Magazine Articles
Avatars, Muses & Magdalenes
Yobaba Lounge Website, July 2019
www.yobabalounge.com
When the Celts built their places of worship to their goddesses, they always included a sacred source often connected to some kind of healing miracle which one bathed in or drank from. It is no coincidence that the Catholic Church built their holy edifices upon these sites, and the manifestation of the goddess, or La Dame Blanche, the White Lady apparitions often encountered there, became Notre Dame, Our Lady, and the Virgin herself.
During the Middle Ages, Occitania, as the south of France was then called, was a land whose beauty bred a way of life known as paratge--meaning the celebration of honor, courtesy, and chivalry, From that ideal, grew the culture of the troubadours, wooing their dominas at the Courts of Love. For the noble women of the time, marriage was about commerce and securing dynasty, not love. It was acceptable, and even encouraged, that the chataleines of the castles had various troubadours competing for their affections. Courtly love was a paragon, as opposed to carnal love. But some say courtly love was also a continuation of goddess worship, or worship of the feminine essence, veiled under the nose of the patriarchal church of Rome, who would soon arrive to strike terror across the region, and all but eradicate the old ways in the Albigensian Crusade.
Originally, the Magdalene’ supposed remains were found in Vézelay. In 1267, the bones were brought in front of the King of France who venerated them. But another burial of Mary was found in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Provence. A Gothic basilica was built around them, and Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume gradually displaced Vézelay in popularity and acceptance, which continues to this day. Thousands of pilgrims still pay homage to the shrine every year.
Ancient goddesses, La Dame Blanche, Notre Dame, courtly love, and the Magdalene, all flow from the same source, one that seems to be very particularly potent in the south of France. Perhaps it is the fecundity of the land which feeds the underground stream of the feminine or, perhaps, it is something more. It is enough to know it survives.
On the Trail of the Tetramorph
Heretic Magazine, Issue 11, 2016
Tertamorph – derived from the Greek words tetra (four) and morph (to shape) it is a symbolic arrangement of four differing elements into one unit.
In an attempt to bring order and meaning into the structure of their daily existence the first wise Persian astrologers appointed four royal stars in the sky, otherwise known as 'the watchers', who stood over the universality of divine dominion. These stars were called Aldebaran, the watcher of the east, situated in the constellation of Taurus, corresponding the vernal equinox; Regulus, watcher of the south, situated in the constellation of Leo, corresponding to the summer solstice; Antarus, watcher of the west, situated in the constellation of Scorpio, corresponding to the autumn equinox; and Fomalhaut, the watcher of the north, situated near the constellation of Aquarius, corresponding to the winter solstice. Together they marked the four cardinal directions, the four fixed points of the zodiac, the four elements, and the four seasons, or changes within the solar year. Referenced in the ancient Mesopotamian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, were fantastical creatures known as the lamassu. Hybrids, composed from the bodies of bulls or lions, possessed the wings of an eagle, and the heads of men. They were said to have been symbols of the starry heavens and were considered to be protective spirits because they encompassed all life within them. They were some of the first examples of physical manifestations of the heavens above, and were literal representations of the analogical Hermetic law of magic – that which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing – a concept possibly as old as human thought itself.
The lamassu The appeared frequently in Mesopotamian art and mythology, either as giant statues that guarded the entrances to the royal palaces, or on engraven tablets which were buried under the thresholds to common houses, as they were considered to be the protectors that frightened away the forces of chaos, and brought peace to their homes. Every town worth its salt had pairs of the lamassu situated at the city gates set around the four cardinal points, protecting the denizens within against the demons outside with their strength, swiftness, and intelligence. Another version of the lamassu were the sphinxes of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Babylonia, with their composite physiques (usually a mixture of bull bodies, lion's paws, wings, with human heads), and other similar creatures found within the various early religions.
The lamassu The appeared frequently in Mesopotamian art and mythology, either as giant statues that guarded the entrances to the royal palaces, or on engraven tablets which were buried under the thresholds to common houses, as they were considered to be the protectors that frightened away the forces of chaos, and brought peace to their homes. Every town worth its salt had pairs of the lamassu situated at the city gates set around the four cardinal points, protecting the denizens within against the demons outside with their strength, swiftness, and intelligence. Another version of the lamassu were the sphinxes of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Babylonia, with their composite physiques (usually a mixture of bull bodies, lion's paws, wings, with human heads), and other similar creatures found within the various early religions.
