KNIGHT OF THE SERPENT: The story is that an "illustrious knight," not otherwise specified, founded the ORDER OF THE BRAZEN SERPENT -- "in the time of the Crusades" -- for the relief of pilgrims to Jerusalem. The allusion is of course to the Serpent uplifted in the wilderness by Moses for the healing of the children of Israel. There is no very convincing analogy between ministration to pilgrims and the restoration of those who had been punished for their disobedience and rebellion, nor can we look for any light of symbolism in the parable of the Brazen Serpent, for the RITE OF MEMPHIS -- which dispenses this Grade -- carries little of such light in its wallet. The Candidate and his sponsor in the Ceremony are children of Israel who have been "wandering in the wilderness for many days" and for no particular reason are arrested as spies. When they have justified themselves there is nothing to do but to pledge, invest and entrust the Candidate, who receives thereafter the accolade of the Grade and then listens to a discourse on the antiquity and diffusion of serpent-worship. It contains no single allusion to the Christian understanding of the story in the BOOK OF NUMBERS, nor to the commentary of alchemists thereon, though in the classification of 1856 this Grade was included in the Senate of Hermetic Philosophers. It ranks as No. 25 in the general enumeration of the RITE OF MEMPHIS and as 15 in the reduction of the ANTIENT AND PRIMITIVE RITE. It is nothing and leads to nothing.
-- The Ancient and Primitive Rite  of Memphis and Misraim, Excerpts from "A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry," by Arthur Edward Waite

***

Jung noted that there were many accounts in mythology of the relation between a hero and a serpent, so the presence of the serpent indicated that "it will again be a hero myth."
-- The Red Book: Liber Novus, by C.G. Jung

The “word” of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the Secret Doctrine “the One Number issued from No-Number” — the One Eternal Principle. The esoteric theogony begins with the One, manifested, therefore not eternal in its presence and being, if eternal in its essence; the number of the numbers and numbered — the latter proceeding from the Voice, the feminine Vach, Satarupa “of the hundred forms,” or Nature. It is from this number 10, or creative nature, the Mother (the occult cypher, or “nought,” ever procreating and multiplying in union with the Unit “1,” one, or the Spirit of Life), that the whole Universe proceeded.
-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

**
All numbers are multiples of one, all sciences converge to a common point, all wisdom comes out of one centre, and the number of wisdom is one.
-- The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim Known by the Name of Paracelsus and the Substance of his Teachings, by Franz Hartmann, M.D.

***

Now as yet we had not seen the dead body of our careful and wise father, we therfore removed the Altar aside, there we lifted up a strong plate of brass, and found a fair and worthy body, whole and unconsumed, as the same is here lively counterfeited, with all the Ornaments and Attires; in his hand he held a parchment book, called I. the which next to the Bible, is our greatest treasure.
-- Fama Fraternitatis, by Wikipedia

The cyclopean eye and Wotan's single eye, the Egyptian eye-amulet and the Eye of God in the Triangle portrayed in our churches, the Arimaspians of Herodotus in the north of Europe are clear and unmistakable reference points.
-- Theozoology, or the Science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron, by Dr. Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels

***

Let us remember how it is written and said that the soul of Christ had two eyes, a right and a left eye. In the beginning, when the soul of Christ was created, she fixed her right eye upon eternity and the Godhead, and remained in the full intuition and enjoyment of the divine Essence and Eternal Perfection; and continued thus unmoved and undisturbed by all the accidents and travail, suffering, torment and pain that ever befell the outward man. But with the left eye she beheld the creature and perceived all things therein, and took note of the difference between the creatures, which were better or worse, nobler or meaner; and thereafter was the outward man of Christ ordered.

Thus the inner man of Christ, according to the right eye of His soul, stood in the full exercise of His divine nature, in perfect blessedness, joy and eternal peace. But the outward man and the left eye of Christ's soul, stood with Him in perfect suffering, in all tribulation, affliction and travail; and this in such sort that the inward and right eye remained unmoved, unhindered and untouched by all the travail, suffering, grief and anguish that ever befell the outward man. It hath been said that when Christ was bound to the pillar and scourged, and when He hung upon the cross, according to the outward man, yet His inner man, or soul according to the right eye, stood in as full possession of divine joy and blessedness as it did after His ascension, or as it doth now. In like manner His outward man, or soul with the left eye, was never hindered, disturbed or troubled by the inward eye in its contemplation of the outward things that belonged to it.

