Mystic Repast (Cakes and Ale)

Previous/ Masterlist/ Next

Welcome to the Mabon Tarot Blog Hop. Regular readers will remember that the the Tarot Blog Hop is an online blogging event where members of the TBH come together, all writing about the same subject, and linking to each other's blogs in a big circle. Regular readers will also remember that I quite often don't exactly blog about the topic in the manner that one would expect.

We were given two possible choices this blog hop: Tarot characters and sacred cooking (feasts), or Tarot characters and beauty products.

Given that I often walk around for hours in the morning before glancing at a mirror (useful for greeting Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and other door-to-door sales types), it is obvious that I am going to give beauty products a pass, and focus on sacred cooking instead.

The task for those of us who chose the food option was to imagine what some Tarot characters would cook, and how they would cook, what ingredients they would use for a sacred meal.

I decided to tell a story about the Fool and the High Priestess (or is it the Empress), and how the High Priestess would whack the Fool with her wooden spoon that doubled as a wand because the Fool's idea of a Sacred Meal was a roasted chicken from the local deli and a bag of Doritos, and...

...that is as far as I got.

Then I thought about the time I accidentally made bluish-purple pancakes (it is what happens when you use frozen blueberries)...which would be the Eight of Pentacles, and obviously the Star Trek engineer would do something...

...and that is as far as I got on that one.

Then my mind turned to the Mystic Repast as done in Golden Dawn, and its Wiccan counterpart, Cakes and Ale. And I got stuck there...

For those who are unfamiliar with Golden Dawn, the Mystic Repast is a sacred meal that is part of the end ritual of the Neophyte Grade (0=0) which is the first level of membership and study in the tradition. It is administered by the Hierophant of a lodge (think gaggle of students led by someone making up answers to the student's questions as they go along...or maybe that was just my experience).

It consists of a Rose (East), a Red Lamp (South), a loaf of bread and a bit of salt (North), and a chalice of wine (West); all placed on the black double-cube altar along with the Mystic Triangle and Red Cross.

The officers of the lodge partake first (except for the Kerux--announcing officer--who goes last); then by the students of the lodge based first on their Grade in the system, and secondly by their date of entry.

The Hierophant says, "I invite you to smell with me the perfume of this Rose, sacred symbol of the element of Air. I invite you to feel the heat of this Lamp, emblem of sacred Fire. I invite you to eat with me this bread and salt, symbols of Earth. And finally drink with me this wine [or juice pretending to be wine] as emblem of the element of Water."

In one of the instructional documents of the tradition, the Mystic Repast is referred to as The Formula of the Justified One. "For Osiris-On-Nophris, who is found perfect before the Gods, hath said: These are the Elements of my Body, Perfected through suffering, Glorified through Trial. For the scent of the Dying Rose is as the repressed sigh of my suffering: And the flame-red Fire as the energy of mine Undaunted Will: And the Cup of Wine is the pouring out of the Blood of my Heart, Sacrificed unto Regeneration, unto the Newer Life: And the Bread and Salt are as the Foundations of my Body, which I destroy in order that they be renewed. For I am Osiris Triumphant, even Osiris-On-Nophris, the Justified One: I am He who is clothed in the Body of Flesh, Yet in whom is the Spirit of the Great Gods: I am the Lord of life, triumphant over Death. He who partaketh with me shall arise with me. I am the Manifestor in Matter of Those Whose Abode is the Invisible: I am purified: I stand upon the Universe: I am its Reconciler with the Eternal Gods: I am the Perfector of Matter: And without me, the Universe is not."

There is more to the Mystic Repast than just this, but this should be enough information for the reader to follow the rest of this post.

The symbols of the Four Elements given as the Mystic Repast.

And when I say I got stuck there--I mean that I kept thinking about different layers of this part of the Neophyte ritual. 

For instance, the obvious Tarot card that is serving the Mystic Repast is the Hierophant; after all, the officer that is administering the Repast is the Hierophant. Except that only the outer appearance of the Hierophant is associated with the Tarot card of that name. When the Floor Officers (those officers who do not remain sitting on the Dais during the Neophyte ritual) are associated with Tarot cards on the planetary layer, the Hierophant cannot be the Hierophant card, for the simple reason that the Hierophant card is a zodiac card, and not a planet card. 

If your eyes glazed over at any point during the preceding paragraph, feel free to skip this section and resume reading below the next picture in this post. 

