MANU

A world regent administering for a 360-million-year time span, embodying the Christ as a spiritual progenitor and overseer for a new epoch, known in the Western Mystery Grail tradition as the Rich Fisher King.

Also known as Amen, Ceridwen's Cauldron, Christ Consciousness, Connla's Well, Deucalion, Fintan (Fionntan), Fisher King, Leviathan, Matsya-avatara, Nechtan, Noah, Salmon of Wisdom, Taliessin. Ta-tjenen, Well of Coelrind, Well of Nechtan, Well of Segais, Yima, Ziusudra-Utnapishtim.

Description: Manu is the Sanskrit name for a succession of divine beings who oversee vast stretches of cosmic and human time. It derives from the Sanskrit root man, which means “to think,” and is associated with manas, the quality of thought in humans, or “the mind.” The first of many Manus was Swayambhu (“the self-existent”), who is considered the progenitor of humankind.

Hindu mythology says that the first of Vishnu's ten major incarnations was as a great fish called Matsya-avatara. (Vishnu is the Hindu version of the Christ.) This fish warned Manu that a great flood was coming to deluge the world and that he should build the Boat of the Vedas to carry all the teachings of the Vedas, as well as plants, animals, the enlightened sages and rishis, and all seeds of life. The Boat also carried the Sun, Moon, Lokapalas (celestial guardians), the gods Brahma and Vishnu, the holy river Narmada, and other august personages. The fish told Manu that he should expect to remain in the Boat of the Vedas for an entire Night of Brahma.

The great fish towed the Boat of the Vedas across the Flood waters, and to accomplish this task it increased its size so it was finally eight million miles long. The Boat docked at what became known as Manu's Descent, and from there Manu recreated and repopulated the world from the treasures carried in the Boat. Manu Satyavrata became the lord, mentor, and protector of the next round of life.

Manu Satyavrata would reign for one-fourteenth of a Day of Brahma or a manvantara, part of a complex time-reckoning system devised by Hinduism, lasting 306,720,000 human years. The reign of 14 Manus would be one Day of Brahma, which lasts 4,320,000,000 human years. Hindu mystics calculated the age of the universe as time units within the vast age or time size of the prime creator, Brahma (the Judaic Ancient of Days; the Christian God).

One Day of Brahma is 4.32 billion years and a Night is the same length, totaling 8.64 billion years for both. One Year of Brahma consists of 360 Days and Nights of Brahma, or 3,110,400,000,000 years. Brahma's entire life span, a Mahakalpa, is 100 Years of Brahma, or 311,040,000,000,000 years. Thus the Manu is a time regent for a small segment of Brahma's time size or cosmic life span; in the entire life of Brahma there are 50,400 successive Manus.

Explanation: Manu Satyavrata is a survivor of the Flood and the progenitor of the new world. Various other myths remember this same august figure either simply as Noah, Deucalion, Yima, or Ziusudra-Utnapishtim, or grandly as the Salmon of Wisdom or Rich Fisher King, Lord of the Grail Castle. Manu, as the regent of a manvantara, is the spiritual “godfather” of an epoch.

The Boat of the Vedas is the Noah's Ark and all the other boats and arks in which the same figure, differently named in different cultures, preserved the spiritual seeds—the cosmic wisdom, knowledge, and techniques of the Vedas, that is, the original teachings of the gods on reality—for the next round of existence.

The seeds of life and the Vedic wisdom teachings are themselves a myth referring to the Christ Consciousness. This consciousness is the profound awareness that encompasses the universe, that pervades (like Vishnu) all of time and space and knows what is happening, when it started, where it's going, and why. In the context of an individual human, what Christ Consciousness is and what the Boat of the Vedas contain is the entire vast sweep of information and wisdom gained by one's soul through all its lifetimes anywhere in the universe.

One name for this repository of vast knowledge of one's soul life is the Grail Castle, and the Rich Fisher King is the awakened soul who remembers. In essence, Manu Satyavrata, as the Vedic Noah, is identical with Matsya-avatara, Vishnu (Christ) as the benefactor and eight-million-mile-long fish. During Manu's reign (his manvantara, or his duration as Rich Fisher King), he is one with the fish. You go to him for a taste of the Salmon of Wisdom, as the Irish myths say, and afterward you are ecstatically inspired and poetically visionary.

The Manu sets the tone for an epoch of life and human conscious evolution. He oversees the processes whereby deep memory, that is, immersion in the Christ consciousness, or a taste of the Salmon of Wisdom, will occur. He is Lord of the Grail Castle (helmsman of the Boat of the Vedas) because he supervises—is the fulfillment of—the Quest of the Holy Grail, which is the long-term process of remembering deeply to reassemble all the soul's wisdom across time.

The Manu is extremely long-lived, as reflected in his various names: Utnapishtim means “He Found Life” and Ziusudra means “Long Life.”

The Manu exists outwardly as an august spiritual overseer of a manvantara; he exists spiritually and in myth as Lord of the Grail Castle; and he exists microcosmically in each human as the soul in possesion of full memory. The Manu is the seat of deep cosmic memory that straddles the periods of the Flood, known in Hinduism as Pralaya, or time of great dissolution, a Night of Brahma.

Creation exists during the Day of Brahma, then all the worlds dissolve during the Night of Brahma. During this Night, all the enlightened sages, the Seven Rishis, the Manus, the minor gods, and Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (the major gods), all ascend to a higher sphere to preserve cosmic life and wait for the dawn of the next Day of Brahma. There is also a Deluge after 100 Years of Brahma.

During the time of dissolution between Days and lifetimes of Brahma, the great god temporarily perishes and is subsumed hack into the body of Vishnu. The great pervader and preserver. Vishnu, sleeps and dreams atop the cosmic dragon Sesa-Ananta, atop the Deluge waters until the next round of Creation shall start and Brahma is extruded again from his navel to begin another 100 Years of Brahma. Since Vishnu is the Christ Consciousness, however, full immersion in the Grail (the Salmon of Wisdom) and identification with the Manu put one potentially entirely outside of time and creation—a Flood survivor.

MARDUK

The national egregor for Iraq, but in that nation's ancient formative days of city-states, the tutelary god of Babylon, the umbilicus for the landmass of that country.

Also known as Bel, Merodach.

Description: Originally, Marduk was the patron and city-god of Babylon in Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in today's Iraq. His name, from the Sumerian Amar-utuk or amar.UD) seems to mean “bull calf of the Sun,” and sometimes he was called simply Bel, which meant “Lord.” Later in his biography, his stature rose so that his followers claimed for him his descent from the high god Enki.

His primary shrine was the E-sagil temple and the E-temenanki ziggurat, both at Babylon where he was worshipped amidst wealth and splendor with his wife, Sarpanitu. He was often depicted with his marru, a triangular-headed spade or hoe and accompanied by a snake-dragon named Mushussu.

In the later inflation of his legend, Marduk was credited with slaying the cosmic dragon Tiamat and precipitating the cosmogony. In honor of this accomplishments, Mesopotamian myth says, the Tower of Babel, the great work of the gods, was awarded to Marduk as his temple and residence in Babylon.

When the city-state Babylon expanded its domain into an empire in the First Dynasty of Babylon under King Hammurabi, Marduk was its national god. Along with Samas, the Sun god, and Ea, Lord of the Sea, Marduk was frequently solicited through incantations by those wishing to avert evil influences.

By the time of the Second Dynasty of Babylon under Isin, Marduk was formally recognized as the “Lord of the Gods,” and his influence spread north even into the realm of Assyria where he was greatly honored. The famous Babylonian Creation myth, Enuma elis, celebrates Marduk's ascension by listing his 50 names and divine functions as the inimitable subduer of cosmic chaos.

Explanation: The account of Marduk is an excellent example of how a city-god can grow in stature and attributions as the city itself expands its hegemony. Anciently, city-states, like Babylon, had a type of angelic watcher or egregor who presided over their region. This angelic being would be in service to even larger egregors who presided over entire nations, such as the country of Iraq, though at that time it did not formally exist, but did exist energetically (geomantically).

How the local city-god appeared was a negotiation between that angelic being and the various psychics who saw it, or the political or religious leaders who found it advantageous to dress the egregor up with certain potent symbolic expressions. As the city-state of Babylon expanded its region of control, they similarly expanded the hegemony of their tutelary god and correspondingly inflated his image and résumé to cosmic (though inaccurate) proportions.

Marduk, as Babylon's egregor, did not slay the cosmic Tiamat, but he did have an energetic-geomantic relationship with the dragon present at Babylon. One of the original massive gates to the city of Babylon, the Ishtar, was said to have been placed over the slain body of a dragon destroyed by Marduk (Mushussu).

The geomantic reality is that one of the Earth's 1,053 second-level dragons is present at Babylon and the original city founders were sufficiently audacious to establish Babylon right where the dragon dwells. Marduk did not slay the dragon; rather the relationship is that the dragon guards the egregor of the nation, Marduk.

Marduk is also the angelic watcher for all of Iraq, though, as said, it did not then formally recognize itself as a coherent national landmass. However, the clue is the etymology of the word “Babylon”: Gateway of the Gods. It derives from the Akkadian Babilum and the Sumerian Bab-ilim or Bab-Ilu, which means “Gate of the Deity” or “Gate of God,” from bab which means “gate” or “door.”

The gate referred to has several legitimate references (see Tower of Babel), but one of them is that Babylon—even though a ruin today—is the Energy Focusing Node or national omphalos for Iraq. Earth has 72 of these world navels in which a specific geomantic node, in conjunction with the country's angelic egregor, grounds the geomantic and spiritual energy for that landmass and its people and has a global energy function as well. This grounding took place, and still does, at the E-sagil temple and E-temenanki ziggurat in the heart of Babylon.

While it is not too likely that an angelic watcher could be seduced or forced into support for territorial expansion and warfare on behalf of a city-state, it is known that, in ancient times, astute war leaders seeking to conquer new city-states or territories would have their magicians enlist the aid of or simply try to control the egregors or local city-gods who were, in effect, the area's genius loci.