Now the created soul of man hath also two eyes. The one is the power of seeing into eternity, the other of seeing into time and the creatures, of perceiving how they differ from each other as afore-said, of giving life and needful things to the body, and ordering and governing it for the best. But these two eyes of the soul of man cannot both perform their work at once; but if the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must close itself and refrain from working, and be as though it were dead.

For if the left eye be fulfilling its office toward outward things; that is, holding converse with time and the creatures; then must the right eye be hindered in its working; that is, in its contemplation. Therefore whosoever will have the one must let the other go; for "no man can serve two masters."

-- Theologia Germanica, by Anonymous (Meister Eckhart)
 

***

Wuotan appears before our eyes as the reflection of the All as an individual self: "He consecrates himself, consecrated to himself," he consecrates himself -- as a self-sacrificer to himself as a self-sacrifice -- to the passing away in order to arise anew. The nearer he feels to the point in time for this passing away toward a new arising -- his death -- the clearer the knowledge grows in him about the secret of life which is an eternal arising and passing away, a constant transformation, an eternal return [ewige Wiederkehr] -- a life of constant cycle of being born and dying. "This knowledge completely arises in him only at that twilight-moment in which he is sinking (dying) into the Ur out of which he will once more arise, and in this twilight-moment (death) he gives his eye as a pledge in exchange for elevated knowledge. However, this eye remains his property -- even if it has been pawned. He will reclaim it upon his rebirth out of the Ur. For this one is is his physical body, while his other eye, which he retains and takes with him into the Ur, is his spiritual body, his soul. The one physical eye, that is, the physical body itself, is only temporarily lost in the transitional phase of death, but it nevertheless remains his own, and is reunified with his other (spiritual) eye at the moment of his return out of the Ur -- upon his rebirth.  This latter is his spiritual body (the soul), but the primeval knowledge gained from Mimir's well also remains his property upon his rebirth, i.e. the property of the All. It is the sum of the experience (Gjallar) of thousands upon thousands of ages which is preserved and inherited -- unconsciously through the mind and consciously through language and writing. Thus the knowledge of Wuotan, and that of each individual self, is increased by means of the drink from Mimir's well using the Gjallarhorn, he enriches it through his questions to the Wala (Lady of Death, Totenwal, Helja), as well as through his dialog with Mimir's head. Through this knowledge he became wise and found both the science surrounding the fate of the world by his own life being consecrated to death, and the solution to the riddle of the cosmos, which -- as it says in the "Runatals thattr Odins" -- "he will never ever reveal to a woman or a girl."

If a master, in imitation of Wuotan the "transformer" [wandler] (not the "wanderer" [wanderer]), slowly but surely acquires knowledge through constant transformation (being born, living, dying, entering the primeval state, and being reborn), through constant pledging of his one eye in the cycle of immeasurable spans of time, and through all of this finds the lost name of the divinity, then he himself becomes the hawk that sits between the two eyes of the eagle, then he will no longer be reborn, for then he will have found the lost master-word, and then he himself will have become God.

-- The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric, by Guido von List

***

They strew in the path of kings and czars
Jewels and gems of price:
But for thy head I will pluck down stars,
And pave thy way with eyes.
I have sought for thee a costlier dome
Than Mahmoud’s palace high,
And thou, returning, find thy home
In the apple of Love’s eye.
-- Hafiz, quoted in Letters and Social Aims, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

***

And the real symbolism of the pyramid is alchemical, of course. The traditional code represents the three kinds of sex by a cube, a pyramid, and a sphere. The cube is that travesty we call 'normal sex, in which the two nervous systems never actually merge at the orgasm, like the two parallel sides of the cube. The pyramid is the two coming together and joining, the magical-telepathic orgasm. The sphere is the Tantric ritual, endlessly prolonged, with no orgasm at all. The alchemists used that code for over two thousand years. The Rosicrucians among the founding fathers used the pyramid as a symbol of their kind of sex magic. Aleister Crowley used that symbol the same way, more recently. The eye on the pyramid is the two minds meeting. Neurological interlock. The opening of the Eye of Shiva. Ewige Schlangekraft—the eternal serpent power. The joining of the Rose and Cross, vagina and penis, into Rose-Cross. The astral leap. Mind escaping from physiology.
-- The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