Considering they were the most popular winged iconography at the time, the lamassu would have been known to the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, famous for his seven visions, while he lived in exile amongst the Babylonians. In his inaugural manifestation, Ezekiel saw God approaching him from a cloud to the north (the north being the home of the gods in ancient mythology) riding upon a battle chariot (or merkabah) which was drawn by four creatures he called 'the cherubim' or 'the four living creatures' (khayyot), which he described “as for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle. Their wings stretched upward; two wings of each one touched one another, and two covered their bodies.” Next to each of the cherubim was a tall wheel set within a wheel (ophanim) that had eyes covering the rims. Once within shouting distance, God insisted that Ezekiel become the 'watchman' of Israel. In the Bible, the cherubim make their first appearance in the garden of Eden 'guarding' the way to the Tree of Life so the humans could not come back in, and Satan was said to have been a cherubim before his rebellion. Early Semitic tradition also perceived the cherubim as 'guardians' or 'watchers', and only later did they receive their angelic status, being possessed of four wings covered with eyes which made them 'all-seeing'. Interestingly enough, in the Torah, the cherubim were the first objects to be created in the universe perhaps harking back to the thought of containing all life within them. The cherubim, only with six wings like a seraph, and called 'the four living beings', appear in John of Patmos' vision chronicled in the book of Revelations as such, “The first creature was like a lion, and the second creature like a calf, and the third creature had a face like that of a man, and the fourth creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within.” Although not included in the Bible, the book of Enoch tells a similar tale, possibly pre-dating Ezekiel's vision by a century. “And I looked and saw a lofty throne: its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun, and there was the vision of cherubim. And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look thereon.”
Although the attributions of the tetramorph to the four Evangelists were credited to Saint 
In the late Romanesque period, images of the tetramorph fell out of favor and were exchanged for their human counterparts. But in the 15th century a new card game known as the tarot (tarocchi), or carte de trionfi (triumph cards), came into fashion. In one of the earliest decks, the Sforza Castle, the tetramorph make an appearance on The World Card, XXI. On another deck from the 16th century, the World Card is depicted with a man standing on top of the world (mondo – which could also be read as universe) with symbols for the four elements divided within. A century later on the same card the iconography had changed, and man stood within the center of the world, and the tetramorph appeared in the four corners surrounding it taking the place of the four elements. Curiously enough, the enigmatic Sola Busca deck from the 18th century depicts the World Card as Nabuchodensor (Nebuchadnezzar) fighting a dragon which brings one back to Babylon.
In the 18th century began the great Tarot revival, and along with the popularity of the Marseille deck in Southern France, tarot changed from a mere card game to being used for divination as well (although there are sporadic accounts of it being used earlier for such). The occultist Papus (Gerard Encausse), the first to coin the term 'The Marseille Deck' in his book Tarot of the Bohemians (1889), explained the symbology of The World card as thus, “a nude female figure, holding a wand in each hand, is placed in the centre of an ellipsis, her legs crossed (like those of the Hanged Man in the twelfth card). At the four angles of the card we find the four animals of the Apocalypse, and the four forms of the Sphinx: the Man, the Lion, the Bull, and the Eagle. This symbol represents Macrocosm and Microcosm, that is to say, God and the Creation, or the Law of the Absolute. The four figures placed at the four corners represent the four letters of the sacred name, or the four great symbols of the Tarot (the sceptre, cup, sword and pentacle).” He goes on to explain the sceptre is 'yod', representing fire, the cup is 'he' representing water, the sword is 'vau' representing earth, and the pentacle is the second 'he' representing air. Formulated together they formed YHVH, the unutterable name of the God of Israel , or the tetragrammaton, which in kabbalah pertained to the mystery of the four directions, the four worlds, and the potentiality of being. Papus also stated that the World card was the key to the year, Philosophy (encompassing logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics) and to the kabbalah.
Twenty years later, in his seminal book Pictorial Key of the Tarot (1911), mystic and scholar, A.E. Waite (designer of the popular Rider-Waite deck) wrote about the World card as thus, “It represents also the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God. It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit... But it is perhaps more especially a story of the past, referring to that day when all was declared to be good, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy.” The tetramorph also appeared in the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card (X) in the Rider-Waite deck along with a sphinx sitting at the top of a wheel. A.E Waite described the card as “the symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein.” In this age, the tetramorph have been adapted from an earlier spiritual Christian function, to a metaphysical one; as a gateway between the conscious and unconscious mind, perhaps in an attempt to find the divine within the ancient rites of renewal once again. The morning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy is a definite clue given each of the original four royal stars of Persia would have functioned as the morning star depending upon the season, and in Medieval Judaism the sons of God were those individuals who possessed divine power by means of astrological knowledge which bring one full circle. But that's kind of the circumnavigational point of totality in which the symbolism of the tetramorph and its other composite compatriots (the lamassu, sphinx, cherubim, etc.) represented, isn't it? Cycles of the harvest, patterns of existence, layers of meaning, to bring chaos into structure, and to make the unknown known. Perhaps those ancient, wise, Persian astrologers knew a part of our humanity was written in the stars after all.
