Pastor Crystal Cox: January 2016

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Paul Foster Case - Occult Studies, Tarot Deep Study, the Rosicrucian and more

"Paul Foster Case was an American occultist of the early 20th century and author of numerous books on occult tarot and Qabalah."

"Paul Foster Case (October 3, 1884 – March 2, 1954) was an American occultist of the early 20th century and author of numerous books on occult tarot and Qabalah. Perhaps his greatest contributions to the field of occultism were the lessons he wrote for associate members of Builders of the Adytum. The knowledge lectures given to initiated members of the chapters of the B.O.T.A. were equally profound, although the limited distribution has made them less well known."

"A modern scholar of the occult tarot and Qabalah, Paul Foster Case was born at 5:28 p.m.,[citation needed] October 3, 1884 in Fairport, New York.

His father was the town librarian and a deacon at the local Congregational church. When he was five years old, his mother began teaching him to play the piano and organ, and later in his youth, Case performed as organist in his family's church. A talented musician, he embarked on a successful career as a violinist, and orchestra conductor. He had an honorary doctorate in music awarded to him.

Case was early on attracted to the occult. While still a child he reported experiences that today are called lucid dreaming. He corresponded about these experiences with Rudyard Kipling who encouraged him as to the validity of his paranormal pursuits.

In the year 1900, Case met the occultist Claude Bragdon while both were performing at a charity performance. Bragdon asked Case what he thought the origin of playing cards was. After pursuing the question in his father's library, Case discovered a link to tarot, called 'The Game of Man'. Thus began what would become Case's lifelong study of the tarot, and leading to the creation of the B.O.T.A. tarot deck, which Case called a "corrected" version of the Rider-Waite cards.

Between 1905 and 1908 (aged 20–24), Case began practicing yoga, and in particular pranayama, from what published sources were available. His early experiences appear to have caused him some mental and emotional difficulties and left him with a lifelong concern that so called "occult" practice be done with proper guidance and training.

In the summer of 1907, Case read The Secret of Mental Magic, by William W. Atkinson (aka Ramacharaka) which led him to correspond with the then popular new thought author. Many people have speculated that Case and Atkinson were two of the three anonymous authors of The Kybalion, an influential philosophical text, although the introduction to an edition of The Kybalion released in 2011 has presented considerable evidence for Atkinson as the book's lone author"

"Case reported a meeting on the streets of Chicago, in 1909 or 1910, that was to change the course of his life. A "Dr. Fludd," a prominent Chicago physician approached the young Case and greeting him by name, claimed to have a message from a "master of wisdom" who, the doctor said, "is my teacher as well as yours."

The stranger said that Case was being offered a choice. He could continue with his successful musical career and live comfortably, or he could dedicate himself to "serve humanity" and thereby play a role in the coming age. From that time on, Case began to study and formulate the lessons that served as the core curricula of the "Builders of the Adytum", the school of tarot study and Qabalah that Case founded and that continues today.

In 1916 Case published a groundbreaking series of articles on the Tarot Keys, titled The Secret Doctrine of the Tarot, in the popular occult magazine The Word. The articles attracted wide notice in the occult community for organizing and clarifying what had previously been confusing and scattered occult doctrines about the meaning of the tarot cards."

"In 1918, Case met Michael James Whitty (died December 27, 1920 in Los Angeles, California), who was the editor of Azoth magazine and would become a close friend.

Whitty was serving as the 'cancellarius' (treasurer / office manager) for the Thoth-Hermes Lodge in Chicago, which was one of the lodges of the Alpha et Omega. Alpha et Omega was S. L. MacGregor Mathers' group that formed in 1906 after the demise of the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1903.

Whitty invited Case to join Thoth-Hermes, which was the direct American lodge under the A.O. mother lodge in Paris. Case joined, and quickly moved up initiations in the Rosicrucian grades (True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order).

Case's aspiration name in A.'.O.'. was Perseverantia (which means 'perseverance').