The Babylonian leaders instead used the name of their city-god, Marduk, as a rallying cry, banner, and aggressive logo signature of their expansionary goals. In other circumstances, occultists would enlist the aid of demonic servitors to help accomplish their territorial goals or to impede the targeted local egregors.

At a time when nations as we know them today did not yet exist except in energetic outline and preexisting geomantic template, many city-gods were well known: Zababa of Kis in northern Babylonia, honored at the temple E-mete-ursag; Sara, local god of the Sumerian city Umma, whose temple was E-mah; Assur, tutelary god of Assur, later expanded to encompass all of Assyria; Baal-Addir of Byblos; Baal-Biq'ah of Baalbek in today's Lebanon; and Elagabal of Emesa in Syria.

MEDUSA

An expression of the crown chakra at the galactic level, whose millions of light currents or “beautiful hair” thread through the Stone of space.

Also known as Gorgo, Gorgon.

Description: In Greek myth, Medusa was one of the three Gorgons (the other two were Stheno, meaning “Strength,” and Euryale, meaning “Wide-Leaping”) who were daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. Of the three, Medusa (“Ruler” or “Queen”) was mortal. Phorcys was an ancient Sea god, son of Gaia (the Earth) and Pontus (the Sea itself); Ceto was his sister, and her name was generic for any kind of large sea-monster. Medusa was believed to have been the lover of Poseidon, the Lord of the Sea and brother to Zeus, the High God.

The Gorgons lived in the far West of the world, beyond human habitation, even beyond Oceanus, the cosmic river that encircled the world, or perhaps on the shore of Oceanus's stream. They were fearsome because of their awesome ugliness: Their heads were entwined with snakes rather than hair; their necks were adorned with dragon scales; out of their faces protruded huge boarlike tusks; their grins were huge and gaping; their hands were bronze, their noses snub, their faces bearded, and they had mare's hindquarters and golden wings.

Their most dangerous, even lethal, aspect, however, was their gaze: The merest glance turned people permanently to stone.

Medusa was a terror to the Greek world, until finally the immortal hero Perseus managed to slay her. 1\vo Olympian gods. Athena and Hermes, aided Perseus: He was equipped with a shoulder bag called a kibisis; Hades' Helmet, which rendered him invisible; winged sandals; and the harpe, an invincible sickle.

Perseus accosted Medusa · while she was asleep. He hovered in the air above her (thanks to his winged sandals) while Athena held up a shield of polished bronze that acted like a mirror to ward off Medusa's deadly gaze. Perseus looked at Medusa only through her mirror reflection and was safe. Then Perseus decapitated the monster. From her neck sprang Pegasus, the winged horse, and a giant named Chrysaor. Perseus put the severed head in his kibisis, and Hades' Helmet protected him from reprisals from the other two angry Gorgons.

Later, Athena affixed Medusa's head to her shield, enabling her to turn her enemies instantly to stone. This became known as the Gorgoneion, and was later copied by numerous mortal Greek soldiers to terrify their opponents. But the Greeks also said Athena buried Medusa's head under Athen's marketplace.

As for Perseus, he learned that Medusa's blood had magical properties. That which flowed from the left vein of her head was poisonous, but the blood from the right could restore the dead to life, single lock of Medusa's hair (the mythographers are not clear if this means a single snake or actually hair) held up before an attacking army could deflect their onslaught.

Originally, the Gorgons, and especially Medusa, who tended to represent the group and is best remembered in Greek myth, were seen as pre-Olympian monsters. Later, Medusa's story metamorphosed and she was said to have once been a beautiful girl who compared her beauty (especially her lustrous hair) with that of the Olympian goddess Pallas Athena. Piqued and jealous, Athena transformed Medusa's locks into a nest of snarling snakes and made her ugly.

Explanation: Comprehending the reality of Medusa (or even a portion of it) is a Mystery initiation sponsored and supervised by Pallas Athena, one of the 14 Ray Masters of Ursa Major (see Seven Rishis), a specialized group of highly evolved celestial beings within the Great White Brotherhood. Perseus, in the story, is the representative human initiate undergoing the Medusa revelation.

It is a complicated myth that must be explicated in layers. Gaia refers here not to the Spirit of Earth (our planet) but to all of cosmic space as part of the original dichotomy of creation, namely, Heaven (Ouranos) and Earth (Ge, Gaia). Specifically, Gaia means the space bounded by the Milky Way Galaxy, but before it was filled with its billions of stars. (It also means all of universal space, filled with galaxies, but that is too big a frame of reference for this explication.)

Poseidon, Phorcys, Pontus, and Oceanus are all aspects of the same level of reality, namely, the Sea of Consciousness encompassing and enveloping all of created space (Gaia), filling it, metaphorically, like a cosmic sea of awareness.

The Gorgons are not three separate beings, but rather one cosmic spirit with three faces or gazes—two are focused on and in the Absolute, that state before and beyond the created realm; one is focused inside the mortal world. Medusa is described as shockingly ugly and scary as a stay-away defense for the unprepared. Often, initiates, in conjunction with their initiators (such as Pallas Athena, of the Great White Brotherhood), deliberately distorted the reality of an experience so as to keep away the dilettantes for the latters' own cognitive safety.

In truth, Gorgon Medusa is not ugly, deformed, or monstrous. As the alternate Greek version of her suggested, she was (and is) beautiful and her hair is her most conspicuous feature. Her hair is not a mass of snarling snakes, yet as a metaphor that is apt. Medusa's hair is a complex array of streaming currents.

Perhaps the easiest way to approach this Mystery is to say that Medusa is an outer, cosmic picture of the human crown chakra, the Sahasraha, said to have a thousand petals, or interlacing vibratory fields, much like a thousand flickering flames or writhing snakes. The movement suggested refers to the fluidity of consciousness at its higher level of expression, that closest to the Supreme Being.

To clairvoyant perception, the human crown chakra (on top of the head) looks like a bright mound of living molten gold that is also a furnace at high heat. This ever-burning mound of gold brightens the thousand petals around it. As the crown chakra is the point of human connection with God, when there is communication from God, it—the message, the “hello,” or sound—comes down to the crown through a kind of hollow tube or golden axle and diffracts into a thousand echoes that form (and enliven) the crown's petals, flames, or spikes.

On the galactic level, Medusa is a crown chakra within the galaxy's hierarchy of energy and consciousness. This function is grounded at the galactic level through the star Algol (Beta Perseus) within the Perseus constellation. The ancient star mythographers depicted Algol as Medusa's severed head in Perseus's extended hand. Algol is also known as the Demon Star, Blinking Demon, and Ra's al Ghul, the “Demon's Head,” as well as Gorgonea prima, Gorgoneum Caput, Caput Larvae (“Spectre's Head”), Rosh ha Satan (“Satan's Head”), and Medusa's Head.

Within the ecology of consciousness of the galaxy, individual stars typically have global effects, affecting all the other stars and the entire galaxy. Medusa's head is a crown chakra at the center or core of the galaxy that radiates out millions of golden streamers or rivulets (or writhing serpents or beautiful strands of hair) through the galactic interior, touching all of space in this way.

On a galactic level, Perseus introduces the flaming, light-irradiating head of Medusa to the vast starfields and all the great Star-Angels. Medusa's head, at another level, is an expression of the severed head of the Supreme Being, memorialized in at least six different myths around the world, as, for example, Brahma's fifth head, cut off by Shiva and planted at Banaras, India. The radiant severed head is a potent expression of the Supreme Being's gaze into the galaxy.

Medusa's gaze does not turn living creatures into stone. Rather, her rivulets or streamers form a vast capillary network through the Stone of Space. This is an old term to denote the density, though it's subtle, of etheric space. All of galactic space, originally, before the stars appeared in it, was a dense Stone, that is, its content, though seemingly empty, was slightly denser than pure Light. The Stone of Space means prima materia. the original raw matter of creation, the inchoate Stone that would one day become the Philosopher's Stone, a Light Body.

It sounds foreign to common sense today to think of the etheric realm as a stone, but ancient Polynesian belief, for example, held that before the Earth and Sky were fully separated, the “sky of blue rock” pressed down close to Earth and humanity and it was covered in sharp nobbles like a rough stone. Haehae is the gateway in the hard blue rock of the sky through which the Sun emerges.

Medusa's hair threads the galaxy like veins of a precious metal vein a stone. Picture a million strands of hair, some in parallel rows of a dozen strands, rippling through galactic space like fronds, crisscrossing, interweaving space. Her beautiful hair or light and sound currents thread through all of the galaxy.

Similarly, the currents or hair threads of the human crown chakra infiltrate the seven layers of the human aura or energy field (sometimes called an egg), the 81 chakras (72 minor and 9 major, with the heart having three), and the body.

Medusa's snakey hair infiltrates all of the galaxy's Stone of Space like a million nadis, the subtle quasi-nerve networks of the human energy system. Nothing is turned to stone; rather, the stone is irradiated, nurtured, enriched, with the celestial light and communication of the Supreme. Being as received through the galactic crown chakra at Medusa-Algol. Just as the human crown chakra can be in constant communication with the Supreme Being for the edification of the human and the health of its spirit and body, so can the galaxy, through its crown chakra at Medusa-Algol, be in constant interchange with God.

The Mystery revelation that Pallas Athena offers humans (and which Perseus, as a representative, underwent) is to experience this alignment of human and galactic crown chakras. Even more sublime is whose crown chakra it is on the galactic level. Judaic lore calls this galactic composite being Adam Kadmon, and they say it is God's perfect idea of existence expressed as a cosmic Human form. Various myths describe this being as Ymir, Purusha, and Gayomart, among others.

There is a third level to this alignment: all the expressions in Earth's visionary geography that correspond to a crown chakra function. All Light temple structures have a hierarchy of energy, that is, a series of seven energy-consciousness levels, or chakras, and thus a crown chakra. Landscape zodiacs (see White Cow, White Sow) have crown chakras through their composite expression called Albion (see Albion, Purusha, Ymir), who is the hologram of Adam Kadmon expressed on a planetary level. The planetary body itself has a series of Earth chakras within the singular expression of Albion, and 12 more subsidiary ones (still in addition to the ones in landscape zodiacs—see Forest of Bliss).

