Multicultural Europe, Culture, Beaker, Celtic, Hallstatt

The "Beaker" Culture:
The Bell-Beaker culture ca. 2800 – 1900 B.C, is the term for a widely scattered cultural phenomenon of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic or Chalcolithic running into the early Bronze Age. The term was coined by John Abercromby, based on their distinctive pottery drinking vessels. Beaker culture is defined by the common use of a pottery style — a beaker with a distinctive inverted bell-shaped profile found across the western part of Europe during the late 3rd millennium B.C. The pottery is well-made, usually red or red-brown in colour, and ornamented with horizontal bands of incised, excised or impressed patterns.

Bell - Beaker Ware

The early Bell Beakers have been described as "International" in style, as they are found in all areas of the Bell Beaker culture. These include cord-impressed types, such as the "All Over Corded" (or "All Over Ornamented"), and the "Maritime" type, decorated with bands filled with impressions made with a comb or cord. Later characteristic regional styles developed.

It has been suggested that the beakers were designed for the consumption of alcohol and that the introduction of the substance to Europe may have fueled the beakers' spread. Beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples. However, not all Beakers were drinking cups.

Some were used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores, others have some organic residues associated with food, and still others were employed as funerary urns. Beakers may have been a special form of pottery with a ritual character. Many theories of the origins of the Bell Beakers have been put forward and subsequently challenged. The Iberian peninsula has been argued as the most likely place of Beaker origin. The oldest AOO shards have so far been found in northern Portugal. Bell Beaker is often suggested as a candidate for an early Indo-European culture or, more specifically, an ancestral proto-Celtic or proto-Italic (Italo-Celtic) culture.

Hallstatt, Salzkammergut, Austria

There is evidence of a relatively large scale disruption of cultural patterns which some scholars think may indicate an invasion (or at least a migration) into Southern Great Britain c. the 12th century B.C.

This disruption was felt far beyond Britain, even beyond Europe, as most of the great Near Eastern empires collapsed (or experienced severe difficulties) and the Sea Peoples harried the entire Mediterranean basin around this time.

Some scholars consider that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain at this time, but the more generally accepted view is that Celtic origins lie with the Hallstatt culture.

The "Hallstatt" culture
The Hallstatt culture was the predominant Central European culture, centred in Germany, from the 8th to 6th centuries B.C. (European Early Iron Age), developing out of the Urnfield culture of the 12th century B.C. (Late Bronze Age) and followed in much of Central Europe by the La Tène culture.

Art from Hallstatt Culture

By the 6th century B.C, the Halstatt culture extended for some 1000 km, from the Champagne-Ardenne in the west, through the Upper Rhine and the upper Danube, as far as the Vienna Basin and the Danubian Lowland in the east, from the Main, Bohemia and the Little Carpathians in the north, to the Swiss plateau, the Salzkammergut and to Lower Styria.

It is named for its type site, Hallstatt, a lakeside village in the Austrian Salzkammergut southeast of Salzburg. The culture is commonly linked to Proto-Celtic and Celtic populations in its western zone and with pre-Illyrians in its eastern zone.

The Bronze Age (around 2200 to 750 B.C.)
This period can be sub-divided into an earlier phase (2300 to 1200) and a later one (1200 – 700). Beaker pottery appears in England around 2475–2315 B.C. along with flat axes and burial practices of inhumation. With the revised Stonehenge chronology, this is after the Sarsen Circle and trilithons were erected at Stonehenge. Believed to be of Iberian origin, (modern day Spain and Portugal.

Beaker techniques brought to Britain the skill of refining metal. At first the users made items from copper, but from around 2,150 B.C, smiths had discovered how to make bronze (which was much harder than copper) by mixing copper with a small amount of tin. With this discovery, the Bronze Age arrived in Britain.

Celtic Culture of the Bronze age

Over the next thousand years, bronze gradually replaced stone as the main material for tool and weapon making. The Beaker people were also skilled at making ornaments from gold, silver, copper, and examples of these have been found in graves of the wealthy Wessex culture of Central Southern Britain. Because of their close proximity to the actual crossing place for Africans entering Europe (Gibraltar), the Grimaldi skeletons of Monaco, which were described as resembling the Khoisan, are more likely the oldest human skeletons in Europe. End of part 2 of 4. To be continued---
Next blog 18/12/18

Ancient, Black Britons, Crete, Julius Caesar, Roman, Celtic

Black Britons

Britain has been intermittently inhabited by members of the Homo genus for hundreds of thousands of years and by Homo sapiens for tens of thousands of years. DNA analysis has shown that modern humans arrived in Britain at least 25,000 years ago, before the commencement of the last Ice Age. 

Ice Age Map

This evidence also shows that, as the next (and last) Ice Age encroached from the north, the first humans living in Britain then retreated to Southern Europe when much of the continental land mass became covered with ice or frozen as tundra.

As shown by archaeology, Homo sapiens had reoccupied Britain by approximately 12,000 BC, as the climate became warmer and more hospitable. By around 4000 B.C, the island was populated by people with a Neolithic culture. The first significant written record of Britain and its inhabitants was made by the Greek navigator Pytheas, who explored the coastal region of Britain around 325 B.C. However, there may be some additional information on Britain in the "Ora Maritima," a text which is now lost but which is incorporated in the writing of the later author Avienus.

Julius Caesar Roman

Archaeological evidence demonstrates that ancient Britons were involved in extensive maritime trade and cultural links with the rest of Europe from the Neolithic onwards, especially by exporting tin that was in abundant supply.

The Roman's Tribal Map of Britain

Julius Caesar also wrote of Britain in about 50 B.C, subsequent to his attempted conquest of the island in 55/54 B.C. Located at the fringes of Europe, Britain received European technological and cultural achievements much later than Southern Europe and the Mediterranean region did during prehistory.

The story of ancient Britain is traditionally seen as one of successive waves of invasion from the continent, with them came different cultures and technologies.

Celtic Myth & Legend: By Charles Squire (1905) Chapter III - WHO WERE THE "ANCIENT BRITONS"? A very honest, truthful and eminent Caucasian Author,   Page 19 Before proceeding to recount the myths of the "Ancient Britons", it will be well to decide what people, exactly, we mean by that loose but convenient phrase. We have, all of us, vague ideas of Ancient Britons, recollected, doubtless, from our school-books. There we saw their pictures as, painted with woad, they paddled coracles, or drove scythed chariots through legions of astonished Romans. Their Druids, white-bearded and wearing long, white robes, cut the mistletoe with a golden sickle at the time of the full moon, or, less innocently employed, made bonfires of human beings shut up in gigantic figures of wicker-work.

Such picturesque details were little short of the sum-total, not only of our own knowledge of the subject, but also of that of our teachers. Practically all their information concerning the ancient inhabit-ants of Britain was taken from the Commentaries of Julius Caesar.

The Roman's Map of Britain

So far as it went, it was no doubt correct; but it did not go far. Caesar's interest in our British ancestors was that of a general who was his own war-correspondent rather than that of an exhaustive and painstaking scientist.

It has been reserved for modern archaeologists, philologists, and ethnologists to give us a fuller account of the
Ancient Britons.

The inhabitants of our islands previous to the Roman invasion are generally described as "Celts".

But they must have been largely a mixed race; and the people with whom they mingled must have modified to some--and perhaps to a large--extent their physique, their customs, and their language. Speculation has run somewhat wild over the question of the composition of the Early Britons. But out of the clash of rival theories there emerges one--and one only--which may be considered as scientifically established. We have certain proof of two distinct human stocks in the British Islands at the time of the Roman Conquest; and so great an authority as Professor Huxley has given his opinion that there is no evidence of any others. [Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 – 1895) 19:1 Huxley: On Some Fixed Points in British Ethnology. 1871].

The earliest of these two races would seem to have inhabited our islands from the most ancient times, and may, for our purpose, be described as aboriginal. It was the people that built the "long barrows"; and which is variously called by ethnologists the Iberian, Mediterranean, Berber, Basque, Silurian, or Euskarian race.In physique it was short, swarthy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and long-skulled;

Etruscan Sculpture

its language belonged to the class called "Hamitic", the surviving types of which are found among the Gallas, Abyssinians, Berbers, and other North African tribes; and it seems to have come originally from some part either of Eastern, Northern, or Central Africa.

Spreading thence, it was probably the first people to inhabit the Valley of the Nile, and it sent offshoots into Syria and Asia Minor. The earliest Hellenes found it in Greece under the name of "Pelasgoi"; the earliest Latins in Italy, as the "Etruscans"; and the Hebrews in Palestine, as the "Hittites".