For those brave souls who stuck around, and still have no clue what I am going on about, just bear in mind that I was initiated into the Neophyte Grade of a Golden Dawn group twenty-five years ago, and into its Inner Order a couple of years later, and have been active more or less constantly practicing its style of magic since then; and therefore, have spent more time tinkering with the system than a most sane people have spent trying to figure out how the latest phone works. 

Again, I suggest that you run for the hills and skip to below the next picture. 

So looking at this from the viewpoint of the planetary cards, I know that the Hierophant represents the Sun, and therefore is more proper to be the Sun card itself. But viewing the ritual as the basis of magic, the Hierophant could also be the Magician (Mercury). There are also the view that the High Priestess is involved here (Moon), and there is the influence of the Universe card (Saturn). And...

...at some point, I came to the conclusion that from a viewpoint of magical operations that each of the planetary associated cards could be administering the Mystic Repast during an operation dealing with their respective planets. This also could be true of the Neophyte ritual itself which is considered to be a summary and overview of the entire Golden Dawn tradition; and therefore, shows the influence of the planets working on the newly minted member of the system (this is especially true if one was forced to serve in each of the six other Floor Officer positions before being allowed to serve as Hierophant--the Hierophant would be informed and shaped by those offices, their duties, and their associated energies--they have partaken of all the planets.)

Plus if one extends the symbolism of the Mystic Repast to include its mythical story lines, one ends up with other Tarot cards also being represented in part by the Mystic Repast: Osiris was torn asunder by Set (Devil card), put back together by Anubis and Isis (Moon card), the Elements themselves (the Four Aces), etc. 

Eventually if one thinks and mediates hard enough on the Mystic Repast, one sees echoes of the entire universe, and the kabbalah that describes it, in the Elements being served. 

At this point, I must admit that I might have gone a little mad.  But that is ok, for everyone in Golden Dawn is a little mad.

The seven planetary Major Arcana according to the Golden Dawn Tradition.

Ok, we are all back together now--those who attempted to understand what I was going on about, and those who just smiled and wondered if the madman would go away if one offered him a cookie. 

One of the reasons that so much time is spent thinking about the aspects of the Neophyte ritual is that the ritual is the basis of much of the magical operations that a Golden Dawn magician performs. It also colors much of the magic that one does outside of the system, as well as adding a layer to whatever religion (if any) that the member observes. For instance, it colors my experience of Cakes and Ale, the Wiccan version of the sacred meal. 

Now, we were to ask what a Tarot character would serve at a sacred feast, and how they would cook it, etc. For me, this is actually a real life game. 

I do a lot of ritual, including an annual open Wiccanish ritual. Near the end of designing of every ritual, the question comes up--"What are we going to use for Cakes and Ale?" The obvious answer--Cakes and Ale--often needs to be adjusted. For instance, I know several people who have a non-gluten requirement...what bloody Tarot card would one associate with non-gluten food...the Devil...yeah, the Devil...I think. As for Ale, it along with Wine, are not suitable for public rituals, so it is grape juice, or apple juice, or water (as one of the other members of Denver Open Full Moon community uses).  

In private rituals, I often include a pomegranate in my Cakes and Ale (Universe and High Priestess cards). Other things I have used: chocolate and honey (Empress), gold foil chocolate coins (Wheel of Fortune), fortune cookies (Magician), handwritten poetic fortunes (Magician--trickster), beef jerky and Twinkies (Death and Last Judgement...one of my honored dead I associate with those foods).   

And so it goes. 

In closing, I would like to tell a joke:

Strength says to their furkids, "Yes, I see that you are not happy with tonight's meal. This is what I am offering. Eat or starve. You have four types of dry food in your bowls. I am not going to the grocery store, just to get you something else to turn your nose up at."

Previous/ Masterlist/ Next

Are the names of the Elemental Kings based on Hebrew?

Rose Cross sigil of Ghob.

One of the mysteries of the spiritual hierarchy and divine names that Golden Dawn uses is what the names of the Elemental Kings actually mean.

The source of the names for the Elemental Kings that Golden Dawn uses seems to be Eliphas Levi (or at least, that is the earliest source I have heard cited for them). It is just too bad that Levi did not reveal what the names actually mean.

[I have ran across references to a Buni text (?) and that Ninevah Shadrach claims that the names are actually those of Djin family names--having not seen those sources first hand, I am going to continue to ignore them at this time (if later, I read them in some form, and they make more sense than my theory, I will tell you).]

Awhile ago, I ran across a theory that the Elemental Kings names were actually Sanskrit (proto Indo-European). For me, this theory instantly stuck a cord of falseness. Levi has never stuck me as being knowledgeable about Sanskrit. Plus the theory seemed to be one that someone put a lot of work into...you know the type of theory that so much work is put into it that you can see the creator of it tying themselves into knots trying to prove it.