Thus everywhere on Earth where you touch upon the crown chakra level of a geomantic system, holographically, you are holding Medusa's head.

MENEHUNE

The Polynesian perception of earth elementals, Nature spirits known in European folklore as gnomes and charged with maintaining the interplay between Earth's electromagnetic field and its geomantic terrain.

Also known as Patu-pai-arehe.

Description: In Polynesian myth, the Menehune are the Little Folk of the land, much like the gnomes of European folklore. Typically, they stand two to three feet tall and are sometimes called pygmies; they are thickset, strong, stocky, sometimes bowlegged, with deep voices, said to have ugly red faces and markedly distended abdomens. They prefer living in caves, and their ancient trails along the cliffs of Kauai are still visible; playful and mischievous, they enjoy cooked taro leaves and squash, music, revelry, and various amusing sports.

The Menehune are divided into different tribes, each with kings, and they are known to aid humans when approached correctly. This includes feeding them or rewarding them properly for tasks performed. They are regaled as master craftsmen and expert builders, and their services were once always in demand.

Some of these tasks include building waterways, dams, canoes, fishponds, sacred stone temple structures called heiau, and other stonework, and these massive jobs are often completed in a single night. In fact, they are known to work only during the night, often unseen by humans, dispersing to their own subtle realm at the first trace of morning sunlight.

The Menehune are described as forest dwellers who are like little human men and women, though much stronger than people. One contemporary traveler (specifically to the rain forest surrounding volcanic Mount Kilauea on Hawaii) said they look like miniature Hawaiians in native dress; in his experience, they were friendly and frolicking, but would not leave the lush vegetation to cross the open lava floor of the Kilauea crater.

Polynesians are not certain about the origin of the Menehune, and sometimes they suggest that the Little People were the first kama'aina, or native-born, of the land, that they were the original or former inhabitants of the Polynesian islands. Many Hawaiian families at one time proudly counted the Menehune as their ancestral spirits and helpers and looked on the Menehune as benevolent godparents to their families. The father of all Menehune is called Lua-nu'u.

Polynesian legends hint at the regular migrations of the Menehune. Once they were on Kaaina-i-ka-houpo-a-Kane (“Fat Land of Kane,” the Polynesian high god), understood to be the original Pacific continent that once connected all the island groups before it was inundated—the fabled, sunken land of Lemuria. Legends speak of the Menehune coming to Oahu in Hawaii, led by Ku-leo-nui (“Ku Loud Voice”), whose voice was so loud it was heard all over Oahu summoning the Menehune to start working.

Another tale has them migrating to New Zealand under the leadership of Maoli-ku-laiakea. Later they migrate to Kauai to work as builders and craftsmen. At one time, their population was estimated at half a million; over time, their numbers dwindled as they went into hiding or otherwise disappeared or migrated to the more remote Hawaiian islands Nihau and Necker. Hawaiian lore says they lived in the Lanihuli valley for some time, then were forced to migrate because the male Menehune were intermarrying with the human Hawaiians.

Most of the Hawaiian islands have heiau said to have been built by the Menehune. They built a sacred stone enclosure on a cliff on Molokai that no human has ever been able to reach and another heiau at Pakui dedicated to Hina; on Maui, the Menehune built the Pihana heiau at Wailuku in a single night; also on Maui, the Hale-a-kane and Pu'u-kini heiau are credited to the Menehune. On Kauai, they are credited with building the Alekoko Fishpond (for raising mullet) near Nawiliwili Harbor outside Lihue for a Kauai prince.

Scholars say the Menehune are equivalent to the Patu-pai-arehe, a wild race of mountain spirits, according to Maori legend in New Zealand. They have reddish skin with a golden tinge to their hair, and black or blue eyes. Typically, they work only during the night, can sometimes be seen early in the morning, wear white, are very numerous, peaceful, merry, and cheerful, sing like crickets, and play bone flutes. They are guardians of the Maori sacred sites called wahi tapu.

Folklorists remain unsure as to the identity of the Menehune. Some say they were a once short-stature human slave race of the Tahitians; others say they are the Polynesian version of the Irish leprechauns or European gnomes.

Explanation: The Menehune are a combination of what European fairy lore calls gnomes and brownies. The gnomes are the Nature spirits or elementals who maintain the integrity of the earth element on the planet; the brownies assist them. Typically, European gnomes are three to four feet tall, stocky, bearded, and jovial, and the brownies are similar, though about half the height. As Nature spirits, they have no ultimate or true form, but copy the prevailing forms of the land.

In the case of the Menehune, their negotiated form derives from millions of years ago when Kaaina-i-ka-houpo-a-Kane (Lemuria) flourished, at which time the Menehune were much more visible than in later millennia. They were not physical or palpable in our modern sense, but their material composition was easier to see effortlessly because, in general, the Lemurians were far more naturally psychic than people today or even Europeans several centuries ago to whom the perception of Nature spirits and fairies was possible.”

With the demise of Lemuria, the Menehune were dispatched to the remaining land fragments (the hundreds of islands from Polynesia to Hawaii), some of which, through volcanism, were still forming and settling. The Menehune did not build the stone temples and other works credited to them. Rather, through their knowledge of the microlandscape and its diversely flowing magnetic currents, wells, and troughs, they instructed the human builders as to the best locations and most durable architectural forms to use for those places.

They were, strictly speaking, the first kama'aina (native-born) in all of Polynesia (and all other Earth landmasses too) because it was their job to create the land bridges connecting the landscape to the energy fields informing it. They would work closely with the sensitives among the Polynesians, pointing out suitable locations for heiau, fishponds, waterways, and the rest, and preparing the spaces energetically from their side of the physical-etheric worlds divide.

Their function is to maintain the earth element on the planet, all things to do with solidity, density, minerals, crystals, rocks, and, generally, Earth's interior. They also maintain the differential (they call it “the splice”) between Earth's electromagnetic field and its gradients and the visionary geography.

The Menehune were not forced to migrate and did not come to dislike the Hawaiians, as the legends suggest. Rather, with the global densification of human consciousness in recent millennia, they stopped being recognized or acknowledged by human society and stopped being included in human plans.

Conversely, the meaning of feeding the Menehune as a reward for good work refers to the God-mandated responsibility of humans to transduce and channel celestial and angelic energies and consciousness into the world of all Nature spirits. This is a form of high nourishment for the Menehune and others. Celestial and angelic energies are too strong for the Menehune, indigestible, and must be filtered through focused human attention into an assimilable form.

The reinstitution of these human-Menehune “feeding” rituals would bring their reality and presence back into human perception and interaction. This is of more than folklore curiosity: The regular exchange of energies between humans and the Menehune (all Nature spirits) is essential to planetary health.

The Menehune do prefer the rain forests and mountains over the volcanoes if these are still active or only recently dormant. Lava floors of volcanic craters, such as at Mount Kilauea, are still too unsettled, uncongealed, and unstable for the Menehune to feel comfortable. Lava straddles the domain of two groups of Nature spirits: the salamanders, or fire elementals, and gnomes, earth elementals, and here “earth” should be understood to mean solidity, density, hard rocks.

On Mount Temehani, for example, a sacred mountain on the sacred island of Raiatea, said to be the holiest of the Tahitian group, you may see even today many hundreds of Menehune teeming about the slopes, coming and going from a geomantic feature called a Gnome Egg (see Royal Hall of the King of the Dovrë Trolls) situated halfway up the rain-forested slope. The Gnome Egg is a regional headquarters for the Menehune, with access into the etheric depths of the Earth.

MEPHISTOPHELES

A slow-motion expression of the Antichrist who seduces humans for their knowledge (soul) and cognitive-psychic freedom.

Also known as the Devil, guru-being.

Description: Mephistopheles is a relatively modern expression of the Western conception of the Devil, having arisen as a folk myth in the sixteenth century.

The story is told by many, including Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), Shakespeare's contemporary, in The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1588), and, most famously, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832), in his celebrated Faust (1808). Even Thomas Mann (1875–1955) tried his hand at the legend in his Doctor Faustus (1947).

The plot is simple and archetypal: Faust, a frustrated scholar, sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for wisdom, illumination, power, and access to the Mysteries. In some versions, he abandons philosophy or religion as unproductive dead ends and deliberately takes up magic and its protocols to get his answers, invoking infernal spirits, sometimes by name, such as Beelzebub. Goethe's Faust gets Mephistopheles in response to his petitions.

The etymology of Mephistopheles is uncertain, but if it comes from the Greek then its elements are revealing, for me means “not,” phos or photos means “light,” and philos, “lover.” Thus the name means “The lover of not light,” or “He who is not a lover of light”—in effect, a parodic opposite of Lucifer, “Light-Bearer,” to whom Mephistopheles is sometimes compared or equated. Other derivations are suggestive: The Latin mephitis means “pungent, sulfurous, stinking,” and the Hebrew tophel means “liar,” hence “the stinking liar.”

Faust's weakness is pride; he wants knowledge without effort or grace. Mephistopheles, in Marlowe's version, uses flattery, false promises, and threats to gain the upper hand in the bargaining before Faust realizes his spiritual peril.

In Goethe's version, Mephistopheles is ambivalent, elusive in nature; sometimes he seems to be Satan himself, other times a mere minion of the Devil; a few times, he is a black poodle, a traditional guise of the Western Devil. Faust despairs that he will ever crack the occult mysteries. Mephistopheles offers him a lift up into the occult in exchange for his allegiance (his soul).

This is the deal and contract: If Faust will take Mephistopheles as his mate, pledge himself to his command, go through his life with him, and, after death, stand up for him in the beyond, then Mephistopheles will be his steadfast comrade and slave during this life. Mephistopheles, of course, is duplicitous, for, intent on the scholar's destruction, he lures Faust further into matter rather than the occult, specifically into lust, fornication, and the dark side of sensuality. This leads to the ruin and death of an innocent young woman, and Faust's guilt.

Faust does not understand he has summoned the Devil or, at least, he doesn't appreciate the spiritual danger in which he has put himself. Mephistopheles is sly and urbane, knowledgeable and cynical, helpful and devious, subtle and treacherous; he says that, while he is not all-knowing, much is known to him.

