My Mer-Ka-Ba Tree with Freemasonic Roots

[Darin Hamel]

Been working on this one for a bit. It is still a work in progress so if you have any comments please make them with notations/references if its a scholarly issue since I am new to both Masonic symbolism and Egyptian metaphysics.
Thanks,
Darin

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b189/DairnHamel/Mer-Ka-Ba.gif

[Naomi]

I like the flaming swastika in the center of the brain, it reminds me of the swirling whirlpool like feeling I get in my brain when I'm being particularly productive or high or especially when I'm talking to other enlightened people.

Is this practical? I wonder how much of this classification can be applied to actual works rather than just sit in a book and look pretty...

I don't mean to criticize the freemasonry aspects but it is a lot of weird words and weird concepts presented in a heavily divided format, is there something to be said for ignoring the man made works and just staring at the stars?It just seems like a lot of bureaucracy when the real solution is sitting in meditation and working the diagrams for awhile. I know, this is precisely what we were talking about in the other thread, but it's kind of true. These words have meaning for some but not others...maybe we are just visual creatures who use text and words as a side element that isn't essential to the true nature of ascended reality.

I absolutely detest the whole holy grail iconography, to me it's just a fancy way of saying

SEX

PENIS CUP

etc...

I know that's rude but it's true! I mean...we already went through the 80's can we just be real here? (comment not addressed to you, but with the whole grail fascination thing)

anyways...lol...don't let me derail the topic, just a few random...thoughts...

Edit

Wait do you ever get lightning bolt type flashes across your line of vision? I do, and it looks just like these diagrams...well, not exactly like these....

one runs up, the other runs down, so it's like in a circle around the brain hemispheres.

[Darin Hamel]

The sexual symbolism is not really historically accurate. The Grail Mysteries were the Laymans approach to the cycle of prayer, meditation and contemplation outside of the Church structure and rules. Oxford in London has some great research on the Western Mysteries.

[Naomi]

Psychology and all of that.....not really true then....but somewhere in the brain. I should probably just stick to my art in any case....

[Darin Hamel]

Those lightening bolt flashes? Do they look like three circles joined by lines in a triangle? Can you draw a picture? Seeing things like that is usually alchemistic and has meaning.

[Naomi]

Well they looked exactly in shape like this, but without the colors....
these are m1thr0s's actually...

http://abrahadabra.com/images/lightning01.jpg

also I have the curious ability to see lightning during a lightning storm if I'm in a dark room with no windows. I can see the flash behind my eyelids and then I will hear the thunder at the appropriate time 1-2 seconds generally...

This revealed to me that I was in fact on a plane where light becomes seen through different kinds of sense perception other than the eyes.

Lightning is serpent energy in Native American lore. Zuni, Hopi, Lakota, the Pacific Northwest tribes - they all associate snakes with lightning and water.

[Darin Hamel]

Dang, sounds like your just really, really sensitive to earth energies. Did you say a bit back that your were a satanist?

[Apopheros]

I heard somewhere that tour eyes are not only receptive to light but to sound either. I was scepetic about this until the day I went under an ultrasonic treatment for muscle pain, and while my eyes were closed and the machine was on I could clearly see something going on. I'm pretty sure there are event other receptors that are supressed once we end the foetal cycle...

Interesting Tree. I don't know much of the qabbalah, but do you think you could process this picture with your system? Like...is there a qaballa underlying pattern inside the cloud?

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/336/skysa7.jpg <===>http://abrahadabra.com/images/lightning01.jpg

[Naomi]

Dang, sounds like your just really, really sensitive to earth energies. Did you say a bit back that your were a satanist?

Technically...I do get into the Satanism thing because I am a card carrying nihilist and I do that to get on Satan's good side...but you know, I'm not really picky...anything works as long as it's good for your mind.

Word on the street is I'm some kind of earth goddess from far beyond the grave, so who knows really....

We had a lightning storm here last night and I didn't remember my dreams. If they arn't cool I just discard them sometimes. When I get my laptop back from Dell I look forward to being able to wake up and record ASAP so i can keep track of these cycles again, especially with Chinese New Year coming up. Maybe then we can get some idea of what is going on.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

That's an interesting model but I don't know if I would equate the 33 degrees with the sephiroth in the fashion you did. I kind of understand your model from a broader "as above, so below" perspective but for more detail you might consider that the 33 degrees of Masonry equate more with the 33 esoteric vetebrae that are sub-divisions of the seven chakra system, all of which are found within each tree, i.e. 10 sephiroth and 22 paths (which are actually sort of sub-sephiroth) equaling 32 degrees. The 33rd degree ideally would be the awakening into the next world above, i.e. the 1st degree of the next world ("Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether, but after another manner.") This may be a technical detail but I would personally apply your model to one tree only. Each progressive qabalistic world starts the Parzival myth over but on a different level of interpretation and application.