Besides, it has been my experience that magicians (even armchair occultists and theorists like Levi [he was not a working magician despite his influence on the occultism]) tend to stuck closer to their home sources. So Latin and Hebrew would be better choices for the source language of the Elemental Kings names. Maybe Greek. (But not Enochian--Levi does not seem terribly aware of that language.)

Now, the Latin seems to be a no-go...but someone more knowledgeable than me will have to confirm its unlikelihood. Greek is, well, Greek to me (so ditto, but more so in the need of an expert other than me). And as to the Enochian, well I will leave that one to Aaron Leitch.

But I could do a preliminary search of Hebrew, so I did. Besides I really wanted to be able to have a set of Rose Cross sigils for the four Elemental Kings, and being able to spell their names in the Hebrew alphabet would be handy even if the names turned out not to be Hebrew.

Now, do the names actually have to mean something? Yes, if one goes by the bulk of evidence from the grimoires and other spiritual traditions, the names of spiritual entities always have a meaning--you do not find random strings of letters being tossed together to create names like those of characters in some bad science fiction story. True, you can find instances where names seem to be just random letters, but I know no instance of a truly random creation of a name--what we do find when we encounter goobly-gook names is actually encoding. For instance, look at the so-called 72 names of God; they appear to be random letters until you know the way that they were created--after which you have to admit that they are just the result of a magical programming code, so to speak.

So do the Elemental King names mean anything in Hebrew? Maybe. Maybe not.

The name of the Elemental King of Earth (Gnomes) is Ghob according to the official documents of the Golden Dawn. There is a possibility that the name comes from the Chaldean word, Gob, meaning "a pit." In Hebrew (a language that is both one of the oldest in the world, and one of the youngest...it is a historical curiosity), we find Gov "a locust" and Gev "a waterhole/cistern". That gives us two possible spelling: Gimel Vav Beth and Gimel Beth.

Those of you who have already looked at the Rose Cross sigil at the top of this post will notice that while part of me went with Gimel Vav Beth, another part wanted to go with Gimel Vav Beth Heh instead.

Why Gimel Vav Beth Heh? Well, the word Gove means "collector of money/taxes" which (in my opinion) would actually be a sensible name for the Elemental King of Earth.

(For those unfamiliar with Hebrew, the letter Beth often ends up sounding like a V instead.)

Rose Cross sigil of Djin.

The next name to look at is Djin, the name of the Elemental King of Fire (Salamanders). Besides looking a lot like the Arabic word that became our modern word of Genie, Djin could also be Chaldean, Dayan "a judge." The Hebrew, being an offshoot (or is it kissing cousin) of Chaldean also has Dayan as a possibility, as well as Din "law/rule/judgment/justice." Plus there is a related word Dinur that means "of fire." So far, maybe Hebrew is the key to the meaning of the Elemental King names.

For this name, I went with the spelling of Daleth Yod Nun.

[As for the Arabic, Hebrew and Arabic are of the same language family branch...so a case for Hebrew is also a case for Arabic as a possible source for the names.]

Rose Cross sigil of Nichsa.

Now, Nichsa, the name of the Elemental King of Water (Undines)...or is it a Queen?...presents a spelling nightmare.

[Actually, I recently ran across a webpage arguing that Nichsa is a King's name and that there are also four Elemental Queens...that will be the subject of another post someday. For ease of blogging, I chose to treat all four names as King names, even though at least one branch of the modern Golden Dawn labels Nichsa as a Queen's name.]

Basically, eyeballing the word Nichsa in Latin (English) letters leaves us with twelve possibilities. Partially hits were Nun Kaph Shin, Nikesh "to weed," Nun Kaph Samech "property/asset/wealth," and Nun Cheth Shin, Naxash "snake/serpent."

But the best hit was Nixsa (Nun Kaph Samech Heh)--so close that Levi could choose to spell it Nichsa--which means "to be covered/concealed"; this gives us three names that Hebrew might be the source of.

Rose Cross sigil of Paralda.

But the theory seems to come apart with Paralda, the name of the Elemental King of Air (Sylphs).

There is no Paralda in any of the dozen Hebrew dictionaries that litter my coffee table. The best that I could come up with is Peri (Peh Resh Yod) meaning "fruit/offspring/progeny" or "reward"; Peh Resh Heh meaning "to bear/increase/to be fertile"; and Leda (Lamed Daleth Heh) meaning "birth." Combining the two parts, Paralda might mean "reward [of] birth" or maybe not. It is beyond my skill with the Hebrew language to be sure; nevertheless that is the meaning I am going to go with for now.