***

Said R. Hizkiah: 'I have learnt something about this which I hardly like to disclose, showing how wisdom is embodied in a common practice.' R. Abba clapped him on the shoulder, saying: 'Speak out and do not be afraid; in the days of R. Simeon there is no need for secrecy.' He then said: 'I have seen in the chapter of R. Jesse the Elder regarding customs, that if a man has a son, when he dies the son ought to put dust on his eyes at the time of his burial, and this is a mark of respect to him, being a sign that the world is now concealed from him, but his son inherits the world in his place. For the human eye represents the world with its various colours. The outer ring of white corresponds to the sea of Oceanus which surrounds the whole world. The next colour represents the land which is surrounded by the sea. A third colour in the middle of the eye corresponds to Jerusalem, which is in the centre of the world. Finally there is the pupil of the eye, which reflects the beholder and is the most precious part of all. This corresponds to Zion, which is the central point of the universe, in which the reflection of the whole world can be seen, and where is the abode of the Shekinah, which is the beauty and the cynosure of the world. Thus the eye is the heritage of the world, and so as the father leaves it the son inherits it.' Said R. Abba : 'You are quite right. But there is still a deeper significance in the practice, although men do not know it. For when a man departs from the world, his soul is still enclosed in him, and before his eyes are closed they see certain recondite things, as we have explained in connection with the verse, "For a man shall not see me and live", indicating that they see things in their death which they do not see in their life-time. Then it behoves those who are present to place their hands on his eyes and close them, and, as we have learnt in connection with customs and manners, if he has a son, it behoves the son in the first place to do so, as it is written, "And Joseph shall put his hand on thy eyes." The reason for the closing of the eyes is because some sight the reverse of holy might present itself, and it is not meet that the eyes which have just beheld a holy vision should now dwell on a sight of a different character. A further reason is that the soul is still attached to him in the house, and if the eye is left open, with that unholy vision still resting upon it, everything it looks upon is cursed; and this is not respectful to the eye, to allow it to gaze upon anything improper. The best sign of respect, therefore, is that a man's eyes should be closed by the hand of the son whom he has left behind him.'
-- The Zohar, translated by Harry  Sperling and Maurice Simon

The fundamental principle, is the reconciliation of the opposites. We cannot choose one opposite over another. We must experience the relationship between the two and reconcile them into a higher synthesis. This does not mean to be in the middle. For instance, the proper balance between wealth and poverty is not the mathematical average between $1,000,000 and $1, i.e. $500,000. There are people who are poor at $1,000,000, others who are rich at $1. Reconciling the opposites is not that simple. It would be a great help if someone who has gone before us would describe the experience. What would he say of himself if he had reconciled the opposites? I AM the bread of life (John 6:35); I AM the light of the world (John 8:12); I AM the door of the sheepfold (John 10:7); I AM the good shepherd (John 10:11); I AM the resurrection and the life (John 11:25); I AM the way the truth and the life (John 14:6); I AM the true vine (John 15:1). "I AM" is the most powerful statement any person can make.
-- Reconciliation, Orientation and Unity, by Jack Courtis, Rosicrucian Archive

***

It is not the comments or harangues of unlearned and fanatical preachers that I have in my mind, but sermons of great and deserved celebrity, and divines whose learning, well-regulated zeal, and sound scriptural views are as honourable to the established church, as their piety, beneficence and blameless life, are to the Christian name, when I say that passages occur which might almost lead one to conjecture, that the authors had found the words, "I will come and join you," instead of, "I am in the midst of you," -- (Compare 1. John, III. 24) -- passages from which it is at least difficult not to infer, that they had interpreted the promise, as of a corporal co-presence, instead of a spiritual immanence () as of an individual coming in or down, and taking a place, as soon as the required number of petitioners was completed! As if, in short, this presence, this actuation of the "I AM," () were an after-consequence, an accidental and separate result and reward of the contemporaneous and contiguous worshipping -- and not the total act itself, of which the spiritual Christ, one and the same in all the faithful, is the originating and perfective focal unity. Even as the physical life is in each limb and organ of the body, "all in every part;" but is manifested as life, by being one in all and thus making all one: even so with Christ, our Spiritual Life! He is in each true believer, in his solitary prayer and during his silent communion in the watches of the night, no less than in the congregation of the faithful; but he manifests his indwelling presence more characteristically, with especial evidence, when many, convened in his name, whether for prayer or for council, do through him become ONE.
-- On the Constitution of the Church and State, According to the Idea of Each; With Aids Toward a Right Judgment on the Late Catholic Bill, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