In Goethe's version, Faust is redeemed from the Devil's clutches and the soul contract voided because he learns love. At the end of Faust, Part Two, which Goethe completed shortly before his death, angels bear Faust to Heaven.

Explanation: Mephistopheles is a cleverly disguised spirit being, conveniently mistaken for the Devil for many centuries in the West. He is far smarter and subtler than the common ranks of devils (astral demonic beings), and because very few in the West have discerned his true nature or spoken about it openly, he (and his colleagues) have continued to flourish in the world, seducing then collecting human souls by contract, just as the legends and plays show.

The category of spirit being that is Mephistopheles is called a guru-being. Clairvoyants trained in the systematic protocols of cleansing pollution, residue, and obstacles from a person's auric layers, chakras, and karmic bodies attest that such beings are fairly commonly found attached to human men and women.

In conventional understanding, a guru (from Indian culture) is an illumined human who, as a teacher, dispels the darkness of ignorance among people. To have a guru, in Indian culture, is traditionally considered a necessity and a blessing in the spiritual path to enlightenment and release from suffering.

Much of that benevolent assumption about gurus was translated successfully to the West, notably the United States, in the late nineteenth century with the arrival of the “swans” (gurus) from the East. During the twentieth century, many gurus came to the West and gained followers, sometimes numbering in the millions.

Here is where selling your soul to the Devil comes in: The guru, a physically embodied man or woman with a numinous aura, promises to take away your pain, despair, misery, suffering, or ignorance if you join his or her cult, movement, church, or ashram, and take an initiation into that spiritual fold.

What is never told the aspiring, trusting student (traditionally called the chela) is that the guru inserts a cord of dark light into the student's crown chakra, sinks it all the way through the chakra column to the root center in the groin, and allows it to branch out throughout the body's energy field to anchor into points. Any possibility of developing independent clairvoyance (through the sixth and seventh consciousness centers, or chakras) is gone until the contract is voided.

After death and in one's next life, the contract remains in place, still there, in the new body and its energy field, and it will remain so—and does, often for centuries and many lives—until removed by canceling the contract. The saying “selling your soul to the Devil” means that the soul, which survives physical death, bears the consequences of that contract into its future lives.

Goethe hinted that such contracts can be undone (through love); according to trained clairvoyants, the soul is freed by canceling a series of agreements one has made in past lives with the guru-being and accepting the unresolved pain that led to the making of the contracts and the signing of the agreements initially. Even if the decision to cancel the contract is made 500 years later, the agreements are still viable with the original cording guru-being from 500 years ago, regardless of how many subsequent incarnations (if any) that human guru may have had.

Human embodied teachers presenting themselves as gurus are themselves corded similarly by much larger astral beings. The Earth-based gurus act as scouts or recruiters for the vaster, more ambitious astral beings so that potentially millions of human souls are corded (pledged) to a single astral guru-being.

Periodically, perhaps every 300 years or so, the information and knowledge gained by the human souls pledged to a guru are collected by the guru-being, leaving the humans in their current lives like an empty husk. While it seemed the guru would provide riches of knowledge, the reverse is true and he really is the “stinking liar” that the name Mephistopheles suggests: The guru sucks out all the human-retrieved knowledge for himself. In return, the human gets the sensation of being loved, looked after, and protected, like passive-sheep or young children.

Many people want and love their attachments to guru-beings. In many respects, it is a natural part of the long-term, multi-lifetime spiritual maturation process all humans go through. But it does have a fine-print clause, which is never referred to when the soul contract is being negotiated; almost nowhere in Western metaphysical traditions is any reliable information about this available, especially since the mechanism in our cultural framework is cleverly disguised as working with the Devil.

You think you are immune to demonic influences because you don't dabble in magic or consort with the Devil in any conscious way, yet the great con is that the guru-beings and their agents or scouts usually work through spirituality to make their contracts with people. It's usually the last place a person would expect to be manipulated.

From the viewpoint of human spiritual and cognitive freedom, the full and free use of the higher psychic faculties, and the ability to know on your own, the Mephistophelean contract with the guru-being pledges you to a slow-motion version of the Antichrist. It makes it harder for people to participate in birthing the Christ Child (the second birth: Christ Consciousness, by definition, is antithetical and yet transcendent to guru-consciousness) and contributing to the healing of the Earth, which requires unfettered, freely willed clairvoyance.

Guru-being attachment also makes it difficult for a person to establish a direct, clear link with the Supreme Being through the crown chakra, especially as the guru-beings, at the astral and, to us, subliminal, level, prefer one to regard them as gods, or even in competition with God, even though they are false gods.

Guru-being attachment has ramifications in Earth's visionary geography as well. In some geomantically charged places, such as Sedona, Arizona, the guru-beings can create (and have) an artificial energy overlay (or obstructive filter) on the natural geomantic features. These may appear to clairvoyant vision as guru-heads, statuesque godlike images sprouting like large, cranium-topped mushrooms in the psychic landscape.

This array interferes with the mandated circulation of authentic spiritual consciousness through the geomantic terrain and, like pathogenic bacteria in the intestines, creates favorable conditions for unwholesome opportunistic beings to gain a foothold in that terrain and amplify the general level of psychic distortion.

Ironically, guru-being attachment actually supports the Antichrist. Although on the personality level, it seems a guru is a useful spiritual guide, on a soul level, a guru suppresses one's authentic cognitive freedom (use of the crown chakra) and thus the ability to know on one's own, to have Christ Consciousness.

MERLIN

A shape-shifting celestial benefactor, angelic colleague, and high magus who has aided Earth and humanity many times in different guises.

Also known as Cuchulainn, Enchanter of Britain, Herakles, John the Evangelist, Lailoken, Llallogan, Maui, Merlinus, Monster-Slayer. Myrddin, Myrddin Wyllt, Padmasambhava, Saint Columba (ColumCille), Suibhne Geilt, Zal.

Description: Merlin is best known for his role in the Celtic Arthurian saga as the young King Arthur's mentor in the formation of Camalate. He is portrayed as an enigmatic wizard and magus, much older than Arthur, perpetually involved in arcane plots and stratagems on behalf of all of Britain in a time of chaos and political instability. Merlin orchestrates Arthur's accession to the throne of England through the Sword in the Stone kingship test.

Merlin's parentage is both murky and bizarre: His father was the Devil or an incubus (a malevolent male spirit), so the folk legends say, and his wife a mortal woman, possibly a nun. He was a child prodigy, at a very early age advising kings on the placement of castles and the existence of interfering dragons. As an adult, he orchestrated the conception, birth, and training of the young Arthur. He is credited with devising or procuring the fabled Round Table, which, he explained, was an image of the cosmos; he is further credited, by some, with having moved Stonehenge from Ireland to Salisbury Plain, England.

Peculiar things were said of Merlin: He was caretaker of the 13 Treasures of Britain; he lived in a glass house on the Welsh island of Bardsey; he would frequently disappear up a tree or vanish suddenly and magically through his eplumoir (as the medieval French chroniclers called it, a term suggesting a molting cage or perch); he was the Enchanter of Britain, the chief magus of the land; in Welsh legend, the first of three ancient names for the Island of Britain was Clas Merdin. “Myrddin's Precinct,” signifying that, for a time, the entirety of Britain was named after him.

In Merlin's Welsh version, as Myrddin Wyllt, and his Scottish, as Suibhne Geillt, he is a prophet who goes mad after witnessing a disastrous military defeat and, deranged, retreats to the wild forests where he avoids human contact and converses with the animals.

The legend says Merlin was seduced in his old age by a young priestess named Viviane (also called Vivienne or Nimuë, an apprentice to the Lady of the Lake). She took his occult knowledge, then sealed him almost permanently in a cave, oak tree, or stone chamber. The spell holding him fast could only be broken by the future, prophesied return of King Arthur. The legend also says Merlin periodically met with his mentor and “master,” a man named Blaise, who wrote down the adventures of King Arthur's Round Table at Merlin's dictation.

Explanation: Merlin is a unique being who periodically takes embodiment in the human evolutionary stream to assist at crucial moments. The angelic hierarchy refers to him as a Grand Square Master, a highly accomplished adept, and one family particularly, the Ofanim, reports they have worked with Merlin in his various guises throughout his cultural incarnations.

Among Merlin's noteworthy guises: Maui, the demigod of Polynesia, after whom the island in Hawaii was named; Cuchulainn, the Hound of Culann, a warrior-prodigy of ancient Ulster County in Ireland; Padmasambhava, the Indian sage who brought Buddhism to Tibet and prepared that land to receive it; John the Evangelist, who wrote Revelation on Patmos (exhibiting Merlin's prophetic [clairvoyant] qualities, as alluded to in his Welsh and Scottish guises); Herakles (Hercules), the archetypal Greek hero of the 12 Labors fame; Saint Columba, the medieval saint of the holy island of lona in western Scotland; and the Navaio Earth-Shaper, Monster-Slayer, who rid the American Southwest of “monsters.”

Merlin's parentage, half-human, half-demonic, is a distorted clue to his identity. He is a celestial being who enters the human stream on occasion, requiring a human mother; the demonic father reference is typical of Christian pejoratives in which undesirable celestial energies and beings were demonized.

Britain, before it was inhabited by humans, was called Myrddin's Precinct because from Atlar tis, the lost continent in the Atlantic Ocean, he energized Britain and its geomantic Light temples. In fact, in several of his cultural guises, Merlin is shown taming, working, or preparing large landmasses, in some cases fishing up islands from under the ocean (as Maui), driving out the autochthonous “devils” from Tibet to clear se it for Buddhism, or overcoming awesome obstacles, creatures, and monsters in his 12 Labors as Herakles at Mycenae.

In his prodigious terraforming work, Merlin was also instrumental in binding Lucifer to the Lucifer Binding Sites, yet also selectively unbinding him. You can see this in his guise of Herakles who unchained Prometheus (Lucifer).

The claim that he moved Stonehenge from Ireland to Britain, though laughed at by historians, is actually correct, though he had the transportation assistance of the Ofanim.

The 13 Treasures of Britain that he cared for were actually manifestations of his adeptship, what we would conventionally call magical powers, like external representations of his consciousness. The eplumoir he disappeared through is a geomantic feature called a Shambhala Doorway, a portal through the Earth's visionary geography to the etheric City of Light in Mongolia.