The spelling that I chose to use for the Rose Cross sigil is Peh Resh Lamed Daleth Heh. (An Heh on the end of a word is often said as an "A" like on the end of the name "Sandra."

So there you have it. Hebrew may or may not be the source language for the four Elemental King names that Levi gave to the Golden Dawn tradition. But I think that it is a stronger 75% than the Sanskrit theory (which also seems to fall apart with Paralda).

And the prize for ugliest magical tool goes to...

Probably the world's ugliest Fire Wand.

I presume that I own the world's ugliest Fire Wand. If not, I am curious to see the Fire Wand that beats mine as the world's sorriest attempt to create a Fire Wand.

This Fire Wand was created when I was living in an apartment, and only had access to handsaw and a ruler...and a box of crayons. I needed a Fire Wand for a working, and didn't have one--therefore, I very rapidly created one out of a wooden dowel.

Now, by Golden Dawn tradition with its emphasis on exactness...and beauty, this Fire Wand should not work...at all, or very, very badly. But it did work, and still works.

If after viewing this Fire Wand, you suspect that all of my Elemental Weapons might be a little non-regulation--well, you would be right. I imagine that Westcott, Mathers, and Moina would be appalled by my lack of caring about my ugly magical tools. Or maybe not--after all, they were using pasteboard for the construction of their Rose Crosses.

Given the teachings of the particular Golden Dawn group (provided that you still believe that we are GD), one might ask: How can such in-exact tools work? If the power lies in the symbolism, how can faulty symbolism still get results? My short answer (inspired by Plato) is that in the World of Ideas, there exists a Perfect Fire Wand; it is from this Perfect Fire Wand that all Fire Wands draw their power from. My Fire Wand does not have to perfect...because the Perfect Fire Wand already exists in the mind of the Divine.

Ritual Landmarks of Golden Dawn

The recent discussion over on Martin's Golden Dawn Group yahoo forum about the Watchtower Ritual have sparked a curiosity about what must be included in a ritual for it to be a Golden Dawn ritual and what needs to be excluded.

When it comes to layers that must be kept out, I have yet to think of anything that automatically would make a ritual non-Golden Dawn. Maybe my imagination is not that good, or maybe I am just too liberal to see the obvious. I am sure that my readers will point out things that I have completely over-looked.

But when it came to things that must be included, I instantly had a short list: Godforms, Elements, and the Tree of Life. To this short list, I have added a few things based on further thought and a brief conversation with one of my friends (I think he is a friend...maybe he is more of a thorn in the side...wait, thorn in the side is my definition of friend).

Godforms are a must have in Golden Dawn ritual. The absence of them in the Regardie Elemental Grade material disturbs me, but is understandable when placed in the historical context. Whether I use Pat Zalewski's, David Griffin's, or someone else's model is largely a matter of taste and depends on exactly I am doing at any given time, but every ritual I do needs its godforms.

Elements are another necessitity in my mind, though I will admit that there are a couple of rituals where I am a little fuzzy about what is going on the elemental level. I also think that the elements are given more attention than they desire occasionally; for instance, the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram is more sephirothic than elemental in my less-than-humble opinion. Nevertheless, when trying to figure out what is going on in a Golden Dawn ritual, I look to see what role the elements are playing.

The Tree of Life is probably the most important item on my short list. It is like the control dial of the radio for me. It may not be the important in the larger scheme of things, but it is the layer I like to think that I understand the best.

For me, these parts (layers) and others are like Landmarks. If they are not present, then there is a good chance that it is not actually a Golden Dawn ritual that I am looking at. Now, there will be some that who object to my use of the term Landmark here, inisting that Landmark refers merely to administrative and lineage issues; but I say that it is the rituals that contain the Landmarks and not the Charters, Warrants and Bylaws. Besides they function as Landmarks for me, myself being one of those people who judge whether a group is Golden Dawn or not based on their ritual and not who a group is connected to.

Of course, someone will point out that being one of those silly people who give directions like "Turn left at the pink house; if you drive by the police station, you have gone too far" and expect other people to navigate the same way, that my whole definition of Landmark is completely wrong. But it is mine, and I am not about to change my definition just to make someone else happy.

If you want to know why the term Landmark makes sense to me for describing the essential layers of the rituals, consider this: when you hear the godname Shadai El Chai in a ritual, do you know where you are? I do not think that I need to say any more.