It spread northward through Europe as far as the Baltic, and westward, along the Atlas chain, to Spain, France, and our own islands. 1 In many countries it reached a comparatively high level of civilization, but in Britain its development must have been early checked. We can discern it as an agricultural rather than a pastoral people, still in the Stone Age, dwelling in totemistic tribes on hills whose summits it fortified elaborately, and whose slopes it cultivated on what is called the "terrace system", and having a primitive culture which ethnologists think to have much resembled that of the present hill-tribes of Southern India.

Three  Miniatures from The Book of Wells 

 2 It held our islands till the coming of the Celts, who fought with the aborigines, dispossessed them of the more fertile parts, subjugated them, even amalgamated with them, but certainly never extirpated them.

In the time of the Romans they were still practically independent in South Wales. In Ireland they were long unconquered, and are found as allies rather than serfs of the Gaels, ruling their own provinces, and preserving their own customs and religion. Nor, in spite of all the successive invasions of Great Britain and Ireland.

Megalith: The Black Builders of Stonehenge, By Aylmer von Fleischer (2010) Quote: On the plains of Wiltshire in England lie the remains of ancient giant stones.

The evidence is simply overwhelming that the earliest inhabitants of Britain and Ireland were Blacks. Mythological, archeological, linguistic and other sources have substantiated this remarkable fact. Candid authorities like the British Egyptologists Gerald Massey and Albert Churchward, the Scottish historian David Mac Ritchie, and the British antiquarian Godfrey Higgins, have done exhaustive research and brought many facts to our knowledge.

Crete & Celtic

Tacitus, Pliny, Claudian and other writers have described the Blacks they encountered in the British Isles as "Black as Ethiopians," "Cum Nigris Gentibus," "nimble-footed blackamoors," and so on. 

A book, by Aylmer Von Fleischer

 This book reveals much about the Black presence in the early British Isles, including the "mysterious" builders of Stonehenge.

 Ancient British trade with the Aegean
The following are excerpts from the book “MYTHS OF CRETE & PRE-HELLENIC EUROPE By DONALD A. MACKENZIE” (1917). Like all White writers of history, he struggles to tell Black history, without actually mentioning Black people. As an example “Pre-Hellenic” actually means “Pre-Whites” as the Hellenes accepted into their body, the first of the White Central Asians to reach Western Europe - Herodotus call them Barbarians. But since many of his observations are accurate, we begin with these excerpts from his book.

Quote: Whence was the bronze obtained by the Cretans? Was it from Egypt or Anatolia? Both Crete and Troy were able soon after the dawn of their Bronze Ages to import silver, which during the Old Kingdom Period was rarer than gold in Egypt.

The silver may have come from the same region as tin. One possible source of supplies of silver was Cilicia, where silver mines are still worked; the other was Spain, in which country evidence has been forthcoming of early commercial relations with Crete.

But although copper could be found in Crete, the tin, as has been indicated, had to be imported. "By the beginning of the Bronze Age", writes Dr. Mackenzie in this connection, "the valley of the Rhone must have played a dominant role of communication between the great world of the Mediterranean and the north; by that time it was probably already the high continental trade route towards the tin mines of Britain."

Angelo Mosso also favours the hypothesis that Crete's early supplies came from England.

A Celtic Deity

"We know the road", he says, "followed by the caravans bringing English tin through France to the mouth of the Rhone at the end of the Neolithic period, while no trace of any trade in tin has so far been discovered in the East." Mosso's reference to the "East" applies to "the mountains of China where tin is found".

Although archaeologists are less inclined nowadays than they were a generation ago to believe in the existence of Neolithic trade-routes which extended from the borders of China to Brittany, or to connect certain races with relics of similar character found in widely separated districts, there can be little doubt regarding the existence of commercial relations between different cultural areas.

The introduction of metal appears to have done much to stimulate international trade. In the Early Bronze Age the influence of the Aegean, which may have "inspired every stage of culture" at Hissarlik, as Mr. Hogarth suggests, appears to have penetrated Thrace. Evidence has been forthcoming that two main trade-routes crossed Germany, one from the head of the Adriatic, and the other from the lower Danube valley. It has been suggested that some of the amber found in Crete came down these trade routes from the Baltic.