His dalliance and disastrous seduction by young Nimuë is a distortion. Nimuë is another name for the Lady of the Lake, guardian of the astral world and its nine spheres of Light. Merlin, as an adept, was a regular visitor in that realm; on occasion, he spent time in certain astral paradises as a kind of adept's vacation.

Merlin's relationship with his master, Blaise, is revealing. Blaise is not a single man, but rather an entire angelic order called the Ofanim intimately and perpetually involved in Earth's visionary geography. In one of the Ofanim's more conspicuous cultural manifestations, as the Hindu elephant god and scribe Ganesh, they were credited with having written the vast epic the Mahabharata.

Related to this is the fact that Merlin helped to create the Qabala as we know it today, long before it came into the custodianship of the Judaic tradition; as such, Merlin was very familiar with the different spheres of light, energy, and consciousness that system describes and its alluring paradisal realms.

It was not only Arthur whose birth Merlin orchestrated. He was known as the Star Worker, for he planned the astrological configurations of numerous Grail Knights and candidates for adept-ship through his “Arthurian” incarnations.

Insofar as there have been 15 embodied King Arthurs thus far in Earth history, though under different names (see Fionn MacCumhaill, Gesar of Ling, Rustam) and cultures (Irish, Mongolian, Persian), in each there was also a Merlin figure. For Rustam, it was his father, Zal; for Gesar of Ling, Padmasambhava.

Merlin has a special relationship with the heavenly hierarchy, which is discernible in his Greek name, Herakles, which means “Glory of Hera.” Hera is the consort of Zeus, king of the Olympian gods; he is the executive aspect of the Supreme Being, so Hera in effect is Mrs. God, the Supreme Being's female aspect, also known as the Great Mother of the World or the Divine Mother.

His Celtic name also encodes this relationship, though less obviously. Merlin is actually the Mer-Line, the line of consciousness from Earth to Her. Merlin is the line to the sea (Mer) of consciousness, the love of the Great Mother. That sea is the unconscious or the greater consciousness available to humans. Merlin is the umbilicus for all to the Great Mother and Her love and caring.

MICHAELMAS

An annual festival of cleansing and a mass for Earth conducted by the Archangel Michael through Earth's many sacred sites.

Also known as Autumn Festival. Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, Michael Festival.

Description: Michaelmas is a spiritual festival day dedicated to the Archangel Michael and, in Christian observance, to Saint Michael, on September 29. It is barely known in the United States, outside of Waldorf Schools, though it is still remembered and sometimes celebrated in Europe, especially in Anthroposophical circles inspired by the Austrian clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner.

In medieval times, the celebration of Michaelmas was widespread throughout Europe, though increasingly it gained a secular connotation. For a time it was a great religious feast day commemorating Archangel Michael (or his contraction by the Catholic Church into a postulated human Saint Michael), then later a popular festival day coinciding with the fall harvests in most countries.

In England, it was customary to eat a roast goose on Michaelmas to protect one against financial need for the next year. Also in England, Michaelmas was one of the year's Quarter Days (in the year's fourfold division) and the time for rent payments and the start or closing of contracts and hiring engagements. In Ireland, if you found a ring in your Michaelmas pie, you would soon get married; special cakes called struan Micheil were baked from all the cereals grown on the farms.

The Archangel Michael, whose name means “He Who Is Like unto God.” was often depicted as the leader of the angelic hosts and as slaying dragons with his mighty sword. Numerous churches were dedicated to him in Europe, often based on reports by individuals of having witnessed the Archangel at that spot. Michael has also been portrayed as the Prince of Light and Captain of the Heavenly Hosts, leading the angelic legions against the demonic realm (often signified by the dragon or serpent) and their continual assault on the human soul.

Explanation: As with Candlemas and Christmas, this word's correct spelling or pronunciation is not observed and hence its spiritual significance is distorted. The correct spelling as Michaelmass indicates its meaning, as a Mass consecrated by the Archangel Michael in conjunction with the angelic orders and participating humanity on behalf of Earth, its Spirit, Gaia, and its sacred sites.

Michaelmas is one of a series within an annual geomantic liturgical calendar in which angelic and hierarchical hosts interface with Earth and humanity. Other events in this cycle include the Wild Hunt on December 20, Epiphany on January 6, and Candlemas on February 1 (see entries for each).

In the case of Michaelmas, it is a mass for the Earth consecrated by Archangel Michael and it is also a mass for Michael presented by the angelic hosts. The date was chosen by the Archangel Michael and it pertains to the Moon. On this date, the Moon is farthest from the Earth in the yearly cycle. The energy of all living organic matter, including humans, responds to this change and alters its nature at this point. The energy matrix of Earth (the Earth grid or Light body) also changes its polarity due to this phenomenon around this time.

On September 29, throughout the day, but peaking at noon, the Archangel Michael blesses Earth with his sword to cleanse and shift planetary energy. He connects his sword with the major ley lines around the Earth (see Ley Lines) and flushes them like a plumbing network with light to remove negativities and blockages (the demonic host, as folklore has it) that have accumulated in the preceding 12 months. In earlier times men and women would congregate at sacred sites (portals into the Earth's Light body or grid) and participate in Michael's planetary cleansing event.

It is important to note that since 1879, the Archangel Michael has been the chief of all 18 archangels, in a regency that will last 268 years. Under normal circumstances, when Michael is not regent, he has 9,400 manifestations, but during his regency, his manifestations are infinite. Thus he can be present with equal reality on Michaelmas at innumerable locations around the Earth while simultaneously fulfilling a manifold of galactic and cosmic responsibilities.

The Archangel Michael is the harbinger of, the Holy Spirit moving through Earth's visionary geography and he brings the Supramundane Light to all the subtle being bodies of Gaia, the planet's Spirit, and the physical Earth as well. Michael is also in charge of the development of human consciousness on Earth and supports all activities leading to the unfoldment of spiritual freedom. Thus his energy infusion of the Earth grid on Michaelmas also supports all those people working toward the unfolding of awareness in conditions of freedom.

Michaelmas is an excellent day for group meditative work and ritual, especially when coordinated with a physical presence at a sacred site. While any sacred site will suffice, the Archangel Michael has 24,441 dedicated etheric sanctuaries (called Jewels of Michael) accessed at and above physical sacred sites; one's Michaelmas participation at such sites will enhance the effects. Selected locations include Mont-Saint-Michel, France; Snoqualmie Falls, Seattle, Washington; the Tor, Glastonbury, England; Wu-Ta'i Shan Mountain, China.

On Michaelmas, for example, the Archangel Michael may be observed activating and stimulating—not slaying—the Earth's array of 1,067 dragons, enabling them to discharge vital life force and “electrical” potency into the Earth grid. In mythic terms, this is remembered as the dragon-slayer (Michael, Indra, and others) “slaying” the cosmic dragon (such as Vrtra) to make it release its nourishing waters (life-force energy) desperately needed by a parched Earth.

Similarly, on Michaelmas, the Archangel Michael has been observed cleansing, detoxifying, reenergizing, and rededicating the Earth's numerous star wheels (a geomantic feature called landscape zodiacs, holograms of the galaxy; see White Cow, White Sow), assisted by numerous angelic hosts. Into the hub of each star wheel (the zodiacal center, geomantically) Michael inserts his sword of light and channels an infusion of archangelic consciousness.

Traditionally, Knights of the Holy Grail under the auspices of King Arthur (see Grail Knight. Holy Grail, King Arthur—all terms signifying an esoteric cabal of clairvoyant men and women in service to the planet) would assemble at selected nodes in the Earth's visionary geography. There they would participate in the Michaelmas infusion and help ground the celestial energies in a human context, channeling them through their awareness into the Earth. In this manner, they cooperated with the angelic realm in cleansing the planet this day.

MINOTAUR

The Supreme Being (the Greek Zeus) in his White Bull form infiltrating human awareness with God-consciousness at the heart of one of the planet's 108 geomantic features constructed of Light and called a labyrinth.

Also known as Asterion, Asterius, Bull of Minos.

Description: In Greek myth, the fearsome Minotaur, a bull's head on a human's torso, lives at the center of the Cretan Labyrinth. This was commissioned by King Minos of Crete and designed and built by Daedalus, the gods' architect, to house it. Every year seven young men and seven young women were sacrificed to the Minotaur as tribute from Athens. Eventually, Theseus, Athens' founder, successfully threaded the labyrinth, slew the Minotaur, and walked out alive.

King Minos's time was in extreme antiquity, three generations before the Trojan War, itself of only sketchy historicity. His father was Zeus, chief of the Olympian gods, and his mother, Europa, one of Zeus's consorts and his granddaughter. Minos's wife. Pasiphae, was a daughter of the Sun god Helios and Perseis, an Oceanid. In brief, they were immortals, offspring of the high gods.

Pasiphae mated with a divine bull sent to Minos by Poseidon, Lord of the Sea (Zeus's brother), and this mating produced Asterius (or Asterion), the Minotaur, or Bull of Minos.

Earlier, Minos asserted his claim to rulership of Crete over his two brothers and asked Poseidon to yield a sacrificial bull from the sea as validation. He got the bull, but refused to sacrifice, so taken was he by the bull's majesty. Poseidon took his revenge for the reneged deal by making the bull mad. Later Paisphae fell in love with this bull (aided by spells from Poseidon, and possibly also Aphrodite, the Greek Love goddess) and the Minotaur resulted from their union.

Daedalus built the labyrinth in the vicinity of Knossos, Crete's capital at that time, as a vast palace of interconnecting rooms or as a complex, unfathomable maze, and imprisoned the Minotaur in its heart, essentially to protect the world from it. But it is also said that Daedalus constructed the labyrinth in such a way as to conceal the Minotaur and to prevent any humans threading it from escaping the beast.

Explanation: The Minotaur is not a biological aberration of a coupling outside of Nature, with a predilection for consuming young virgins. It is, rather, an expression of the Supreme Being in His White Bull aspect. Both Zeus and the Hindu Shiva have a formidable White Bull manifestation.

