Sunday, March 25, 2012

Iroko: The Serpent Oshumare Climbs the Tree of Orishas

This is what happens when you put your hands into too many mystical systems.

This is simply my attempt to place the orishas into the cosmic file cabinet of the Kabbalistic tree of life. I'm sure there are kabbalists and orisha worshippers who'd get sick of the idea, but this my personal belief. I study and practice both traditions on their own but sometimes I find it interesting to mix things up a bit, like making fusion food.



Olodumare is Kether, which is depicted here as the sun that gives life to the tree. His sphere is separate from the rest to illustrate that he can only be felt but not known. The 24 sun drops is an allusion to the pre-genesis story of the Philippine folk magic tradition ("lihim na karunungan"). It is implied here that Olorun, "owner of the heavens", is the sky itself.

Orunmila, who is "Igbakeji Olodumare" (second in command to Olodumare) occupies the second sphere. As the lord of wisdom it is only apt that he is "Chokmah", meaning understanding. In Hermeticism, the sphere of Chokmah corresponds the domain of the fixed stars. In Yoruba, the "Orun" in orunmila means "heaven".

Oya, "Ayaba Nikua", the queen of death, occupies the sphere of Binah, which is attributed to Saturn, the planet whose color is black, and whose domain is death and destruction.

For me, these three represent the cosmic triad of creation, maintenance and destruction.

Olofin, the lowest manifestation of Olodumare, represents the sphere of Daath. The abyss through which one shall pass to reach the domain of Olorun and Olodumare.

Shango, god king and lord of thunder, occupies the sphere of Chesed, ruled by the planet Jupiter, whose name comes from the Roman god king and lord of thunder.

Oggun, warrior god and lord of iron, occupies the sphere of Geburah, ruled by the planet Mars, whose name comes from the Roman god of war and iron.

Shango for me represents the force of inspiration, which comes to the psyche like a bolt of lightning. Whereas Oggun represents putting inspiration into action. Shango's fire gives shape to the iron of Oggun.

Obatala, the father of orishas, owner of the white cloth, occupies Tipareth, the center of the tree. Like the Sun to which this sphere corresponds, his radiance shines upon all as "Orishanla", lord of all orishas. Tipareth is also to the sphere of Yeheshuah (YHShVH) who, like Obatala, is a dying and rising god.

The beauteous Oshun is Netzach, attributed to Venus, whose domain is beauty and love. Her son, the trickster child Elegua, messenger of the gods, is Hod, attributed to Mercury, whose domain is wit and communication. Beauty and trickery for me are representative of the polarities of order and chaos.

Yemaya, the mother of orishas, sits below Obatala, in the sphere of Yesod. She is the foundation of the tree, where all the other branches sprung forth.

Buried in the earth itself is the root of the tree: Babalu-Aye, father and lord of the earth, occupying the sphere of Malkuth.

Oshumare, the rainbow serpent, is the kundalini serpent uncoiling through the rainbow of colors of the seven chakras as one journeys through the states of consciousness that each sphere represents - from the earthly and humble realm of Babalu-Aye in Malkuth to the ultimate and divine realm of Olodumare in Kether.

Basbasan Nawa!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Kabbalistic Correspondences of the 16 Geomantic Signs

I made these diagrams as reference cards for my Geomantic divination flash program, Geomania. I unfortunately lost the code before completing it due to a stupid hard drive problem. The unfinished program was working already working well enough when I was able to release the executable on the net for a short period. If, for some reason, you have a copy of the compiled program, please be so kind to send a copy to me, and I would happily sell my soul to you.

Anyway, I figure these images might be of use for those who are using the geomantic signs in magic. 

The design is made in the 2008 Murmur style, which is modernly simple, colorful and cutesy. These days I'm more into the traditional occutlish look.



Sephirotic





Planetary




The Tetragrammaton of the Illuminati

In reading Peter Carroll's "Psyber Magic", I came across an interesting diagram in which he divides psychopolitical programmes into four interesting groups. For some reason, this has stuck with me for years. I was trying to come up with a design on the lid of a wooden box for keeping my tarot cards in, and what I end up with is a 'sigilized' version of said diagram.

I'm not sure how this relates to the tarot but I'm gonna go with it.




The tridents represent chaotic while the crosses represent lawful. Hebrew letters above are YHSVH ("Jesus"), and below are YHVH ("Jehova"), which are the nice and naughty polarity of the lawful alignment. On the left is the Hebrew STN ("Satan"), and on the right is the Latin LVX ("Lucifer"), which are the naughty and nice polarity of the chaotic alignment. I wanted to emphasize the Luciferic programme as the path of illumination, hence Lux, meaning light, which the word Lucifer itself came from.

The Latin letters in red are simply a mish-mash of the words XAOS and ORDO. The words written in the Alphabet of the Magic are the words from the diagram itself. See below.



From "Psyber Magick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick", Peter J. Carroll

The Jehovic programme of lawful nastiness dominates most psychopolitical systems from the nation sate down the self-similar fractal ladder to the selfs within a person. Such systems tend to maintain their stasis quo at the expense of surrounding systems or sub-systems.

The Christic and Satanic programmes have little overall effect, as they expend themselves against the Jehovic programme and each other; and few systems manage to display either permanent beastliness or saintliness...

Only the Luciferic programme allows evolution, as the Illuminati well know. In recent centuries the dominant psychopolitical Jehovic forces have come to realize that a limited amount of Luciferic creative chaos can give them an edge over systems which do not possess it.


Basbasan Nawa!

 
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