Your interpretation of the Great Seal is spot on. I said something very similar some years ago. Though it's very basic you still might find it interesting.In Egypt this concept [discussing transcending dualism] was externalized as the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt and the Two Crown symbolism representing the unity of right and left brain thinking. You can even find this symbolism on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill as The Great Seal of the United States. I emphasize "united states" because the concept is deeper than this country. The U.S. in it's inception was initially viewed as a New Atlantis or New Egypt by the founding fathers who were mostly "deists" in the form of Illuminist Freemasonry. That great seal represents the sealing of the dualistic consciousness and it's aim is to understand the Cosmic Principle (Metu Neter) fully, hence those Latin phrases that hint at that realisation. The obverse side of the seal with the Eagle (flight, heavenly, spiritual) symbolizes the right brain and the reverse with the pyramid (grounded, worldly) symbolizes the left brain. When you look at the back of the dollar bill you will see that the seal is placed with the pyramid on the left and eagle on the right. I might add that within this yin/yang idea expressed in the Great Seal is the idea that within Yin and Yang exists both yin and yang. This is expressed in the pyramid as the unfinished section that has that Eye at it's apex, meaning it points to the higher as it's pursuit. The Eagle clutches both War and Peace symbolized as the Arrows and Olive Branch. The Eagle looks in the direction of the olive branch in favor of peace but keeps the arrows as a backup defense for anything that threatens that pursuit. I could write a book on the Great Seal and it's Qabalah alone.EDIT: You might also find a small little book by William B. Greene titled The Blazing Star and the Jewish Kabbalah kind of interesting as well as Albert Pike's Masonic interpretations of qabalistic ideas in his Morals and Dogma.

[Naomi]

This assessment of the great seal as being both yin and yang is rather simplistic compared to eastern views of the tao. In Hinduism out of the vedas we understand that man or women or anything really is yin and yang in perfectly equal amounts, only showing different attributes or modalities - withdrawal and retainment of properties can be extrapolated as being Yang while truly being Yin (invisibly)

You can apply whatever meanings you want, to anything - there's a great amount of attention given to masonic and other occult symbols simply by way of their association with the occult, but a true master reveals such intricate nuances in a crystal or a block of wood even.

I personally think the origin of the seal was much more simplistic and it is we the modern observer who manages to take that design to a higher level through rapid analysis.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

I have always been under the impression that eastern views of the Tao were the simplistic (I think a better word would be wholistic which often appears to be very simple) views and it was the tendency of western thinking to break everything up into categories that make similar ideas as complex as they appear to be such as we find in Qabalah and Hermeticism and the so-called western esoteric tradition as a whole for example. There is really no reason to make such simple processes that complex but it seems to be necessary for the kind of mindset that does so. Anytime processes are picked apart and analyzed one will come up against the burden of infinite complexity or infinite regression.

As for what you said about yin/yang Naomi, I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with in what I said. I'm getting the same thing in fact. I didn't even mention the whole female/male thing because I don't even find that interpretation of yin/yang relevant. It's rather misleading. What I was getting at was the Great Seal symbolizing the dual hemisphere model of the brain and it's re-unification, i.e. the sealing of the united states of consciousness. This sealing is what can lead to that wholism I mentioned above.

[Naomi]

just stating opinions doppelganger....

I'll add some more later

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

Me too.:p

[Naomi]

Cool I appreciate your patience, I had to help my son set up some game system

I don't understand how the Tao can be "too simplistic" isn't that the whole godamned point? Honestly I think the futility of Westernized thought rests upon the refusal to absorb simplification in favor of forcing outdated, overcomplicated and tired systems on very simple solutions they somehow paint as some mysterious X factor that needs adjustment - like the genocide of native america, for example.

I still stand by my guarded idea that most of this isn't known by America nor did the founders of the United States government know much about it either. They may have been responding to some, haha, muse from beyond though.

I really like the idea of simplifying things.

I don't get the whole 33 degrees thing, but I know how to unite left and right hemispheres now, as a matter of fact, and I can give a killer blowjob. That's probably not complicated enough for some people's tastes though.

good to see you online Nalyd....

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

First the Tao is so simple that it becomes absurdly complex to those who can't grasp that kind of simplicity.I still stand by my guarded idea that most of this isn't known by America nor did the founders of the United States government know much about it either. They may have been responding to some, haha, muse from beyond though.

good to see you online Nalyd....I agree with you on that. There is actually another thread about this subject HERE (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?t=1133) and I even address the point you raise about how we apply meanings to anything and gain a magickal inspiration. It's not just in what we apply to a symbol though. The symbol has to initially inspire one to make that application or connection in the first place. My own understanding of symbols and how and what they invoke on multi-levels comes from my study of the work of R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz of which I highly recommend. See his Nature Word for example. Later that understanding was reinforced (or confirmed) when I began practicing Magick. Only then did I start to grasp it experientially.

It's good to see you reinstated here Naomi.:) Not sure what that means though.:o_O: