Tag Archives: line

It is now no secret that the famous legend of the “Russian Soldiers,” that wonderful story of a million and a half Russian troops (with horses and artillery) smuggled through England in the dead of the night, was put about by the secret service to try to check the panic caused by the collapse at Mons. It was quite useless to point out to the English people that Archangel is served by a single line of rail, and that to ship even 10,000 troops would have strained the resources of the line for an entire summer.

Aleister Crowley, “Three Great Hoaxes of the War” in Vanity Fair

Hermetic quote Crowley The Three Great Hoaxes of the War famous legend russian soldiers single line rail dhip troops strained resources entire summer

There is a law governing all things. There is a connecting link between earth, air and sea, between flowers, beasts and birds, between mankind and all animals, and inanimate things, a mysterious joining of mind to matter. It is an intangible something, perhaps an electrical current, but certain it is that the line is there and unbroken, and between every human creature whom God has made, there is the same unbroken chain, which can be followed up link by link, step by step, until we find ourselves on the boundaries of the next world and perhaps beyond; who can tell? The chain may be unbroken even then.

Lydia Leavitt, Bohemian Society [Amazon, Amazon (Dodo Press), Bookshop (Dodo Press, Gutenberg, Local Library]

Hermetic-quote Leavitt Bohemian Society law governing all connecting link unbroken chain next world perhaps beyond

The Hieroglyphic Monad

The Hieroglyphic Monad by Dr John Dee, the 2000 paperback from Weiser Books, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

John Dee The Hieroglyphic Monad from Weiser Books

“This book, written in thirteen days in 1564 by the renowned Elizabethan magus, Dr. John Dee, explains his discovery of the unity underlying the universe, as expressed in a hieroglyph, or symbol. His monad represents the alchemical process and goal of the Magus who, in partaking of the divine, achieves that gnostic regenerative experience of becoming God, and thus furthers the redemption and transmutation of worlds.

Everything, Dee states, is dependent upon the circle and the straight line, which, in turn, are formed from the point. From this point revolve Sun and Moon, intersected to suggest their conjunction and generative faculty. These rest upon a cross, the ternary and quaternary, and all are mounted upon two connected half circles, the original fire of creation. The key to the glyph is in the meditation and study of it, and all it suggests to the ‘creative memory.’ It is not surprising that Dee’s contemporaries in the universities chose to ignore this valuable treatise on a key to the universe, thus causing him to have engraved upon the frontispiece, ‘Who does not understand should either learn or be silent.’—an admonition as true today as it was then.”

 

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