Whitty republished Case's attribution of the Tarot keys (with corrections) in Azoth magazine. That same year, Case became the 'sub-praemonstrator' (assistant chief instructor) at the Thoth-Hermes Lodge.

Also during that year he finished a set of articles on the Mystical Rosicrucian Origins of Faust and published by Whitty. The following year, he began to correspond with Dr. John William Brodie-Innes (Fr. Sub Spe).

Between 1919 and 1920, Case and Michael Whitty collaborated in the development of the text which would later be published as The Book of Tokens. This book was written as a received text, whether through meditation, automatic writing, or some other means. It later surfaced that Master R. was the source. On May 16, 1920 Case was initiated into Alpha et Omega's Second Order.

Three weeks later, according to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's bio-page on Case, he was named Third Adept.

In December 1920, Michael Whitty died. Case believed Whitty's health problems were attributable to the dangers that arise or may arise in the practice of Enochian magic. He later corresponded with Israel Regardie about those concerns."

Source and More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Foster_Case

Paul Foster Case Timeline
http://kcbventures.com/pfc/documents/timeline.pdf

An Introduction to Tarot
http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/intro.pdf

The Tarot by Paul Case
http://www.pdfarchive.info/pdf/C/Ca/Case_Paul_Foster_-_The_Tarot_A_key_to_the_Wisdom_of_the_Ages.pdf

The Builders of the Adytum

http://www.bota.org/

"The Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A) is a school of the Western mystery tradition based in Los Angeles which is registered as a non-profit tax-exempt religious organization.

It was founded by Paul Foster Case and has its roots in both the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Masonic blue lodge system.

It was later extended by Ann Davies.

The B.O.T.A. teaches by correspondence, covering esoteric psychology, occult tarot, Hermetic Qabalah, astrology, and meditation techniques. It also holds a variety of ritual services and study groups, some open to the public"

Source and More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Builders_of_the_Adytum

Podcast 42 – The Life and Work of Dr. Paul Foster Case
http://occultofpersonality.net/podcast-42-the-life-and-work-of-dr-paul-foster-case/

"“IN whatsoever object thou perceivest,

Know me as the Essence,
As the Idea,
And as the Interior Nature.
Because of this the wise come easily to me
By many paths,
Yet in truth these different roads
Are but a single Way.
“If thou canst penetrate in the nature
Of the simplest thing,
There thou shalt find me.
This is the key to the mystery of the sacred letters.
Fix thy mind on the object set before thee by any letter,
And hold thy thought to meditate thereon.
Then shall the inner nature of that object
Be made known to thee,
And by this means shalt thou draw nigh
To some aspect of my being.

– from “The Meditation on HEH” in The Book of Tokens"

Writings of Case and his contemporaries

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

I will NOT alter myself to suit your needs. I will not bow to your version of GOD. I will not be a different me so that YOU are more comfortable. I will not shuffle my Truth to fit your REALITY. I know my Truth. I stand in the LIGHT. I will not bow to your lies or illusions. I will REMAIN steadfast a warrior of the light, a seeker of the source, a Druid, and a force of light raising consciousness. I will never be your version of me and I will STAND powerful against the dark and your version of me . ~ Reverend Crystal Cox

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Goddess Worship History

"Goddess worship in ancient times:

Most researchers currently accept the belief that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 to 250,000 years ago. Until about 8000 BCE, our ancestors organized themselves into hunter-gatherer societies. Humans alone had developed the realization that their life was finite; that they would all die. This resulted in the development of the primitive religious beliefs. Societies which relied mainly on hunting by men naturally developed hunting gods to worship. Those in which gathering was more reliable generally created vegetative Goddesses. The importance of fertility in crops, in domesticated animals, in wild animals and in the tribe itself were of paramount importance to their survival. The female life-giving principle was considered divine and a great mystery. Some Goddess statues still survive from this era. One web site contains photographs of Goddess statues from circa 30,000 BCE to 1987 CE. 1

It is important to realize that many of these findings by archaeologists and historians are speculative in nature. For example, the interpretation that the old European culture stressed the female as divine is largely based on the number of carvings of a female shape found from this era. Some point to the relative lack of equivalent male statues as evidence of a Goddess culture. Others suggest that the female statues might have been the old European culture's equivalent of modern-day erotic photographs.

