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albionspeak 2: the gates of dis (11.1)
SESSION 62: 1ST NIGHT, 8/18/00
Our invocation: Shakespeare’s sonnet 54, “How much more doth beauty
beauteous seem.”
11:42 PM
1. Q: [Guide], are you there?
A: I FLY ABOVE OUR LAKE
The Grotto now seems always to be our starting place.
Here, without prior thought, I stopped [Scribe] from writing down
the programmatic second question. Too often we jump past our guide to
converse with our human teachers. Yet I wanted to engage him personally,
acknowledge him fully, start the year’s sessions off with something other
than the straight script.
Time Like a Language
2. Q: How have you been?
A: I AM AS I AM
This response got us talking about the possible daimon of Moses
(and might be weakly linked to the topic of oracles later in the evening).
We also keyed in on the change of verb tense [from our question].
3. Q: Does time pass for you?
A: IT DOES ONLY IF I ENTER YOUR MINDS [NO]T OTHERWISE
4. Q: Do you enjoy perceiving time?
A: [YES] I FIND IT STRANGE LIKE A FRESH LANGUAGE
5. Q: But [in an earlier session] you said you find language “difficult”.
A: IT IS I AM A BEGINNER IN BOTH L & TIME
“L” = “Language”, we assumed, and not “Lucidity,” as is
sometimes the case.
Josef
6. Q: Who is with us tonight?
A: I JOSEF AM WITH YOU MY SONS
This was a minor surprise. Our contacts, Jane and Anand,
traditionally greet us on the first night of a year’s sessions. Josef, our
foremost, tends to arrive once we are “strong enough,” as it were, to
receive him.
7. Q: Josef, we greet you. It is unusual to greet you on the first night.
A: I AM HERE TO INDICATE [THE] ORDER OF OUR CONVERSATION
TO COME
Clearly, our agenda/syllabus for this year’s batch: very organized.
We Raise the Cup
8. Q: What comes first?
A: LET US HAVE AN EXERCISE IN STILLNESS
[THE]N CURRICULUM
Our visualization exercise to get us focused and, occasionally, to
rehearse third-eye skills for future missions of our own.
9. Q: Tell us the exercise.
A: SEE [THE] CUP IN [THE] LAKE AS YOU’VE DONE WITH [FLOWER]
[Scribe] and I seemed to think we’d already “seen” the [CUP]
symbol at the bottom corner of the board as well as its opposing flower
design. Whatever the case, the “in the lake” component was certainly
new.
10. Q: Is “the cup in the Lake” different from our cup symbol simply?
A: I WANT YOU TO SEE [THE] CUP AS A SOLID OBJECT THAT
CAN BE HELD
11. Q: Where is the Lake?
A: YOU ARE TO RAISE [THE] CUP OUT OF [THE] LAKE WITH
YOUR HANDS
Our question was designed to help us place the scene; Josef’s
response places us above the cup (in our boat), looking down. More
importantly, this exercise, by virtue of its three dimensions and tactile
modality, marked a new level for us.
12. Q: Anything else we should know before we start?
A: GO SLOWLY DO [NO]T HASTEN
I WILL SPEAK
Five Sessions Proposed
13. Q: We are beginning now.
A: [YES] FIVE SESSIONS
[Scribe] and I compared notes and had shared a similar experience.
This was progress for me, since up to now I’ve been practically fetal about
such exercises. I feel strongly my year of painting has helped my inner
vision. At the end of an exercise it is customary for our teachers to
pronounce something rather cryptic and oracular, generally as a kind of
theme for the night’s lesson. This ritual is so stylized, as the reader can
find elsewhere, that the typed transcripts demand for these pronouncements
a different font. Without spoiling the narrative sequence here I’ll let slip a
weird foreshadow-play enjoyed by Josef upon us: This is the least oracular
statement in terms of style we’ve received thus far; yet it also seemed (at
the time) to be the most predictive. And the irony here becomes perhaps
pedagogically important in the evening’s subsequent discussion on oracles
(particularly on Josef’s own putative prophecies in Egypt) as well as the
unexpected events of the next day & evening.