Gloria to the End of the World (In the Blink of an Eye)
The Enigmatic and Apocalyptic Visions of Artist Juan Valdez Leal
Heretic Magazine, Issue 10, 2016
Juan de Valdes Leal (1622-1690) was a Spanish painter of the Baroque era. His style was considered mature, often bordering on the macabre, with it's flagrant brushstrokes. Most of his paintings dealt with the allegory of the transience of life and death. Two of his most famous works, Finis Gloriae Mundi and In Icti Occuli, translate roughly to 'the end of the glory of the world in the blink of an eye'. With it's subtle and apocalyptic overtones was there more to Leal's work than what meets the eye?
Finis Gloriae Mundi was also the title of the master alchemist Fulcanelli’s unpublished third tome. The task of editing Fulcanelli’s books fell upon his adept, author and alchemist, Eugene Canseliet, who in his own words said, “it is only for Finis Gloriae Mundi that a few notes were actually written and they were not included in the parcel with the other notes. I don’t know why. I have used those texts, since they were outside, in order to get an idea of what the third book might have been like. What would it have been in actuality, I have no idea. But Fulcanelli wanted the parcel back and he took it from me. Perhaps there were very serious matters in there.” Canseliet continued, “the two texts that were published from these notes appeared in the second edition of the Mysteries of the Cathedrals and in Dwellings of the Philosophers. They are chapters dealing respectively with the cyclical cross of Hendaye and the paradox of the unlimited progress of sciences.” Having personally read through these passages many times, one could easily say they contain dire warnings about the future of nuclear energy and the coming age of iron; the age of death.
The first edition of Mysteries of the Cathedrals was published by Jean Schmidt in 1926. Then, it was republished in 1957 with the added chapter on the cyclical cross of Hendaye. An account of the cross was originally written by Jules Boucher in 1936, but Fulcanelli took it one step further by identifying the base of the mystery cross with the four ages of a man. The first age being the Creda Yuga, or the age of innocence, when innocence was firmly established on earth. The second age, the Treda Yuga, corresponds to the age of silver. The third age, the Trouvabara Yuga, or the age of bronze. Finally, the age of iron, the fourth and last age, and the one that we currently live in, the Kuli Yuga; the age of misery, misfortune, and decrepitude. These four ages in Hindu mythology can be attributed to the form of a cow, symbolic of virtue, that goes from standing on four legs, to a final and weakened state, barely able to balance on one leg.
Fulcanelli also left us with a mystery written on the cross, “OXCRUXAVES PENUNICA” which could be read “O crux ave spes unica“ (Hail o cross, the only hope) but the translation should read unicus not unica. In using the 'secret language of the birds' or the 'green language', a phonetic wordplay with it’s origins in ancient Greek, by using a permutation of the vowels, Fulcanelli comes up with this sentence, “Il est ecrit que la vie se refugie en un seul espace” (it is written that life takes refuge within a single space).Twenty years later, in his seminal book Pictorial Key of the Tarot (1911), mystic and scholar, A.E. Waite (designer of the popular Rider-Waite deck) wrote about the World card as thus, “It represents also the perfection and end of the Cosmos, the secret which is within it, the rapture of the universe when it understands itself in God. It is further the state of the soul in the consciousness of Divine Vision, reflected from the self-knowing spirit... But it is perhaps more especially a story of the past, referring to that day when all was declared to be good, when the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy.” The tetramorph also appeared in the corners of the Wheel of Fortune card (X) in the Rider-Waite deck along with a sphinx sitting at the top of a wheel. A.E Waite described the card as “the symbolic picture stands for the perpetual motion of a fluidic universe and for the flux of human life. The Sphinx is the equilibrium therein.” In this age, the tetramorph have been adapted from an earlier spiritual Christian function, to a metaphysical one; as a gateway between the conscious and unconscious mind, perhaps in an attempt to find the divine within the ancient rites of renewal once again. The morning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy is a definite clue given each of the original four royal stars of Persia would have functioned as the morning star depending upon the season, and in Medieval Judaism the sons of God were those individuals who possessed divine power by means of astrological knowledge which bring one full circle. But that's kind of the circumnavigational point of totality in which the symbolism of the tetramorph and its other composite compatriots (the lamassu, sphinx, cherubim, etc.) represented, isn't it? Cycles of the harvest, patterns of existence, layers of meaning, to bring chaos into structure, and to make the unknown known. Perhaps those ancient, wise, Persian astrologers knew a part of our humanity was written in the stars after all.