This "old European" culture lasted for tens of thousands of years in what is now Europe. They generally lived in peace; there is a notable lack of defensive fortifications around their hamlets. As evidenced by their funeral customs, males and females appear to have had equal status. Many historians and archaeologists believe that:

Their society was matrilineal; children took their mothers' names.
Life was based on lunar (not solar) calendar.
Time was experienced as a repetitive cycle, not linearly as we think of it.
Many academics believe that the suppression of Goddess worship in Western Europe occurred a few thousand years BCE, when the Indo-Europeans invaded Europe from the East. They brought with them some of the "refinements" of modern civilization: the horse, war, belief in male Gods, exploitation of nature, knowledge of the male role in procreation, etc. Goddess worship was gradually combined with worship of male Gods to produce a variety of Pagan polytheistic religions, among the Greeks, Romans, Celts, etc. Author Leonard Shlain offers a fascinating alternative explanation. He proposed that the invention of writing

"... rewired the human brain, with profound consequences for culture. Making remarkable connections across a wide range of subjects including brain function, anthropology, history, and religion, Shlain argues that literacy reinforced the brain's linear, abstract, predominantly masculine left hemisphere at the expense of the holistic, iconic feminine right one. This shift upset the balance between men and women initiating the disappearance of goddesses, the abhorrence of images, and, in literacy's early stages, the decline of women's political status. Patriarchy and misogyny followed."

Goddess Worship during Biblical times:

Further south, as Judaism, Christianity & eventually Islam evolved, the Pagan religions were suppressed and the female principle was gradually driven out of religion. Women were considered inferior to men. The God, King, Priest & Father replaced the Goddess, Queen, Priestess & Mother. The role of women became restricted. A woman's testimony was not considered significant in Jewish courts; women were not allowed to speak in Christian churches; positions of authority in the church were limited to men. Young women are often portrayed in the Bible as possessions of their fathers. After marriage, their ownership was transferred to their husbands. Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) rejected millennia of religious tradition by treating women as equals. Women played a major role in the early Christian church. Later, epistle (letter) writers who wrote in the name of Paul, started the process of suppressing women once more.

A feminine presence was added to Christianity by the Council of Ephesus in 431 CE when the Virgin Mary was named Theotokos (Mother of God). But her role was heavily restricted and included none of the fertility component present in Pagan religions. A low point in the fortunes of women was reached during the very late Middle Ages, when many tens of thousands of suspected female witches (and a smaller proportion of males) were exterminated by burning and hanging over a three century interval. Today, respect for the Virgin Mary as a sexually "pure," submissive mother is widespread, particularly in Roman Catholicism."

Source and More
http://www.religioustolerance.org/goddess.htm

Goddess Movement

"The Goddess movement includes spiritual beliefs or practices (chiefly neo-pagan) which has emerged predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand in the 1970s. The movement grew as a reaction to perceptions of predominant organized religion as male-dominated, and makes use of goddess worship and a focus on gender and femininity.

The "Goddess movement" is a widespread, noncentralized trend in Neopaganism, and therefore has no centralized tenets of belief. Practices vary widely, from the name and number of goddesses worshipped to the specific rituals and rites used to do so. Some, such as Dianic Wicca, exclusively worship female deities, while others do not. Belief systems range from monotheistic to polytheistic to pantheistic, encompassing a range of theological variety similar to that in the broader Neopaganism community. Common pluralistic belief means that a self-identified Goddess worshiper could theoretically worship any number of different goddesses from cultures all over the world"

Source and More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_movement

Max Dashu ~ Your Source of Goddess Research, Study and Understanding.

"Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women's history from an international perspective. She built a collection of 15,000 slides and 20,000 digital images, and has created 150 slideshows on female cultural heritages across human history. (For titles and descriptions, see the online catalog.) Read some of the enthusiastic responses to these dynamic presentations here. Her work bridges the gap between academia and grassroots education. It foregrounds indigenous women passed over by standard histories and highlights female spheres of power retained even in some patriarchal societies.

For over 40 years, Max Dashu has presented hundreds of slide talks at universities, community centers, bookstores, schools, libraries, prisons, galleries, festivals and conferences around North America and in Mexico, Germany, Ireland, Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Australia. She has keynoted at conferences (including Women's Voices for a Change at Skidmore, 2013; Association for Women and Mythology, 2010; Pagan Studies at Claremont University, 2008, and Domestic Violence Conference at Rutgers, 2005).

Dashu is known for her expertise on ancient female iconography in world archaeology, women shamans, witches and the witch hunts, mother-right cultures, patriarchies and the origins of domination. Her critique of Cynthia Eller's The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory (2000) has opened up space for objective consideration of the evidence for egalitarian matrilineages.(“Knocking Down Straw Dolls" (2000), republished in Feminist Theology 13.2 (2005), Sage Publications, UK). Two of her articles were published in Goddesses in World Mythology (Praeger, 2010)."

Dashu has released two video dvds Women's Power in Global Perspective (2008: view clipshere) and Woman Shaman: the Ancients (2013 - view trailer). Her daily posts on the Suppressed Histories page on Facebook is followed by 137,000 people. Dashu is now completing the first four volumes of her sourcebook on women in European folk religion and the witch hunts (forthcoming in 2015).
Source and Lot's More, About Max Dashu
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/aboutmax.html

"uncovers the realities of women's lives, internationally and across time, asking questions about patriarchy and slavery, conquest and aboriginality. About mother-right, female spheres of power, indigenous philosophies of spirit-- and the historical chemistry of their repression. Even more important, their role in resisting oppression.

A global perspective on women’s history offers fresh and diverse conceptions of women's power, as well as of men and gender borders. It overturns stereotypes of race and class, and the structures of domination that enforce them. It digs under the usual story of lords and rulers, looking for hidden strands, and reweaves knowledge from the divided fields of history, archaeology, linguistics and folk tradition."

Source, Click Below for TONS of Information that you NEED to know.
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/

Max Dashu Visual Presentation
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/catalog/digital.html

Khokhmah and Sophia, Max Dashu
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/articles/sophia.html

https://www.academia.edu/10319559/The_Gnostic_Goddess_Female_Power_and_the_Fallen_Sophia

http://thegirlgod.blogspot.com/2014/04/khokhmah-and-sophia-by-max-dashu.html

Max Dashu Articles
https://suppressedhistories.academia.edu/MaxDashu

Ep. 28: Suppressed Histories with Max Dashu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMhuI2omPww

Secret History of the Witches, Max Dashu
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/secrethistory/secrethistory.html

Research Links
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/links/links.html

Mother Goddess Church - Port Townsend Pagan Church - Bringing Back Goddess Church

Saturday, January 2, 2016

the Secret of Secrets

"Now ye assemble, my children,
waiting to hear the Secret of Secrets
which shall give ye power to unfold the God-man,
give ye the way to Eternal life.

Plainly shall I speak of the Unveiled Mysteries.
No dark sayings shall I give unto thee.
Open thine ears now, my children.
Hear and obey the words that I give.
First I shall speak of the fetters of darkness
which bind ye in chains to the sphere of the Earth.

Darkness and light are both of one nature,
different only in seeming,
for each arose from the source of all.
Darkness is disorder.
Light is Order.
Darkness transmuted is light of the Light.
This, my children, your purpose in being;
transmutation of darkness to light.

Hear ye now of the mystery of nature,
the relations of life to the Earth where it dwells.
Know ye, ye are threefold in nature,
physical, astral and mental in one.

Three are the qualities of each of the natures;
nine in all, as above, so below.