Shiva's is called Nandi (“Joyful”) and it is as white as Himalayan snow, the myths say. Zeus's white bull form is not named, but he appeared as a beautiful bull, mild and gentle, with jeweled horns and snow-white flanks, to seduce Europa whom he fancied; he then carried her on his broad back into the sea.

The Minotaur is the merging of human awareness with God-awareness so that the initiate wears Zeus's head like Asterius, a process facilitated by a geomantic feature called a labyrinth.

One of the planet's 100 + geomantic features, the labyrinth exists in nine different forms with 12 copies of each, totaling 108. The Cretan Labyrinth is one of these nine types, and possibly one of the largest. It was not a palace or even a maze, nor is it, strictly, at Knossus, though it is nearby.

This type of labyrinth is created by the intersection of spiraling energy lines from eight somewhat overlapping dome caps generated by the dome over Mount Ida on Crete. Domes are large etheric canopies over mountains, often many miles wide, and dome caps are subsidiary smaller canopies connected to them by spirallic lines (see Holy Mountain). Geomantically, they are what makes mountains holy and terrains numinous, capable of elevating human awareness.

Originally, the Mount Ida dome was 33 miles wide (since installation, they all have “shrunk” somewhat), which means the maximum width of the Cretan labyrinth was 33 miles. The dome cap lines naturally spiral in opposite directions, in accordance with the Golden Mean (phi), and intersect regularly.

Daedalus was originally a member of the angelic family called Nephilim and was present on Earth long ago (when Earth's visionary geography was being implemented) to install the labyrinth and other geomantic features. He adjusted the spiral lines matrix to produce a labyrinth shape in light.

The goal of walking the labyrinth, which is a visionary event, is not to slay the Minotaur, but to become one with it for a time. The Minotaur is any human who has penetrated, assimilated, and mastered he higher Mind aspects of Zeus (the Bull of Minos); at the level of spiritual initiation, it is accurate to say the Minotaur slays all humans who approach it. God-consciousness is always and necessarily transcendent to human awareness.

The diameter of the Cretan labyrinth today is approximately 5 to 10 miles. Seen from above, the labyrinth resembles a figure of eight points of brilliant light (the dome caps) symmetrically arrayed around a central bright point (the Minotaur). Numerous spiral lines of light unfold to the left and right in all directions. The labyrinth has seven veils or layers, each with guardians and initiatory content. The center of the labyrinth, where you will find the Minotaur, is Mount Ida, said to be the birthplace of Zeus, where his mother, Rhea, hid him from Kronos, his father.

The Cretan labyrinth performs a function relative to a large surface area of the Earth described in terms of Albion Plates. For central and southern Europe, this larger area was anthropomorphized as the beautiful mortal female Europa. The labyrinth is the mental body or Mind for this large landscape figure. Each of Earth's 12 Albions has one “Cretan” labyrinth; other locations include Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and the Plantation in Fiji in the South Pacific.

The Cretan labyrinth is one of nine keys given to humanity and Earth to open the Mind, both human and deific, in the context of an Albion Plate. Interacting with a Cretan labyrinth is illuminating both with respect to the mind in human terms and to the larger living geomythic body and mind of an Albion.

Theseus slaying the Minotaur must be inverted. The son of Poseidon, the Lord of the Sea and one of Zeus's two brothers (Hades is the other), Theseus threads the labyrinth and survives the God-infusion of the Minotaur. Ostensibly, he went in lieu of one of the required virgins so that the annual tribute Crete exacted from Athens for an earlier offense could be ended. Geomantically, Theseus, as the representative of Athens (in fact, its founder and leader) grounds the God-essence in Athens and links its Mind center at Mount Ida with the capital city.

It is quite likely that Theseus, as a semidivine initiate, threaded the Cretan labyrinth to purify and help reactivate it, perhaps after long nonuse. (All geomantic features need regular maintenance and cannot be expected to maintain their original pristine quality, as in Daedalus's antique time.)

MONSTER-SLAYER

The Navajo perception of Merlin, Earth's primary culture hero and Earth-Shaper, who prepares the land for the Diné (“The People,” or Navajo) to live in.

Also known as Nayenezgani (“Slayer of the Alien Gods”).

Description: In this Navajo myth of the American Southwest, two culture heroes and brothers named Monster-Slayer and Born for Water make the land safe for human habitation by overcoming and slaying a variety of primeval monsters.

Monster-Slayer and his younger brother, Born for Water, are among the 14 yeii, or principal Navajo gods, created after the Navajo Emergence into the world.

Changing Woman, or Estsanatlehi, is magically impregnated by the Sun who merely shines on her one day as she reclines atop Gobernador Knob (Ntl'iz Dziil, “Hard Goods Mountain,” in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico; it is one of the Navajo's sacred mountains) where she was “born,” from a piece of turquoise. Estsanatlehi's sister, Yolkai Estsan (White Shell Woman), is also impregnated by the Sun. The Navajo describe them as divine sisters; both give birth to sons, Estsanatlehi to Monster-Slayer and Yolkai Estsan to Born for Water.

Neither sister told her child that his father was the Sun, but one day both boys decide to journey to the Sun for a meeting and for help in overcoming monsters. Tsohanoai's (“Bearer of the Sun”; also written as Jóhonaa'éí) house is a square pueblo made of turquoise set on the shore of a great water. Tests are involved in getting to his house and, after they arrive, to prove their mettle, but eventually the Sun awards their perseverance with counsel and magical weapons including shirts, leggings, and moccasins, all made from iron, and also various celestial arrows and knives.

The basic problem is that the Navajo land is beset by numerous anaye, demons and monsters who devour the people and make life dangerous or unlivable. Monster-Slayer and Born for Water are determined to get rid of them. Before the boys leave Tsohanoai, he takes them to Yagahoka. the “sky-hole,” in the center of the sky; through this they see their tribal lands and sacred peaks below.

Then they descend to the Earth and land on Tsotsil (Mount Taylor, also called Dootl'izhii Dziil. “Turquoise Mountain” or “Blue Bead Mountain” in New Mexico), the Navajo's sacred mountain of the South. It is also the home of the first anaye to be slain: Ye'iitsoh La'í Naaghaíí (“Giant Ye'ii,” “One Walking Giant,” or Yeitso, for short), the giant chief of the enemy gods. They succeed in killing the giant, and his blood flows to fill a large valley near Grants, New Mexico, later coagulating into the Malpais lava flows. In fact, there is so much blood it is like a flood, and the brothers dam it in the valley.

As a result of this first triumph, the younger brother, formerly known as Tobadzistsini (“Child of the Water” or “Child Born of Water”) is renamed Naidikisi (“He Who Cuts Around”), and the elder brother (Monster-Slayer), whose original name is not recorded, becomes Nayenezgani (“Slayer of the Alien Gods”).

Among the other monsters dispatched by the brothers (although often only Monster-Slayer's deeds are recorded and perhaps he is the sole or principal hero), in addition to Big Monster or Big Giant (Yeitso) at Mount Taylor, are Bird Monster (called Tse Nináhálééh, meaning “It Puts People Down on a Rock”) at Shiprock Pinnacle (Tsebitai, “Winged Rock,” near Farmington, New Mexico); Monster That Kicked People Off the Cliff (Tse'ta'-ho-tsil-tali, located at Naatsis'aan, Navajo Mountain on the Utah-Arizona border); Sasnalkahi (“Bear That Pursues”), who lives at Tse'bahastsit (“Rock That Frightens”); Monster That Killed with [Lightning in] His Eyes at Tse'ahalzini (“Rock with Black Hole,” modern location uncertain); Teelget (the Giant Elk); and Horned Monster.

In all, six major (and some minor) anaye were killed by Monster-Slayer.

The brothers allowed five less malevolent anaye to live: Hunger, Poverty, Sleep, Lice Man, and Old Age. When they were finished cleansing the land, they revisited the four sacred mountains bounding Navajo country in the cardinal directions to be sure no more monsters required removal from the world. They also collected all the body parts of the slain anaye and buried them with Yeitso. Then the brothers retired to Toyetli, where two rivers join in the San Juan Valley in New Mexico.

Explanation: The tale of Monster-Slayer is about the earliest days of preparing a coherent, spiritualized, safe landscape for the Diné (“The People,” or Navajo) just after they emerged on Earth's surface from inside the planet.

This area is known today as Navajo Nation, an area of 25,000 square miles that straddles the corners of four adjacent states of the Southwest (Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, which has the bulk of it). The land, Diné Bikéyah, is bounded and defined by the Rio Grande, Colorado, and Little Colorado Rivers, as well as the four sacred peaks in the cardinal directions plus two other mountains.

This area, bounded by three rivers and the four cardinal mountains, is encased in a massive zodiac dome that is about 500 miles across. It encloses a huge interactive hologram of the galaxy called a landscape zodiac (see White Cow, White Sow) including the major constellations and bright stars. The zodiac dome, which rises many dozens of miles high above the ground, creates and defines the archetypal, geomantic, tribal boundaries for Diné Bikéyah.

The Navajo emerge into a ritually numinous landscape with many special geomantic features (star energies in the land) not found everywhere else, as Earth has only 432 such zodiacs and most of them are much smaller than this. From the viewpoint of early humanity, however, these star energies thriving in the landscape of Diné Bikéyah are raw, rough, dangerous, almost unassimilable.

The star energies templated across this vast landscape are sentient, just like the Spirits living in the holy mountains. They are holograms of the great Star-Angels, the$$ Spirits behind or within the major stars, and these are formidable, scary beings, especially encountered on a pristine Earth so long ago. They are “alien gods” in that they are not yet digestible by human consciousness.

Metaphorically, they are like a congeries of wild $$ easts that need taming and tying before presentation to the public in the zoo, which is amusingly apt as zodiac comes from the Greek word zoon for a “circle of animals.” Monster-Slayer is the “lion tamer” who will make their energies safe and assimilable.

The Navajo myth speaks of two brothers, each named; however, in the majority of the encounters with the anaye, it is only the Elder Brother, Monster-Slayer, who is involved in overcoming them. It is likely that the Navajo expanded, Monster-Slayer into two fraternal figures for storytelling purposes.