France was similarly crossed by the Rhone valley trade-route, down which, in time, tin from Cornwall was carried. That the Cretans were the earliest seafarers to come into direct touch with these routes is suggested by various interesting links of evidence.

Crete - Lady of Auxerre - 650 BC

The most remarkable are the Egyptian glass beads found in South Germany, and the Egyptian blue-glaze beads taken from ancient graves on Salisbury Plain, which will be dealt with in a later chapter, as they are connected with the Late Minoan Period.

Certain Continental archaeologists incline to the belief that not only Crete but even Egypt was in direct touch with Western Europe at an extremely remote period. Summarising their views, Angelo Mosso writes: "The vases found at Amerejo in Spain have the characteristic form of the Egyptian vases of the close of the Neolithic Age.

The resemblance of the Egyptian idols with those of Crete and the Continent is an established fact; the burial sites are similar; the flat copper axes of Egypt cannot be distinguished from those of the Continent; the evolution of art in Southern France and in Spain went on during the Neolithic Age, and we know that navigation was general on the Mediterranean in the times preceding the introduction of copper.

All these data give good reason to suppose that the pre-Dynastic Egyptians had relations with the west which enabled them to procure cassiterite, which when mixed with copper rendered it harder. We hope", he adds, "that new discoveries may throw light on the relations of Egypt with England." End quote.

The Bell-Beaker culture ca. 2800 – 1900 B.C, is the term for a widely scattered cultural phenomenon of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic or Chalcolithic running into the early Bronze Age.

By the end of these 4 parts articles, we hope you would have reeducate, de-indoctrinate, deprogrammed and decontaminate your mind, pertaining to the Europeans version about the historicity of the people of colours, just a little bit more. End of Part 1. Next blog 17/12/18, to be continued---

The Eight Hermetic Principles

I. The Principle of Mentalism.

“The All is Mind; The Universe is Mental.”—The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the truth that “All is Mind.” It explains that The All (which is the Substantial Reality underlying all the outward manifestations and appearances which we know under the terms of “The Material Universe”;

The Eight Hermetic Principles

the “Phenomena of Life”; “Matter”; “Energy”; and, in short, all that is apparent to our material senses) is Spirit, which in itself is Unknowable and Undefinable, but which may be considered and thought of as An Universal, Infinite, Living Mind.

It also explains that all the phenomenal world or universe is simply a Mental Creation of The All, subject to the Laws of Created Things, and that the universe, as a whole, and in its parts or units, has its existence in the Mind of The All, in which Mind we “live and move and have our being.” This Principle, by establishing the Mental Nature of the Universe, easily explains all of the varied mental and psychic phenomena that occupy such a large portion of the public attention, and which, without such explanation, are non-understandable and defy scientific treatment.

An understanding of this great Hermetic Principle of Mentalism enables the individual to readily grasp the laws of the Mental Universe, and to apply the same to his well-being and advancement. The Hermetic Student is enabled to apply intelligently the great Mental Laws, instead of using them in a haphazard manner. With the Master-Key in his possession, the student may unlock the many doors of the mental and psychic temple of knowledge, and enter the same freely and intelligently.

This Principle explains the true nature of “Energy,” “Power,” and “Matter,” and why and how all these are subordinate to the Mastery of Mind. One of the old Hermetic Masters wrote, long ages ago: “He who grasps the truth of the Mental Nature of the Universe is well advanced on The Path to Mastery.” And these words are as true to-day as at the time they were first The Seven Hermetic Principles written. Without this Master-Key, Mastery is impossible, and the student knocks in vain at the many doors of The Temple.

II. The Principle of Correspondence.

“As above, so below; as below, so above.”—The Kybalion.

This Principle embodies the truth that there is always a Correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of Being and Life. The old Hermetic axiom ran in these words:

“As above, so below; as below, so above.” And the grasping of this Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox, and hidden secret of Nature.

There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to us. This Principle is of universal application and manifestation, on the various planes of the material, mental, and spiritual universe—it is a Universal Law.

The ancient Hermetists considered this Principle as one of the most important mental instruments by which man was able to pry aside the obstacles which hid from view the Unknown. Its use even tore aside the Veil of Isis to the extent that a glimpse of the face of the goddess might be caught. Just as a knowledge of the Principles of Geometry enables man to measure distant suns and their movements, while seated in his observatory, so a knowledge of the Principle of Correspondence enables Man to reason intelligently from the Known to the Unknown. Studying the monad, he understands the archangel.