***

Ibn Mansur Al Hallaj, the "Qu'ranic Christ," making the dangerous and fatal "ejaculation," 'ANA' L HAQ (I AM the Truth)
 IF HALLAJ HAD SAID
"ALLAH AL HAZ -- GOD (IN HIS TRANSCENDENTAL ASPECT) IS THE
TRUTH, OR "HUWA AL HAQ" (HE IS THE TRUTH) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN
A COMMON STATEMENT. HOWEVER AL HALLAJ DECLARED THAT
GOD ALONE EXISTS: THEREFORE HE IS THE ONE SUBJECT AND THUS
HE ALONE CAN WITNESS HIS EXISTENCE.
-- Toward the One, by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

***

Take the famous utterance, 'I am God.' Some men reckon it as a great pretension; but 'I am Gael' is in fact a great humility. The man who says 'I am the servant of God' asserts that two exist, one himself and the other God. But he who says 'I am God' has naughted himself and cast himself to the winds. He says, 'I am God': that is, 'I am not, He is all, nothing has existence but God, I am pure non-entity, I am nothing.' In this the humility is greater.
-- Discourses of Rumi, translated by A. J. Arberry

***

[Gozer] Are you a God?
-- Ghostbusters, directed by Ivan Reitman

***

When what we should term the historical age emerged from the twilight of tradition, the Ana were already established in different communities, and had attained to a degree of civilisation very analogous to that which the more advanced nations above the earth now enjoy. They were familiar with most of our mechanical inventions, including the application of steam as well as gas. The communities were in fierce competition with each other. They had their rich and their poor; they had orators and conquerors, they made war either for a domain or an idea. Though the various states acknowledged various forms of government, free institutions were beginning to preponderate; popular assemblies increased in power; republics soon became general; the democracy to which the most enlightened European politicians look forward as the extreme goal of political advancement, and which still prevailed among other subterranean races, whom they despised as barbarians, the loftier family of Ana, to which belonged the tribe I was visiting, looked back to as one of the crude and ignorant experiments which belong to the infancy of political science. It was the age of envy and hate, of fierce passions, of constant social changes more or less violent, of strife between classes, of war between state and state. This phase of society lasted, however, for some ages, and was finally brought to a close, at least among the nobler and more intellectual populations, by the gradual discovery of the latent powers stored in the all-permeating fluid which they denominate vril.
-- The Coming Race, by Edward Bulwer Lytton

***

Every individual says with the God of the Egyptian mysteries: "I am who I am," and stands before us a new, inscrutable, unfathomable thing.
-- The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, by Houston Stewart Chamberlain

***

Aham Brahmasmi.  Translation: aham = I; Brahmasmi = am Brahman. Meaning: I am Brahman....It is an expression of "I am ness".... We can discern at least five different states of "I am ness" in beings (jivas). The fifth one is the state of "I am I am"....This is a pure state of "I am only". This is the indescribable state of Brahman in its absolute aspect....In Atman every experience is subjective. Atman does not interact with any object or use any external means to know or experience. It exists by itself and knows by itself. In contrast the experience of elemental self is objective....All is Brahman. There is nothing else other than Brahman. He is the cause of all causes. He is also called Atman. In reality there is no distinction between the two. Atman is another name of Brahman or a mental construct we use to make sense of Brahman as the self of individual beings. There may be many beings in the creation, but there is only one Brahman in all of them. During creation Brahman projects himself out as everything and at the end of creation withdraws everything into himself. The phenomenal world is unreal. It an illusion or an apparition, which disappears when we overcome our ignorance and realize the true state of Brahman.
--Aham Brahmasmi, by Jayaram V, Hindu Website,com