The identity of Monster-Slayer is surprising yet apt: It is Merlin, known in Celtic myth as the magus to King Arthur. His résumé encompasses, however, numerous incarnations in different cultures where he works as an Earth-Shaper, preparing landscapes for human habitation. In Polynesia, he was Maui, who dredged some of the Hawaiian islands out of the Pacific; in Tibet, he was Padmasambhava, Indian missionary of Buddhism who drove all the demons out of Tibet; and in ancient Ireland, he was Cuchulainn (Hound of Culann), defending a major landscape zodiac in the Murtheimne Plain against entropy and darkness.

In Celtic myth, Merlin was caretaker of the 13 Treasures of the Island of Britain. These were specific magical devices and protocols of his; in $$ Navajo legend, he is equipped by his father, Sun Bearer, with magical arrows, clothing and armor made of iron, and knives. These are the same as the 13 magic Treasures.

In his Greek guise as Herakles, the prodigious hero of the 12 Labors, Merlin's name meant “Glory of Hera,” and Hera was a reference to the Great Mother, Mother Goddess, Queen of Heaven, or the female aspect of the Supreme Being. Merlin's energy and consciousness was the “line” to the Mer or Mere (Mother), and thus he was able to ground Her energy into the Earth at various sacred sites. In effect, Herakles was Hera's agent on the Earth. Similarly, Changing Woman (an image of the Great Mother) is his Navajo mother and his mentor-sponsor.

Incidentally, Herakles also had a brother, named Iphicles, born of the same mother, Alcmene, impregnated by Zeus, the high god. Even as a child, Herakles was the one with divine power, and Iphicles the fearful mortal; however, Iphicles was a loyal warrior who accompanied Herakles on his Labors. It's relevant to note that most of Herakles' Labors involved subduing monsters.

Similarly, in Merlin's life as Padmasambhava, the Buddhist missionary to Tibet, he primarily subdued monsters and baleful spirits in the land. including the Srin-mo Demoness whose demonic body sprawled across Tibet, preparing the terrain for the grounding of the new religious impulse called Buddhism.

Did Monster-Slayer actually kill the various anaye in the land? No. The time period implied in the myth is vastly ancient, reckoned in millions of years ago at a time when Earth in its various geomantic oases was being prepared for human habitation. The raw, autochthonous, and celestial energies had to be transduced a bit to make them survivable by a young humanity. Their ontological rawness and bigness can easily make them seem like threatening monsters.

These various powerful landscape angels, protector beings, and Spirit forms initially seemed scary, strange, foreign, and alien to the early Navajo. They had to be “domesticated,” instructed in the protocols of exchange and interaction with the newly arrived Navajo, freshly “born” to this new “Glittering World.”

The Navajo say that every mountain has an inner form and holy beings inside it—bii'istíín, “Those That Stand within Them.” These gods are the chieftains of the peaks, and the mountains are their hogans, or homes. Monster-Slayer helped the bii'istíín of the mountains release their spiritual charge and numinosity into the landscape and to thoroughly infiltrate it, like flowing blood.

Merlin as Monster-Slayer did what he does best: He subdued the energies. That means he grounded them, metaphorically tied them down to their geomantic “hogans,” put “timers” on their activity, put in “plumbing” so that their energy could flow in a controlled manner into human geomantic and psychological reality rather than disastrously flood it. He pacified the raw star forces as necessary, but in other cases energized and activated them—turned them on. He domesticated them, making them safe and assimilable to a fresh humanity, adjusting them and fine-tuning them to Earth's conditions of matter and consciousness.

The Navajo legend specifies that all the anaye are, despite their seeming opposition to the Diné, progeny of the Sun Bearer, just like Monster-Slayer.

Monster-Slayer did not kill Yeitso at Mount Taylor. Yeitso is the towering, sword-brandishing, fiercely miened temple protector being, similar, in fact, to Talos, the giant bronze man in Greek myth said to guard Crete from invaders, throwing rocks at intruders. Greek myth says the Argonauts killed Talos, but they did not, just as Monster-Slayer did not slay Yeitso. Giant Yeii's “blood” fills the valley (or lava field) around Mount Taylor, which means his unfaltering attention permeates the area surrounding the secret temple he protects. Talos was “killed” when a plug was pulled out of his ankle, allowing his precious blood (called ichor, “god's blood”) to drain out of him and into the landscape.

Monster-Slayer's work also involved creating congruence and harmony between the inner spirit form of a landscape feature, its bii'istíín, and the outer, physical aspect, such as a mountain, hill, valley, river. Just as the Navajo were freshly emerged on Earth's surface, so were the numerous Spirit beings newly incarnate in the physical landscape forms for which they were now responsible.

Thus Monster-Slayer has to match the Spirit beings with their new landscape bodies and the Navajo people with their new landscape holy beings. His Earth-shaping duties meant arranging the harmonious conjunction of the outer form with its inner life essence or soul—“The One Who Lies within it.”

As Padmasambhava, Merlin “converted” the landscape Spirit beings of Tibet to a vibration and consciousness level that would sustain Buddhism. Similarly, in his activities as Monster-Slayer, Merlin converted the spirits within this huge zodiac dome to be amenable, compatible with, and supportive of the emerging Diné and their evolutionary-consciousness parameters and agenda.

MORGAN LE FAY

A spiritual adept from the astral realm also known as the Lake who embodies the ninefold levels of consciousness of that realm and facilitates the human mastery of those energies by way of a sword and scabbard.

Also known as the Valkyrie Brynnhildr.

Description: In the Arthurian stories, Morgan le Fay is King Arthur's sister or half-sister and generally his opponent throughout his career as king. The Celtic imagination paints her as a witch up to no good, while the “Fay” suffix denotes her presumed origin among the supernatural, unsettling world of faëry.

The Celtic stories describe Morgan as a wayward enchantress, beguiling, seducing, or generally obstructing various heroes of Arthur's court. She creates the Perilous Valley as a punishment for unfaithful knights; they would become trapped in their own self-created illusions within the valley. Morgan stole the scabbard for Arthur's sword Excalibur; the scabbard, said Merlin, Arthur's magus, is more valuable than the sword because it projects him in battle.

Accounts earlier than the Arthurian material say Morgan was one of nine beautiful sisters, their chief, or oldest, living on the Fortunate Isle, or in Avalon, a land of awesome fertility, beauty, and Golden Apple trees. Certain medieval scholars, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Vita Merlini, placed Morgan's realm at Glastonbury, in Somerset, England. For him, Morgan was less an ambivalent witch-enchantress and more a mistress of a paradise.

Outwardly, Morgan seemed to oppose King Arthur's reign at every step, yet when he was mortally wounded in the Battle of Camlann, she brought him on the mystic barge back to Avalon, or the Otherworld, to be healed or to ascend to a higher realm. She was accompanied on the barge by two other women, one of them identified in the stories as Nimuë, an aspect of the Lady of the Lake.

Explanation: Morgan is not so much Arthur's sister as his colleague. She is the master and representative of the nine spheres of consciousness of the Lake. The Lake is an old symbol for the astral plane, the sea of Light, the ocean of stars. In Qabalistic terms, it is the second of four Trees of Life, each representing a fundamental World or level of creation. Morgan's Tree is called Yetzirah and means “Formation”; it is equivalent to the Lake or astral realm. Morgan and her eight sisters are separate expressions of the energies and her sisters are aspects of herself.

A tamer, almost urbane version of the same is found in the Greek description of the Nine Muses, nine females who inspire the arts. A more feral and ontologically raw version is the Norse Valkyries, nine war goddesses and death maidens assigned by the high god, Odin, to select the best of the slain warriors to feast and drink with him in his Hall of the Slain, Valhalla. Morgan, in her Nordic guise, is Brynnhildr, who championed Siegfried (Sigurd), the Norse equivalent of King Arthur. As Brynnhildr, she is presented as sleeping under a godly enchantment (by her father, Odin) on a pyre surrounded by a fire ring.

The circle of towering flames around the unconscious Brynnhildr symbolizes the cognitive threshold one must cross to enter her astral domain. In the Norse version, Siegfried rescues Brynnhildr, waking her up to his physical world, while in the Arthurian, in the end, Morgan rescues Arthur, transporting him out of his material realm into her Light-filled, astral domain. Both show her as psychopomp to the solar hero, Arthur or Siegfried, conducting him across the threshold into her astral, ninefold tree of Life.

Morgan is also an aspect of the Lady of the Lake, the ultimate authority and guardian of the entire astral realm. Two other aspects of this Lady are Nimuë and Morgause, Arthur's aunt. The three women represent the three pillars or primary valences of consciousness in the Yetzirah tree. Qabalists model the Trees as having three vertical pillars with ten spheres of light arrayed on them.

Yet Morgan, Nimuë, and Morgause are also solidly individualized adepts who move in and out of human incarnation and history. Just as in Catholicism there is a set number of cardinals in the College of Cardinals and one pope, though the specific individuals occupying these positions change, similarly, Morgan, Nimuë, and Morgause, as Valkyries, Muses, or fays of Avalon, occupy certain metaphysically generic positions within the astral realm.

As Morgan of the Avalon fays or Brynnhildr of the Valkyries, she does not steal King Arthur's scabbard, but rather, as the ninefold adept, she is the scabbard. Excalibur's precious, jeweled scabbard is the nine Avalon fays, Valkyries, and Muses—the nine spheres of Light in the Yetzirah Tree of Life.

The myth says the Lady of the Lake gave Arthur Excalibur and the scabbard. The clairvoyant reality is that Arthur was able to concentrate his insight into the nine spheres of the Lake or astral realm into a mental focus expressed classically in the Mysteries as a sword. Excalibur is a dynamic expression of Arthur's ability to extract, condense, embody, and wield the ninefold energies of the Lady of the Lake's world in his own material world.

The Lady of the Lake remained his lifelong mentor in the guise of her three agents. Morgan, Nimuë, and Morgause, each of whom transmitted an aspect of the total. These three necessarily remained vitally connected with Arthur and Excalibur in the material world as its scabbard because they were the embodiments of the metaphysical matrix that created the sword in the first place.