III. The Principle of Vibration. 

“Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates.”—The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the truth that “everything is in motion”; “everything vibrates”; “nothing is at rest”; facts which Modern Science endorses, and which each new scientific discovery tends to verify.

The Principle of Vibration illustration

And yet this Hermetic Principle was enunciated thousands of years ago, by the Masters of Ancient Egypt. This Principle explains that the differences between different manifestations of Matter, Energy, Mind, and even Spirit, result largely from varying rates of Vibration. From The All, which is Pure Spirit, down to the grossest form of Matter, all is in vibration—the higher the vibration, the higher the position in the scale.

The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest—just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to seem at rest. Between these poles, there are millions upon millions of varying degrees of vibration. From corpuscle and electron, atom and molecule, to worlds and universes, everything is in vibratory motion.

This is also true on the planes of energy and force (which are but varying degrees of vibration); and also on the mental planes (whose states depend upon vibrations); and even on to the spiritual planes. An understanding of this Principle, with the appropriate formulas, enables Hermetic students to control their own mental vibrations as well as those of others. The Masters also apply this Principle to the conquering of Natural phenomena, in various ways. “He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the sceptre of power,” says one of the old writers.

IV. The Principle of Polarity.

“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”—The Kybalion.

The Principle of  Polarity

The Seven Hermetic Principles This Principle embodies the truth that “everything is dual”; “everything has two poles”; “everything has its pair of opposites,” all of which were old Hermetic axioms.

It explains the old paradoxes that have perplexed so many, which have been stated as follows: “Thesis and antithesis are identical in nature, but different in degree”; “opposites are the same, differing only in degree”; “the pairs of opposites may be reconciled”; “extremes meet”; “everything is and isn’t, at the same time”; “all truths are but half-truths”; “every truth is half-false”; “there are two sides to everything,” etc., etc., etc.

It explains that in everything there are two poles, or opposite aspects, and that “opposites” are really only the two extremes of the same thing, with many varying degrees between them. To illustrate:

Heat and Cold, although “opposites,” are really the same thing, the differences consisting merely of degrees of the same thing. Look at your thermometer and see if you can discover where “heat” terminates and “cold” begins! There is no such thing as “absolute heat” or “absolute cold”—the two terms “heat” and “cold” simply indicate varying degrees of the same thing, and that “same thing” which manifests as “heat” and “cold” is merely a form, variety, and rate of Vibration. So “heat” and “cold” are simply the “two poles” of that which we call “Heat”—and the phenomena attendant thereupon are manifestations of the Principle of Polarity.

The same Principle manifests in the case of “Light and Darkness,” which are the same thing, the difference consisting of varying degrees between the two poles of the phenomena. Where does “darkness” leave off, and “light” begin? What is the difference between “Large and Small”? Between “Hard and Soft”? Between “Black and White”? Between “Sharp and Dull”? Between “Noise and Quiet”? Between “High and Low”? Between “Positive and Negative”?

The Principle of Polarity explains these paradoxes, and no other Principle can supersede it. The same Principle operates on the Mental Plane. Let us take a radical and extreme example—that of “Love and Hate,” two mental states apparently totally different. And yet The Kybalion there are degrees of Hate and degrees of Love, and a middle point in which we use the terms “Like or Dislike,” which shade into each other so gradually that sometimes we are at a loss to know whether we “like” or “dislike” or “neither.” And all are simply degrees of the same thing, as you will see if you will but think a moment. And, more than this (and considered of more importance by the Hermetists), it is possible to change the vibrations of Hate to the vibrations of Love, in one’s own mind, and in the minds of others. Many of you, who read these lines, have had personal experiences of the involuntary rapid transition from Love to Hate, and the reverse, in your own case and that of others.

And you will therefore realize the possibility of this being accomplished by the use of the Will, by means of the Hermetic formulas. “Good and Evil” are but the poles of the same thing, and the Hermetist understands the art of transmuting Evil into Good, by means of an application of the Principle of Polarity. In short, the “Art of Polarisation” becomes a phase of “Mental Alchemy” known and practised by the ancient and modern Hermetic Masters. An understanding of the Principle will enable one to change his own Polarity, as well as that of others, if he will devote the time and study necessary to master the art.