***

The distinction between a Patriarch of Isis and of Memphis is apparently that between the Lesser and Greater Mysteries which were enacted in the world of the Delta. The Candidate testifies to the eternity of the universe, but above all of each human soul. His soul testifies to itself, in the words of "our ancient books": I am, I am one being: I am one.
-- The Ancient and Primitive Rite  of Memphis and Misraim, Excerpts from "A New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry," by Arthur Edward Waite

***

The author is reminded of William Dudley Pelley, the leader of the fascist Silver Shirts organization of the 1930s, who eventually abandoned organized Nazism and went on to help found the "I AM" movement: a cult that believes in ongoing human contact with alien space creatures, and Soulcraft, a similar movement. To Pelley, the "Aryans" are descendants of an alien Master Race.
-- Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult, by Peter Levenda

***

Some of the original members of the original Ascended Master Teachings religion, the "I AM" Activity, were recruited from the ranks of William Dudley Pelley’s organization the Silver Legion.
-- Silver Legion of America, by Wikipedia

***

THE term “New Age” was restricted, until the late 1960s, to a relatively narrow group of people, although the New Aeon concept has been present in esoteric circles from the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The popular culture of the 1960s brought the idea into focus for large numbers of people, which have continued to increase.

One of the first ventures beyond the immediate confines of the occult movement (which had a hard core of mere hundreds) was in Guy Warren Ballard’s I AM movement. The term I AM became, for many years, a kind of “cipher signal” held in common by those ‘in the know’ about the New Age movement. In the 1960s, the term I AM began to be replaced by the metaphysical cipher WE ARE ONE....

It is rumored that Ballard’s son Mark, who virtually disappeared during a period of legal trouble for his father, resurfaced as the famous trance channel Mark Prophet, one of the key players in the modern “New Age” movement.

I AM = 45 = NOT. I AM was replaced by the phrase WE ARE ONE = 112 = WHO AND WHAT I AM. It is also the value of Ballard’s student George Hunt Williamson’s magical name MARK III. WE ARE ONE also equals WORD OF THE LAW. NEW AGE = 79 = WILL KEY.

-- Secret Rituals of the Men in Black, by Allen Greenfield

Mandamus 4

Mandamus 4, which is to be read in your fourth week, begins -- in a very subtle way -- to separate members from the world as they knew it and put them under the complete control of AMORC. The technique used for this purpose is called "Redefining the concept of time."

In very slick and persuasive language, Mandamus 4 explains that the concept of time is wrongly defined in the ordinary world. Of course AMORC has the "right" definition of the concept of time.

In the Mandamus, AMORC criticizes today's scientific view of time. Since time is such a basic concept, a concept generally defined and utilized by science, getting the member to accept the Rosicrucian definition is a big step in disengaging him from the authority of science and outside standards for reasoning about things in the ordinary world.

If AMORC can succeed in creating this level of doubt about science, the member will be forced into reconsidering the validity of many things he might believe. This is part of what Schein calls the "unfreezing" stage, where the basic concepts of a new recruit into a cult are forever shaken up.

Despite the language of the monograph, it was hard for me to completely grasp the Rosicrucian claim that their wisdom could redefine time. Let us say that in distinguishing between objective measures of time (like a pendulum, an hourglass, or a clock) and subjective experiences of time (as when one is watching an exciting movie, engaged in a deeply engrossing conversation, or sharing a highly romantic moment), one notices that the experience of time can depart very much from any kind of objective measurement. Subjectively, time can move slowly or very quickly.

Here are some more examples of the types of exercises outlined in Mandamus 4:

1. Have the postulant walk down a certain road, then go back and ride on that same road by bicycle. Finally, have the postulant drive a car on the same road. Have the postulant make a note of his impressions.

2. Walk for fifteen minutes in a straight line in a place that, scenically, is just ordinary, nothing special. Then, choosing a place that is scenically very beautiful, take a walk for the same length of time, in a not-so-straight line. Have the postulant make a note of their impressions.