MOUNT MERU

A profound cosmographic model and cosmic mechanism that has geomantic reality on the Earth at two levels.

Also known as Axial Mountain, Center of the World, Cosmic Axis, Cosmic Mountain, Devaparvata (Mountain of the Gods). Haraberezaiti (Mount Alburz). Hemadri (Golden Mountain), Himingbjörg, Karnikacala (Lotus Mountain). Land of Bliss, Mahameru, Mount Analogue, Mount of the Lands, Ratnasanu (Jewel Peak), Seven-Story Mountain, Sumeru, World Axis, World Mountain.

Description: Mount Meru in Vedic and Hindu lore is the archetypal Cosmic Mountain and ultimate abode of all the gods. A golden mountain, it is located at the center of the universe, directly at or under the cosmic North Pole.

Notable among the gods resident at Meru is Shiva, one of Hinduism's trinity (with Vishnu and Brahma) and known as the destroyer of illusion. In fact, Mount Meru, regarded as King of all Mountains, is usually said to be the prime abode of Shiva and his consort, Himavan (“Owner of Snow”). Her sister is Ganga, the River Ganges.

Mount Meru is brighter than the sun in its dazzling golden radiance, like a flame without smoke, and it keeps Heaven in its correct place by supporting it. The Pole Star hangs directly above it and all the stars are attached to it by ropes of wind or aerial cords (see Atlas), making Meru the axis of the world. It's called a shining mountain; an immeasurable mountain; a mass of energy with blazing golden peaks, and glittering, gold-adorned slopes. It is said that only Brahma in his square golden city there comprehends the spiritual enormity of Mount Meru.

The Sun, Moon, and Wind (Vayu, Lord of the Air) circle Mount Meru every day. Numerous spiritual beings known as Devas (Shining Ones, or angels). Apsaras (dancing nymphs). Kinnaris (celestial singing girls), and Gandharuas (celestial musicians) live upon it. In fact, all the known gods (including Vishnu and Brahma) live on the mountain, all 33 crores (330 million) of Vedic gods.

A total of 20 named mountains surround Mount Meru; mystics say Mount Meru shines like a resplendent sun in the center of these mountains. Mount Meru is surrounded concentrically by six circular lands or continents, rising out of the center of the seventh (Jambudvipa) like the calyx of a lotus. The lotus's flower is the Earth and Mount Meru is wider at the top than bottom.

On top of Mount Meru are nine Celestial Cities of the gods: In the center is Brahma's Manovati or Brahmapuri, and occupying the eight cardinal directions (such as south and southeast, north and northeast) are the residences of the eight major deities called Lokapalas, Lords or Guarcians of the Directions (Lokas, meaning “Heavens” or “Spheres”); they are also known as Lords of the Eight Worlds.

Countless celestial songbirds keep the air rich with song; precious stones and jewels adorn the mountain's flanks; celestial healing herbs flourish on its slopes; a vast number of magic wishing trees grow on its slopes.

The celestial river called Ganges or Ganga falls on the summit of Mount Meru before it flows anywhere else; striking Mount Meru, the Ganges divides into four spiritual streams, each flowing out to a cardinal direction. Vedic tradition says that the celestial Ganges flows directly down into Brahma's city on Meru, but it also says it flows down through the matted hair of Shiva on Meru.

Vedic myth says Mount Meru is staggeringly tall: It rises 84,000 yojanas (672,000 miles; one yojana = 8 miles) above Earth and penetrates Earth to a depth of 16,000 yojanas. The diameter of the summit is 32,000 yojanas, and its base, 16,000 yojanas. Due to its enormous size and its situation at the umbilicus of the universe, Mount Meru was called the Seed-Cup or Lotus of the Earth.

Underneath Mount Meru are seven nether or demonic worlds called Potala, and at the bottom resides Vasuki, a giant snake-dragon (a variation on the cosmic dragon Sesa-Ananta; see Dragon) who supports Mount Meru and all its subsidiary mountains and Celestial Cities on his sevenfold hood. When he yawns, Earth experiences tremors; sometime in the far future, Vasuki will uncoil his gigantic length and consume all of Creation with his fiery breath.

The holy mountain is inaccessible to those humans who abound in adharma (lack of Dharma, the rightful way, or spiritual purity: “sinners”). In 1952, French metaphysical writer Rene Daumal wrote about Mount Meru under the allegorical name Mount Analogue, calling it the ultimate symbolic mountain because, even though it must exist geographically, it is completely inaccessible to living humans; it exists, but invisibly, and is impossible to find and enter.

Explanation: Mount Meru is a profound cosmographic model and cosmic mechanism that has geomantic reality on the Earth at two levels.

On the galactic level, which is a hologram of the same organization at the higher, cosmic level, Mount Meru is a grounding point (a spiritual mass) upraised to meet the incoming purity of the celestial Ganges River. At this level, the Ganges refers to a steady stream of exalted consciousness coming from the Pole Star, known in the West as Polaris (despite Precessional changes that technically put other stars for a time in that role) and as Dhruva in Vedic astronomy.

Dhruva, described as a celestial spiritual being, is, of all the star gods or what the Chaldeans called the great Star-Angels, the most revered devotee of Vishnu (the Hindu Christ). Vishnu appointed Dhruva to be the grahadhara. the pivot of the stars, as a reward for his steadfast spiritual devotion to him (see Atlas).

The chariots of all the planets (heavenly spheres or dimensions) and all the constellations and stars are attached to Dhruva by “aerial cords.” This keeps them in their proper and allotted orbits, revolving around Dhruva. For “aerial cords,” we can usefully substitute “threads” or “beams of light” from Polaris.

Vishnu refers to the cosmic Christ, the great Sun within the Sun or Great Central Sun and, in terms of the galaxy's stars, the Logos, the divine rationality that pervades and coheres the galaxy's great star fields. Dhruva is the portal for the Logos to enter and permeate the galaxy and its star beings. Its first point of entry is Mount Meru, and it enters as the celestial river Ganges as a “food” for the 330 million gods assembled in glory on its radiant slopes and peaks.

This pattern is copied on Earth through its hologram of Mount Meru. This copy receives the equivalent of the Ganges River or Polaris stream and grounds it for all of Earth. This stream enters Earth, then spreads out in two opposite directions, encircling the planet. This is called an Oroboros Line, and it is one of 15 primary energy tracks (or very large ley lines) that significantly help create and sustain physical reality, Earth's ecosystems, and consciousness.

Technically, the Ganges divides into only two spiritual streams, and even those two are actually the same single oroboric current encircling Earth.

This copy, though physically real and not an astral apparition, is, for the most part, inaccessible to humans trying to reach it while in the body because it is phase-shifted from our physical reality. As René Daumal said, it is invisible, though geographically present. Meru's planetary location is roughly off the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. If you were to sail up to it, you would be diverted around it without ever seeing it or even knowing your course had been deflected.

A Maori myth, however, hints at the presence of this mystical mountain. In the earliest days, Taane-mahuta (the Maori equivalent of the Greek Titan Atlas) traveled to the end of the world and complete darkness until he reached Maunganui, the Great Mountain, home of the Shining Ones, children of Uru. It is plausible that the Maori would know of Mount Meru in some manner since it lies, shielded, in the Pacific Ocean not that far from their homeland.

This motif of inaccessible presence was intuited by J. R. R. Tolkien in his descriptions of Valinor or Aman, the immortal land of the gods in the West. Once the way to the Blessed Isles was straight, then it became bent and unavailable.

Those with Dharma, that is, a very high level of adeptship, may enter Mount Meru, presumably on a physical level. Others may, with grace, receive an invitation from the angelic realm and be awarded a brief reconnaissance visit.

During such a visit, two colleagues and I saw, from above, an island in the middle of the sea, with a very tall mountain on it, surrounded by many tall hills. At the harbor were numerous ocean transport vehicles of all sorts, from primitive coracles to futuristic bubbles, possibly symbolizing different stages of spiritual development of the visitors, the boats signifying their spiritual process.

Our host, the Ofanim, an angelic order (see Ganesh, Garuda, Hanuman) deeply involved in maintenance and educational aspects of Earth's visionary geography, stood in their angelic form as tall as Mount Meru itself. Numerous people stood about on the beach: emeralds blazed in the sand. Inland a short distance was a healing temple, a golden dome surmounting a building made of seven large globes, each a different color, stacked vertically one upon the other. You enter one of these color globes and get a thorough aura cleanse in that color.

The Mount Meru paradigm is repeated on Earth 12 more times in essence, though without the complex array of residences of the 330 million gods. One aspect of Earth's visionary geography is a twelvefold division of the planet's surface into adjacent pentagons (five-sided polygons). Over each is a massive dome or etheric energy canopy called a Universe Dome, hundreds of miles wide and high (see Holy Mountain).

Into the top of each Universe Dome flows the same Polaris stream or Ganges River (the Greeks called it Atlas), and it is grounded below on the land somewhere at a Dhruva Anchor Point, a miniature, streamlined Mount Meru.

This model is replicated in the subtle anatomy of the human chakra system. Seven major centers of energy, force, and consciousness, called chakras, are arrayed from the groin to the top of the head. Energy called kundalini ideally flows upward through these centers through two intertwining channels called ida and pingala, corresponding to Moon and Sun, negative and positive valences.

Yet a third channel, the sushumna, neutral in valence, flows directly up through them like an arrow; it is also called the Merudanda, the miniature Mount Meru within the human organization. The Polaris stream from Dhruva, or the Logos, flows into the crown of the head where Shiva sits on Mount Meru.

The eight residences of the Lokapalas are replicated many times (3,546 for the eight types) across Earth and are known, geomantically, as Celestial Cities, under such names as the Grail Castle, Mithraeum (see Hitching Post of the Sun), Shambhala, Soma Temple (see Fountain of Youth), Mount Olympus (see Glass Mountain, House of Atreus, and Seven Rishis), and the Underworld.

The Mount Meru complex with its affiliate mountains and celestial gods' residences is thus geomantically distributed across the planet. The one Mount Meru is situated in the South Pacific, but the eight Lokapala cities are spread out in multiple holographic copies across the Earth's surface. This means our entire Earth is threaded and permeated by the 330 million gods.