V. The Principle of Rhythm.

“Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left;

The Principle of Rhythm, a simple illustration

rhythm compensates.”—The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the truth that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, to and fro; a flow and inflow; a swing backward and forward; a pendulum-like movement; a tide-like ebb and flow; a high-tide and low-tide; between the two poles which exist in accordance with the Principle of The Seven Hermetic Principles Polarity described a moment ago.

There is always an action and a reaction; an advance and a retreat; a rising and a sinking. For example the rise of modern-day USA empire from the fall of the British empire.This is in the affairs of the Universe, suns, worlds, men, animals, mind, energy, and matter. This law is manifest in the creation and destruction of worlds; in the rise and fall of nations; in the life of all things; and finally in the mental states of Man (and it is with this latter that the Hermetists find the understanding of the Principle most important).

The Hermetists have grasped this Principle, finding its universal application, and have also discovered certain means to overcome its effects in themselves by the use of the appropriate formulas and methods. They apply the Mental Law of Neutralisation. They cannot annul the Principle, or cause it to cease its operation, but they have learned how to escape its effects upon themselves to a certain degree depending upon the Mastery of the Principle.

They have learned how to use it, instead of being used by it. In this and similar methods, consist the Art of the Hermetists. The Master of Hermetics polarises himself at the point at which he desires to rest, and then neutralises the Rhythmic swing of the pendulum which would tend to carry him to the other pole. All individuals who have attained any degree of Self-Mastery do this to a certain degree, more or less unconsciously, but the Master does this consciously, and by the use of his Will, and attains a degree of Poise and Mental Firmness almost impossible of belief on the part of the masses who are swung backward and forward like a pendulum. This Principle and that of Polarity have been closely studied by the Hermetists; and the methods of counteracting, neutralising, and using them form an important part of the Hermetic Mental Alchemy.

VI. The Principle of Cause and Effect.

“Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognised; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the Law.”—The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the fact that there is a Cause for every Effect; an Effect from every Cause.

Example of The Principle of Cause and Effect, simple illustration

It explains that: “Everything Happens according to Law”; that nothing ever “merely happens”; that there is no such thing as Chance; that while there are various planes of Cause and Effect, the higher dominating the lower planes, still nothing ever entirely escapes the Law. The Hermetists understand the art and methods of rising above the ordinary plane of Cause and Effect, to a certain degree, and by mentally rising to a higher plane they become Causers instead of Effects.

The masses of people are carried along, obedient to environment; the wills and desires of others stronger than themselves; heredity; suggestion; and other outward causes moving them about like pawns on the Chessboard of Life.

But the Masters, rising to the plane above, dominate their moods, characters, qualities, and powers, as well as the environment surrounding them, and become Movers instead of pawns. They help to play the game of life, instead of being played and moved about by other wills and environment. They use the Principle instead of being its tools. The Masters obey the Causation of the higher planes, but they help to rule on their own plane. In this statement there is condensed a wealth of Hermetic knowledge—let him read who can.

VII. The Principle of Gender.

“Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles;

The Principle of Gender & polarity

Gender manifests on all planes.”—The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the truth that there is gender manifested in everything—the Masculine and Feminine Principles ever at work.

This is true not only of the Physical Plane, but of the Mental and even the Spiritual Planes. On the Seven Hermetic Principles. For example, the human brain consists of the Masculine and Feminine side. The Yang (Male) and the Yin Female. Another example, if two couples are to have sexual intercourse, one couple madly in love and the other couple just a one night stand. For the couple madly in love, it could be pleasurable or fantastic on the physical plane, ecstatically powerful on the spiritual plane and quite potent on the mental plane.

As for the other couple, it could be pleasurable or fantastic on the physical plane, not so  powerful on the spiritual plane and inconsequential on the mental plane. For the couple madly in love on the mental plane, mental transmutation becomes easily achievable at the point of orgasm, and for the other couple not so, not even a sausage can be transmuted.

VIII. The Principle of CARE.

CARE, with all caps, is the encapsulation of the other 7 principles. Without this principle nothing can be generated, created, regenerated, recreated or manifested. It is what we care about that is generated or manifested in our world.  For example if you care enough about something you will act upon.