14. Q: Proceed, please.
A: IST. TWINZ & ALBION TO DISCUSS MAAT
15. NEXT I AM TO SPEAK OF DREAMS
16. DON APPEARS TO…
17. ADVANCE A TOPIC OF HIS CHOOSING
18. ANAND INTRODUCES A NEW DESTINATION
WE…
19. ALL TRAVEL THERE
20. A NEW SPEAKER MAKES AN APPEARANCE
21. Q: What can we do to prepare for these sessions?
A: EACH TAKE EXACTLY ONE HOUR TOMORROW AT [THE]
SAME TIME BUT PRIVATELY TO…
22. AFFIRM WHERE
HE STANDS & ASK WHAT HE MOST WANTS TO KNOW
We took a long break; and although it was late – [Scribe]’s plane
not having arrived until 8:30 PM – we both were ready to go on. Josef,
however, had now set the agenda and, by omission, no topics seemed on
the slate for this evening. Also notably missing was [Guide], so we
decided to give our guide a last chance to tell us something. I know I
thought we would more likely be heading for bed.
[Guide] & Josef
Oracles
23. Q: [Guide], there is no session devoted to you specifically. Have you
something to tell us?
A: I COULD TELL YOU ABOUT ORACLES
[Guide], in fact, has long been our best source of history on such
subjects, specifically how the Sibyls (along with Achilles) used daimones
to accomplish shifts of attention for their tasks. In ancient times the
human proclivity for such shifts apparently was greater.
24. Q: The subject came up earlier this evening. [in our oral discussions]
A: IT IS [NO]T A ROLE IN YOUR KARASS
Interesting, since we had heard so much already. It seems we
would be defining our karass in negative terms. First, however, we had
some minor inconsistencies to clear up.
25. Q: Wasn’t Josef a kind of oracle? (He saw the future & told it.)
A: ONLY BY ACCIDENT
HIS REAL GIFT WAS TO BE A KIND OF LENS FOR [THE]
ENERGIES…
26. OF [THE] PRESENT –
YOU DO [NO]T SEE [THE]M AS I DO
27. Q: What do you see?
A: I SEE YOU AS MOVING WITHIN A WEAVE OR MESH OF LINE[s]
28. Q: Are we everywhere at once, or truly moving through this medium?
A: IMAGINE A PLANET’S ORBIT –
IT IS [THE] WHOLE HISTORY BUT [THE] PLANET IS AT ONE
PLACE AT A TIME –
I SEE [THE] ORBIT
Two pictures of human beings: In Q#26 [Guide] was giving us a
picture resembling Vilansit’s loom. Yet in other discussions the single
fiber, the straight line of intent, of firefishes, resembles human individuals
in a different way. Perhaps the “I” who acts with linear intent at this
moment belongs, as it were, to a collective of older and younger “I’s” that
stretch at least the span of my lifetime. Is this the mesh?
29. Q: Again, Vilansit told fortunes in her quarter of the city. Wasn’t she a kind
of oracle? [orally I must have said something like: “Isn’t this a kind of
oracle?”]
A: IT IS MOST DEFINITELY BUT SHE DECIDED THAT HER ROLE
30. MUST LIE OUTSIDE THIS ACTIVITY
31. Q: Why does the Jewel Net not include an oracle?
A: A COMPLEX QUESTON INVOLVING [THE] USE OF DAIMONES
[sic]
32. Q: Please explain.
A: IT IS [NO]T EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN TO BE AN ORACLE
& OTHER KARASSES HAVE [THE]M NEAR [THE]IR CENTERS
33. Q: Why do we not have such a role?
A: JOSEF SPEAKS
34. Q: Please go on, Josef.
A: [THE] ENERGY OF [THE] JEWEL IS DISTORTED BY THIS ACT
[THE] JEWEL EXISTS TO CONCENTRATE KNOWLEDGES NOT…
35. PROJECT [THE]M THROUGH TIME
TO DO SO YOU MUST EX…
36. TEND YOURSELF USING A DAIMON
AS YOUR VEHICL[e]
37. Q: But other centers would not be distorted?
A: YOU MUST REMEMBER THAT OUR CENTER IS SPECIFIC & SMALL
38. Q: Can you tell us other roles that we lack [in our karass]?
A: WARRIOR
BUILDER
39. Q: Any of us could be one of those things (oracle, warrior, builder) for a time,
at need.