These experiments prove that, although the objective measurements of time spent may be completely the same, the subjective arena is vastly different. Objective and subjective criteria are quite different. The Rosicrucian concept of time, as proposed by AMORC, stresses the subjective and casts doubt on the importance of the objective.

Since the Mandamus indicates, but does not closely define, the Rosicrucian concept of time, the suggested constant rereading of the home-study lessons and meditating on their contents merely reinforces AMORC's point of view, which is that subjective time somehow trumps and is more real than objective time.

Mandamus 5

After rejecting the contemporary scientific view of time in Mandamus 4, AMORC addresses the scientific view of space in Mandamus 5.

Again, the dictionary definition of space, which reflects the contemporary scientific world view, is wrong. The AMORC definition of space is the right one. To validate the so-called Rosicrucian view, this monograph quotes ancient mystical and spiritual writings to support its position.

I am troubled particularly by a phrase from this monograph: "The Rosicrucians have asserted for centuries ... " The question here is, who? Rosicrucians from a variety of orders, representing a common view of space? Or AMORC, a monolithic organization whose archives exclusively bear the secret fruits of ages of study? The answer, as exhibited in the monographs, is AMORC itself.

This not-so-subtle claim of authority caused me to doubt my desire to leave AMORC when I began to question the validity of the Rosicrucian message. Was I really informed enough to question their authority? If these people know so much that they have affirmed these things for centuries, who was I to question them?

Basically, AMORC claims that time does not exist for a Rosicrucian -- except, of course, when your membership fee is due. In fact, time becomes so real at this point that you become very aware that if your membership commitments aren't met on time, you will be automatically cut from the egregore.

Severing one's connection to the egregore, the sacred pattern of the order on other planes, may not sound so severe to an outsider, but to a Rosicrucian now dependent on the organization, this is a powerful threat. Remember that a Rosicrucian believes that his fundamental connection to God is linked to his association with the egregore of AMORC.

-- The Prisoner of San Jose: How I Escaped From Rosicrucian Mind Control, by Pierre S. Freeman

It was the celestial or ætherial principle of the human mind, which the ancient artists represented under the symbol of the butterfly, which may be considered as one of the most elegant allegories of their elegant religion. This insect, when hatched from the egg, appears in the shape of a grub, crawling upon the earth, and feeding upon the leaves of plants. In this state, it was aptly made the emblem of man, in his earthly form, in which the ætherial vigour and activity of the celestial soul, the divine particula mentis, was supposed to be clogged and incumbered with the material body. When the grub was changed to a chrysalis, its stillness, torpor, and insensibility seemed to present a natural image of death, or the intermediate state between the cessation of the vital functions of the body and the final releasement of the soul by the fire, in which the body was consumed. The butterfly breaking from the torpid chrysalis, and mounting in the air, was no less natural an image of the celestial soul bursting from the restraints of matter, and mixing again with its native æther. The Greek artists, always studious of elegance, changed this, as well as other animal symbols, into a human form, retaining the wings as the characteristic members, by which the meaning might be known. The human body, which they added to them, is that of a beautiful girl, sometimes in the age of infancy, and sometimes of approaching maturity. So beautiful an allegory as this would naturally be a favourite subject of art among a people whose taste had attained the utmost pitch of refinement.
-- A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus: And Its Connection with the Mystic Theology of the Ancients, by Richard Payne Knight

We must, moreover, remind those who try to prove that the ancient Egyptians knew nothing of and did not teach Reincarnation, that the “Soul” of the defunct is said to be living in Eternity: it is immortal, “co-eval with, and disappearing with the Solar boat,” i.e., for the cycle of necessity. This “Soul” emerges from the Tiaou (the realm of the cause of life) and joins the living on Earth by day, to return to Tiaou every night. This expresses the periodical existences of the Ego.
-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

***

"Into thine eyes gazed I lately, O Life: gold saw I gleam in thy night-eyes, -- my heart stood still with delight:
-- A golden bark saw I gleam on darkened waters, a sinking, drinking, reblinking, golden swing-bark!
-- Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche

***

 The ship is also symbolically the cradle and the coffin -- and therefore the earth itself, upon which gods and men sail through cosmic space.
-- The Religion of the Aryo-Germanic Folk: Esoteric and Exoteric, by Guido von List