The Principle of CARE, simple illustration.

Therefore action is taking after conceiving an idea for it to be manifested in our world.

If it is love, honesty, or well-being, that you are conceiving and generating towards human-kind, our world would mend itself via peace, security, good-health and general pleasantry for all human-kind.

If it is fear and hatred that you are manifesting through the principle of CARE, our world becomes sick and the end result is famine, killing, chaos and wars.

A little tip, prayer, spell or projected manifestation, please repeat: I will have peace, security, good-health, prosperity and general pleasantry, for me, people around me, people I know, people I don't know, people that knows I exist, people that doesn't know I exist, people I have done the wrong things to, people I have done the right things to, people who has done the wrong things to me, people who has done the right things to me, people I like, people I dislike or hate, people who like me, people who dislike or hate me and people who cares about other human-beings or nature without any ulterior motives.
Next blog 15/12/18

Multiculturalism of Occultism, Kybalion, Gnostic Bible

The Kybalion: by the Three Initiates

The Hermetists have never sought to be martyrs, and have, instead, sat silently aside with a pitying smile on their closed lips, while the “heathen raged noisily about them” in their customary amusement of putting to death and torture the honest but misguided enthusiasts who imagined that they could force upon a race of barbarians the truth capable of being understood only by the elect who had advanced along The Path.

And the spirit of persecution has not as yet died out in the land. There are certain Hermetic Teachings, which, if publicly promulgated, would bring down upon the teachers a great cry of scorn and revilement from the multitude, who would again raise the cry of “Crucify! Crucify.”

The Kybalion

In this little work, we have endeavoured to give you an idea of the fundamental teachings of The Kybalion, striving to give you the working Principles, leaving you to apply them yourselves, rather than attempting to work out the teaching in detail.

If you are a true student, you will be able to work out and apply these Principles—if not, then you must develop yourself into one, for otherwise, the Hermetic Teachings will be as “words, words, words” to you.

But among these great Masters of Ancient Egypt, there once dwelt one of whom Masters hailed as “The Master of Masters.”

This man, if “man” indeed he was, dwelt in Egypt in the earliest days. He was known as Hermes Trismegistus. He was the father of the Occult Wisdom; the founder of Astrology; the discoverer of Alchemy.

The details of his life story are lost to history, owing to the lapse of the years, though several of the ancient countries disputed with each other in their claims to the honour of having furnished his birthplace—and this thousands of years ago. The date of his sojourn in Egypt, in that his last incarnation on this planet, is not now known, but it has been fixed at the early days of the oldest dynasties of Egypt—long before the days of Moses.

The best authorities regard him as a contemporary of Abraham, and some of the Jewish traditions go so far as to claim that Abraham acquired a portion of his mystic knowledge from Hermes himself.
As the years rolled by after his passing from this plane of life (tradition recording that he lived three hundred years in the flesh), the Egyptians deified Hermes, and made him one of their gods, under the name of Thoth.

The Emerald Tablets of Thoth, Tehuti AKA Hermes Trismegistus

Years after, the people of Ancient Greece also made him one of their many gods—calling him “Hermes, the god of Wisdom.”

The Egyptians revered his memory for many centuries—yes, tens of centuries—calling him “the Scribe of the Gods,” and bestowing upon him, distinctively, his ancient title, “Trismegistus,” which means “the thrice-great”; “the great-great”; “the greatest-great”; etc. In all the ancient lands, the name of Hermes Trismegistus was revered.

The Hermetic Philosophy: Even to this day, we use the term “hermetic” in the sense of “secret”; “sealed so that nothing can escape”; etc., and this by reason of the fact that the followers of Hermes always observed the principle of secrecy in their teachings. They did not believe in “casting pearls before swine,” but rather held to the teaching “milk for babes; meat for strong men,” both of which maxims are familiar to readers of the Christian scriptures, but both of which had been used by the Egyptians for centuries before the Christian era. And this policy of careful dissemination of the truth has always characterised the Hermetics, even unto the present day.

The Hermetic Teachings are to be found in all lands, among all religions, but never identified with any particular country, nor with any particular religious sect. This because of the warning of the ancient teachers against allowing the Secret Doctrine to become crystallized into a creed. The wisdom of this caution is apparent to all students of history.