Gloria to the End of the World (In the Blink of an Eye)
The Enigmatic and Apocalyptic Visions of Artist Juan Valdez Leal
Heretic Magazine, Issue 10, 2016
Juan de Valdes Leal (1622-1690) was a Spanish painter of the Baroque era. His style was considered mature, often bordering on the macabre, with it's flagrant brushstrokes. Most of his paintings dealt with the allegory of the transience of life and death. Two of his most famous works, Finis Gloriae Mundi and In Icti Occuli, translate roughly to 'the end of the glory of the world in the blink of an eye'. With it's subtle and apocalyptic overtones was there more to Leal's work than what meets the eye?
Juan Valdes Leal had a benefactor, Don Miguel de Manara, who was a knight of the Order of Calatrava, and who's tempestuous life was rumored to be the inspiration behind one the many Don Juan myths of the time. Old Don Miguel even had an opera named after him composed by Franco Alfano. The story goes that late one night, while stumbling home from a raucous party (or possible orgy), Don Miguel had a horrifying and life-changing vision. The vision consisted of a large funeral procession. When he looked upon the open casket, he realized the corpse inside was none other than himself, only as a dead man. After that, he cleaned up his act and became a benefactor to the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville, a place that was dedicated to helping the poor, as penance for his previous life. Atoning for his sins doesn't seem to have have left its mark on him, and on his epitaph it states, 'here lies the bones and ashes of the worst person who ever lived on earth'. His last will and testament contained the most humble of self accusations, not only as a 'great sinner', but also an 'adulterer, robber, and servant of the devil'.
Also depicted in the painting is a toad (a familiar), a fan of peacock feathers (vanity), and a heart. Again a heart on the right set of scales, but with the initials IHS (Jesus Hominum Salvator), a closed book (subtext), a loaf of bread, and other religious adornments. Don Miguel appears to be staring glassy-eyed at the left set of scales. There is an ominous looking owl perched on the third of the seven steps that lead to the light, staring towards the bishop. The French word for owl comes from 'chouette' from the old Occitan word 'chòta'. In Greek, 'chous' signifies the tumulus, or the mound above a tomb. In old Khem, 'Shu' or 'Chou' is the light of the east that divides heaven and earth. The owl represents thought and consciousness. The nocturnal bird of prey also symbolizes Lucifer. In the painting its body is cast in the shadow of the stairway, while its head is in the light. Night being the symbol of death, and the head bearing the light: the two aspects of Lucifer, at once the 'guardian of hell', but also the 'light bearer or light bringer'.
In Icti Occuli, or 'in the blink of an eye'. The allegory of death presents the triumph of the grim reaper as he sweeps into the picture. He is an imposing figure, with one skeletal foot standing on the globe while the other stands on armaments; the trappings of office, and insignias of power. Under one arm he carries a coffin, and in his hand, a scythe. His bony right fingers snuffs out the life-light represented by the candle as he stares at the viewer from the depths of his empty eye sockets. The candlestick, and the bishop’s cross, form a radius over the bishop’s hat from where death puts out the flame. On the coffin rests pontifical robes, a bishop’s crosier, a papal cross and tiara. Close to the tiara, two royal crowns rest on some purple fabric. From one hangs the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the pendant that represents Saint Michael slaying the dragon. Notice the open book with the architectural drawing which looks to be the drawing of a cathedral? The same image turns up in another one of his paintings as well, along with images of open and closed texts; knowledge open and knowledge hidden. Printed on the spines of the three books are the words; history, science, and religion – the vanities of the material world.
In Mystery of the Cathedrals, Fulcanelli writes about the coming rotation of the earth's poles, and warns that every 12,000 thousand years, under the sign of Leo, or under that of Aquarius, Saturn brandishes his scythe and with his foot tips the earth on its axis. He is, in alchemical terminology, the secret fire which purifies matter. In Dwellings of the Philosophers, Fulcanelli sagely writes, “… human evolution expands and develops between the two scourges. Water and fire, agents of all material mutations, work together during the same time and each in an opposing terrestrial region. And since the solar movement – that is to say the ascension of the star to the zenith of the pole – remains the great driving force of the elemental conflagration, the result is that the northern hemisphere is, alternately, submerged at the end of one cycle and charred at the completion of the following…One must await with sangfroid the supreme hour, that of punishment for many, and martyrdom for others.”
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