to cosmic consciousness (the illumination of fire). This is a normal experience, like love, which anyone may share. Let me recount my own experience of it. I was meditating on the analogies between tarot cards and historical periods one day in the spring of 1971, when I had the peculiar sensation of being filled and surrounded by fire. Accompanying this was a sudden perception of everything I knew in a single flash, with a single thread of meaning running through it. It was a most remarkable and ecstatic experience and for a long time I could not talk about it. But I immediately recognized the experience and the steps that lead up to it in the Book of the Deliverer. Indeed, that is what first drew me to the Book of T. The Nameless One tells us the Deliverance is "that which is to come to each." Life took a long time to evolve from direct conscious-ness to self-consciousness and may be about to make another evolutionary leap to cosmic consciousness. That is the extraordinary thesis of Richard Bucke's COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS and of the Book of the Deliverer. I once thought mysticism exemplifies special pleading of a kind of knowledge which is unspeakable and not accessible to all. Not so. The beginning steps are common and ordinary and already known to you. The steps that prepare you for the illumination of fire are symbolized by the golden serpent emerging from a black box and by the ocean in the background. We've all had flashes of insight while day-dreaming. Such occasions arise while washing dishes or driving the car, or doing something else hum-drum and ordinary, where certain conditions exist. These conditions are solitude and some activity to occupy the body. I call this "work-meditation". It is an exercise for the body and "no-exercise" for the mind. The ocean symbolizes this free state of mind, because of its buoyancy and boundless horizons. There is only a difference in degree between ordinary day-dreaming and the Seeker's "bathing in the waters." The Seeker can spend hours in an ecstatic almost trance-like state, but even the Seeker begins his day-dreaming with fantasies of heroic action. Indeed, the evolution of day-dreaming is much like the hero-cycle known to mythologists. People have asked me what exercises I do, knowing me to be an illuminati. I don't know quite what to say, because "bathing in the waters" is no-exercise. You cannot day-dream if you are doing mantras or some other mental exercise. It is a state of unfocused consciousness, not of concentration. Perhaps just the opposite of concentration. Quite complex ideas can arrive in a single flash while bathing in the waters, ideas that it would take days to explain. Cosmic conscious-ness is like that. In a single instant, insights into the meaning of life are gained that would take a lifetime to put into practice or convey to others. "Bathing in the Waters" was a well-known state to the early followers of the Way of the Saints. Baptism is just a physical symbol of the mental state once achieved. Christianity has retained the symbol but forgotten its meaning. Of course, not all day-dreamers become 'Christs', i.e. Saints, Self-realized. Most only become geniuses. Another ingredient is required to reach the fire. That is what is symbolized by the serpent. The snake in many forms abounds in the new tarot. There are two roots to this symbolism, which unite in meaning in various ways. The resemblance of a snake to the male sex organ was not invented by Freud. The similarity is buried in the unconsciousness of all of us. The phallus is the instrument of initiation into adult life, both for men and women, and initiation is one of the symbolic meanings of the serpent. Though we never realize it at the time, the first act of sex is the true dividing line between childhood and adult life. Adolescents are so eager to walk through that door, never realizing they are leaving behind the carefree world of childhood and entering the time of adult risks and responsibilities. Any experience which initiates (i.e. begins) a new phase of existence is apt to be symbolized by a snake. It is also worth noting that such initiatory experiences can never be known second hand. It is not reading about them, it is doing them which is the initiation. The other root of meaning is that the snake is 'of the earth'. Its eggs are laid underground, and the little snakes emerge from the ground, with the same temperature and feel as the ground. Thus, anything from nature is also apt to be symbolized by the serpent. The golden serpent combines both meanings. The lions of the new age will let nature out of the coffin (black box) in which it has been placed by the Thinker. Nature is not a dead machine. The mystic knows this by direct experience, because he tunes into the thought-feelings of the wind, trees, mountains, and the moon. I call this mental state "earth-roots", and the process of seeking it is "finding your roots in nature". The Thinker adamantly refuses to admit the possibility of conscious trees or clouds, because they lack nervous systems. Clear your minds of such rubbish. Consciousness has nothing to do with nervous systems! What is the dogma of the Thinker compared to the actual experience of the nature mystic? Consciousness in nature is not walled off into tight little egos. It is only necessary to lower your own boundaries and immerse yourself in the flow, to experience the ever-changing infinite delight of nature's moods. The poetry of Wordsworth gives some hint of what you may find in this state. So may the chapter "Thales" in my own WHOLE EARTH INNER SPACE (Thales Microuniversity Press, Stillwater, 1973). Finding your roots in nature is part of every spiritual path. It is the principal reason the early yogis left the cities of India to go into the forests, why the Saints sought out remote isles in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic, why the Sufis went into the desert, and the Taoists into the mountains. If they merely wanted solitude, that could be arranged in the cities. The serpent of nature is golden, reminding us of the purification of the untarnishable Self through lifetimes of experience. Tuning in to the thought-feelings of nature is also a kind of purification. The serpent's tongue is blue, the color of renewal. The tongue is the principal sense organ of a snake, combining smell and taste. Finding our roots in nature renews our spiritual senses, and leaves us open to higher possibilities. Cosmic consciousness is something that happens in maturity, not to children. Bucke found no cases of it occurring earlier than age thirty. I was 31. Before you can find the unity underlying the good and evil in life, you must have experienced some of each, as well as had many years of oceanic consciousness (bathing in the waters, daydreaming) and of earth-roots consciousness behind you. That is why we speak of a 'path' to the illumination of fire (cosmic consciousness). These are 'places' you must pass first. When prepared, it is triggered by 'drinking the cup of fire', i.e. becoming engrossed in something itself 'of the fire'. For me it was the tarot; for Bucke it was the poetry of Walt Whitman, himself an illuminati. The Deliverer delivers us from the nightmare of the Thinker. It is a contrast between warm and cold, between whole and fragment, meaning and indifferent fact, the spirit versus the machine. Deliver us, 0 Deliverer from this evil! What great pattern in life is revealed in the moment of cosmic consciousness? What is revealed is found in the Book of the Mother. There is pattern in all things, a pattern of challenge and response. We are given the challenges we need, and never more than we can handle. Though we suffer hurts, we can always go home to Mother. |
"The Deliverer is the name of the Book-Strength. Its meaning is: that which is to come to each... She is not the Deliverer- --nor is he. The flame is."