In the physical are these channels,
the blood which moves in vortical motion,
reacting on the heart to continue its beating.

Magnetism which moves through the nerve paths,
carrier of energies to all cells and tissues.

Akasa which flows through channels,
subtle yet physical, completing the channels.
Each of the three attuned with each other,
each affecting the life of the body.
Form they the skeletal framework through
which the subtle ether flows.

In their mastery lies the Secret of Life in the body.
Relinquished only by will of the adept,
when his purpose in living is done.

Three are the natures of the Astral,
mediator is between above and below;
not of the physical, not of the Spiritual,
but able to move above and below.

Three are the natures of Mind,
carrier it of the Will of the Great One.
Arbitrator of Cause and Effect in thy life.
Thus is formed the threefold being,
directed from above by the power of four.

Above and beyond man's threefold nature
lies the realm of the Spiritual Self.

Four is it in qualities,
shining in each of the planes of existence,
but thirteen in one,
the mystical number.
Based on the qualities of man are the Brothers:
each shall direct the unfoldment of being,
each shall channels be of the Great One.
On Earth, man is in bondage,
bound by space and time to the earth plane.
Encircling each planet, a wave of vibration,
binds him to his plane of unfoldment.

Yet within man is the Key to releasement,
within man may freedom be found.
When ye have released the self from the body,
rise to the outermost bounds of your earth-plane.
Speak ye the word Dor-E-Lil-La.

Then for a time your Light will be lifted,
free may ye pass the barriers of space.
For a time of half of the sun (six hours),
free may ye pass the barriers of earth-plane,
see and know those who are beyond thee.
Yea, to the highest worlds may ye pass.
See your own possible heights of unfoldment,
know all earthly futures of Soul.

Bound are ye in your body,
but by the power ye may be free.
This is the Secret whereby bondage
shall be replaced by freedom for thee.
Calm let thy mind be.

At rest be thy body:
Conscious only of freedom from flesh.
Center thy being on the goal of thy longing.
Think over and over that thou wouldst be free.

Think of this word La-Um-I-L-Ganoover
and over in thy mind let it sound.
Drift with the sound to the place of thy longing.
Free from the bondage of flesh by thy will.
Hear ye while I give the greatest of secrets:
how ye may enter the Halls of Amenti,
enter the place of the immortals as I did,
stand before the Lords in their places.
Lie ye down in rest of thy body.

Calm thy mind so no thought disturbs thee.
Pure must ye be in mind and in purpose,
else only failure will come unto thee.

Vision Amenti as I have told in my Tablets.
Long with fullness of heart to be there.
Stand before the Lords in thy mind's eye.

Pronounce the words of power I give (mentally);
Mekut-El-Shab-El Hale-Sur-Ben-El-Zabrut Zin-Efrim-Quar-El.
Relax thy mind and thy body.

Then be sure your soul will be called.
Now give I the Key to Shambbalah,
the place where my Brothers live in the darkness:
Darkness but filled with Light of the Sun
Darkness of Earth, but Light of the Spirit,
guides for ye when my day is done.
Leave thou thy body as I have taught thee.
Pass to the barriers of the deep, hidden place.
Stand before the gates and their guardians.
Command thy entrance by these words:

I am the Light. In me is no darkness.
Free am I of the bondage of night.
Open thou the way of the Twelve and the One,
so I may pass to the realm of wisdom.

When they refuse thee, as surely they will,
command them to open by these words of power:
I am the Light. For me are no barriers.

Open, I command, by the Secret of Secrets
Edom-El-Ahim-Sabbert-Zur Adom.
Then if thy words have been Truth of the highest,
open for thee the barriers will fall.
Now, I leave thee, my children.

Down, yet up, to the Halls shall I go.
Win ye the way to me, my children.
Truly my brothers shall ye become.
Thus finish I my writings.

Keys let them be to those who come after.
But only to those who seek my wisdom,
for only for these am I the Key and the Way."

Source
http://www.crystalinks.com/emerald15bw.html