The ancient occultism of India and Persia degenerated, and was largely lost, owing to the fact that the teachers became priests, and so mixed theology with the philosophy, the result being that the occultism of India and Persia has been gradually lost amidst the mass of religious superstition, cults, creeds and “gods.” So it was with Ancient Greece and Rome.

So it was with the Hermetic Teachings of the Gnostics and Early Christians, which were lost at the time of Constantine, whose iron hand smothered philosophy with the blanket of theology, losing to the Christian Church that which was its very essence and spirit, and causing it to grope throughout several centuries before it found the way back to its ancient faith, the indications apparent to all careful observers in this Twentieth Century being that the Church is now struggling to get back to its ancient mystic teachings. But there were always a few faithful souls who kept alive the Flame, tending it carefully, and not allowing its light to become extinguished. And thanks to these staunch hearts, and fearless minds, we have the truth still with us. But it is not found in religious dogma of books.

Most truths are half-false and most falsehoods are a half-truth. Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.

The Gnostic Bible

Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed. Gospel of Thomas (5) The Gnostics were religious mystics who proclaimed gnosis, knowledge, as the way of salvation. To know oneself truly allowed gnostic men and women to know god directly, without any need for the mediation of rabbis, priests, bishops, imams, or other religious officials.

Gospel of St Thomas from the Gnostic Bible

Throughout this present article, we have tried to avoid unnecessary capitalization of the word god and the names of personified spiritual powers and eons. We are aware that the word god may be used as a name for the divine, but it frequently functions as a general term for the divine, so that even when "god" appears to be a name, it retains its primary nature as a term signifying the concept of divinity.

For the same reason, other names of divine expressions, such as divine forethought, afterthought, and wisdom, are likewise left un-capitalised. Conversely, for the sake of clarity, when the Greek word "Sophia" is used for wisdom, that is capitalized, as are other names that are transliterated directly from other languages. We also want to avoid the common practice of singling out a particular deity, for example, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity, for the exclusive honor of the capitalized name "God," while other deities are relegated to the status of mere "gods" and "goddesses." We do not wish to limit the divine by restricting deity through name or selectivity. Traditionally the name and face of the divine are essentially unknowable, and so it is in this article.

Religious officials, who were not pleased with such freedom and independence, condemned the gnostics as heretical and a threat to the well-being and good order of organized religion.

A sufi's Path in Al-Islam

Heresiologists—heresy hunters of a bygone age who busied themselves exposing people judged dangerous to the Christian masses—fulminated against what they maintained was the falsehood of the Gnostics. Nonetheless, from the challenge of this perceived threat came much of the theological reflection that has characterized the intellectual history of the Christian church. The historical roots of the gnostics reach back into the time of the Greeks, Romans, and Second Temple Jews. Some Gnostics were Jewish, others Greco- Roman, and many were Christian.

There were Mandaean gnostics from Iraq and Iran; Manichaeans from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and all the way to China; Islamic gnostics in the Muslim world; and Cathars in western Europe. The heyday of their influence extends from the second century CE through the next several centuries. Their influence and their presence, some say, continue to the present day. Gnostics sought knowledge and wisdom from many different sources, and they accepted insight wherever it could be found. Like those who came before them, they embraced a personified wisdom, Sophia, understood variously and taken as the manifestation of divine insight. To gain knowledge of the deep things of god, gnostics read and studied diverse religious and philosophical texts.

In addition to Jewish sacred literature, Christian documents, and Greco-Roman religious and philosophical texts, gnostics studied religious works from the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Zoroastrians, Muslims, and Buddhists.

A sufi's Path

All such sacred texts disclosed truths, and all were to be celebrated for their wisdom. Gnostics loved to explore who they were and from where they had come, and hence they read creation stories such as the opening chapters of Genesis with vigor and enthusiasm. Like others, they recognized that creation stories not only claim to describe what was, once upon a time but also suggest what is, now, in our own world.

The gnostics carried to their reading a conviction that the story of creation was not a happy one. There is, they reasoned, something fundamentally wrong with the world, there is too much evil and pain and death in the world, and so there must have been something wrong with creation. Consequently, gnostics provided innovative and oftentimes disturbing interpretations of the creation stories they read. They concluded that a distinction, often a dualistic distinction, must be made between the transcendent.

Edited by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer. Next Article the 7 Hermetic Principles plus the lost and found principle.