***

The solar barge is a common motif in ancient Egypt. The barge was seen as the typical means of movement of the sun. In Egyptian mythology, the Sun God struggled against the monster Aphophis, who attempted to swallow the solar barge as it traveled across the heavens each day. In Transformations and Symbols of the Libido (1912) Jung discussed the Egyptian "living sun-disc" (CW B, §153) and the motif of the sea monster (§ 549f). In his 1952 revision of this text, he noted that the battle with the sea monster represented the attempt to free ego-consciousness from the grip of the unconscious (Symbols of Transformation, CW 5, §539). The solar barge resembles some of the illustrations in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (ed. E. A. Wallis Budge [London: Arkana, 1899 / 1985]), i.e., the vignettes on pp. 390, 400, and 404). The oarsman is usually a falcon-headed Horus. The night journey of the sun God through the underworld is depicted in the Amduat, which has been seen as symbolic process of transformation.
-- The Red Book: Liber Novus, by C.G. Jung

Die before you die.
-- Discourses of Rumi, translated by A. J. Arberry

There is a deep philosophy underlying the earliest worship in the world, that of the Sun and of Fire. What says the esoteric teaching with regard to fire? “Fire,” it says, “is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the One Flame. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine ‘Substance.’” Thus, not only the Fire-Worshipper, the Parsee, but even the wandering savage tribes of America, which proclaim themselves “born of fire,” show more science in their creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and learning. The Christian who says: “God is a living Fire,” and speaks of the Pentecostal “Tongues of Fire” and of the “burning bush” of Moses, is as much a fire-worshipper as any other “heathen.” The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists, were those who defined Fire in the right and most correct way. Procure a sixpenny lamp, keep it only supplied with oil, and you will be able to light at its flame the lamps, candles, and fires of the whole globe without diminishing that flame.
-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

***

I stand with tingling feet!
The flame to speed consumes me!
Oh. ... I flame ... I flame....
-- The Fire Regained, by Sidney M. Hirsch

***

This monograph quotes Louis Claude de Saint-Martin.... The monograph states that by going through karma and reincarnation, you will raise yourself to the state of "rose-croix" and will no longer have to live in the physical world.
-- The Prisoner of San Jose: How I Escaped From Rosicrucian Mind Control, by Pierre S. Freeman

Conjunction or Coupling: O Luna, by means of my embracing, and sweet kisses, Thou art made beautiful, strong and mighty like as I am. O Sol, thou art to be preferred before all light. But yet thou needest me, as the cock does the hen.
-- Rosarium Philosophorum of the De Alchemia Opuscula, complur veterum philosophorum, by Johann Daniel Myliu

***

"To burn" means the same thing as ''to copulate."
-- Theozoology, or the Science of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron, by Dr. Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels

There are no ancient symbols, without a deep and philosophical meaning attached to them; their importance and significance increasing with their antiquity. Such is the Lotus. It is the flower sacred to nature and her Gods, and represents the abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both spiritual and physical nature. It was held sacred from the remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the Buddhists after them; revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches, who made of it a messenger as the Christians do now, who replace it with the water lily. It had, and still has, its mystic meaning which is identical with every nation on the earth. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones. With the Hindus, the lotus is the emblem of the productive power of nature, through the agency of fire and water. “Eternal!” says a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, “I see Brahm the creator enthroned in thee above the lotus!”; and Sir W. Jones shows, as noted in the Stanzas, that the seeds of the lotus contain, even before they germinate, perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what one day, as perfected plants, they will become. The lotus, in India, is the symbol of prolific earth, and what is more, of Mount Meru. The four angels or genii of the four quarters of Heaven stand each on a lotus. The lotus is the two-fold type of the Divine and human hermaphrodite, being of dual sex, so to say.
-- The Secret Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

It is by trials only, by the agonies of sorrow and the sharp discipline of adversities, that men and Nations attain initiation. The agonies of the garden of Gethsemane and those of the Cross on Calvary preceded the Resurrection and were the means of Redemption. It is with prosperity that God afflicts Humanity.
-- Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, by Albert Pike

 
-- Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, English Grand Lodge for the Americas