A: [YES] BUT ONLY BY DRAWING ON DAIMONIC ENERGY
OUR PRACTICE IS TO BECOME DEPENDENT ON [THE] [FLOWER]
[NO]T [THE] BUTTERFLY
Several observations: The first (and most important) arises out of
our initial difficulty in finding the common denominator between the three
absent roles. Warrior and builder specifically seemed to be contrasts:
creator and destroyer. But upon further thought we noted how both of
these roles require great planning. Yes, Achilles is the great lone fighter,
but generals are master planners, as are builders. [Scribe] & I, on the
other hand, had been counseled not to plan. Perhaps to plan means
extending the self, imposing the self on that which surrounds us. We
know now, as a deep moral choice, that we don’t do that; and in this clear
sense small is indeed great.
Another point, another connection to Carlos Castaneda. Repeatedly
Don Juan holds out to Carlos in contrasting terms the differences between
the pre-Toltec master sorcerers and modern day members of their group.
One difference was in the use of power over others. Don Juan and the Jewel
Net agree that this is wrong and constitutes abuse. But even the unrestrained
exercise of power (for its own sake) leads to this eventual abuse, so power
must only be exercised in the name of something good (for us, the Jewel).
Now, I feel, we see another corollary to this moral law, paralleled precisely
in Castaneda. It seems the old sorcerers were addicted to their “allies,”
Castaneda’s term for – it is quite clear – daimones. Allies are summoned to
aid in dreaming; allies can give you knowledge; allies can boost your power;
allies can be your closest friends. Don Juan insists that Carlos explore the
world of allies (which he does to an addictive degree), but stresses that
dependent bonds on such species impinge on true freedom. Freedom is,
of course, increased when one is not dependent; but for us the issue is
more one of coercing others. The Prime Directive [of Star Trek] is for us
indeed prime; this is our flower; and failure to uphold it destroys the flower
itself.
Finally, a couple of observed circles: Why oracle? Why warrior?
Why builder? Why not one of the many other absent roles? Oracle and
warrior, of course, as the Sybil and Achilles, are part of our vocabulary;
they are touchstones. Builder is new, but here’s a fun connection: Perhaps
the most famous builder ever, certainly the most famous on Josef’s historical
thread, was Imhotep, architect of Zoser’s famed Step Pyramid, forerunner to
the Great Pyramids. Now Imhotep was also legendary for his own oracular
abilities; in fact, it was said that he foresaw seven years of famine and took
steps in advance to stock up for such times – exactly as Josef himself is later
credited in the Bible! Many scholars are, in fact, convinced that the Josef
story is simply a Hebrew insertion of the Imhotep myth. We know our Josef
better: He was not a builder, neither was he an oracle; and neither will any
of the rest of us ever be, for reasons which to me simply confirm my eternal
choice to be among this tiny Jewel Net group and not another one much
larger.
40. Q: A thought: carrying out a war or building a city involves planning, imposing
a blueprint (i.e. extending).
A: WE LEARN TO PROCEED EVER MORE LIGHTLY BY IMPULSE
NOT PLAN
This lightness I likened in our discussion to a mobile, one symbol
for ma’at. A mobile uses a fulcrum, but unlike a machine (a lever, for
example) it does no work. As a result, even a huge, massive mobile has
the appearance of lightness, of virtual weightlessness. It shifts with the
irregular and unpredictable wind, and it does not plan.
41. Q: Do oracles also plan rather than simply [fore]see?
A: IN PRACTICE [YES]
DELPHI SECRET RULER OF [THE] GREEK STATES
Wow! What a revision of history! This will entertain me deeply for
the rest of my life. But now we were tired.
42. Q: Josef, we look forward to our sessions. Unless you or [Guide] have more
to say on this topic, we will close for the evening.
A: I ONLY WISH [THE] JEWEL TO SEEM A LITTLE SHARPER TO
YOU
[Guide]
I JOSEF GIVE YOU GOOD NIGHT & GOOD DREAMING
A great first night. All we could have asked for was the simple
introduction, and yet we received this whole bonus session on oracles,
hardly a trivium. And yet was this a bonus? Was this even intended as a
bonus? For as it turned out, Josef proved anything but oracular with his
agenda.