Out of Egypt

Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Luc Olivier Merson, French, 1846–1920
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

When the Johannite Church, then called the “Primitive Catholic Christians” literally came out of the ecclesiastical closet over 200 years ago under the leadership of +Bernard-Raymond Fabré Palaprat in 1804 (1), one of the definitive statements of its tradition was quite simple and remains in our Liturgy: “The Son of God afterwards appeared on the scene of the world. Imbued with a spirit wholly divine, endowed with the most astounding qualities, he was able to reach all the degrees of Egyptian initiation.”(2)  And with that rather matter-of-fact sentence, 2,000 years of Johannite secrecy was blown wide open in the spirit of the French egalitarianism which swept the continent.

But the link between Christianity and Egyptian religion was not news in those days; far from it. It is generally accepted that the re-introduction of Hermetic ideas into the European context took place as a result of the translation of the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin from Greek by Fr. Marcilio Ficino for Cosimo de Medici. The Corpus itself is a collection of a far greater volume of work patched together most notably by Ficino. There were eight editions of the Corpus before 1500.(3)  I have had the good fortune of seeing one fine example of the Corpus published by Lucas Dominici, Venice (1481), in the Special Collections at Brandeis University here in the Boston area. The provenance of the rare edition that I have seen indicates that it was owned by a Jewish physician by the name of Georgius Kloss. Although the work of Ficino, a gay, Roman Catholic priest was important, it should be noted that the last three tractates of the Corpus as it appears now were not in his translation. These include: (XVI.) The Definitions of Asclepius unto King Ammon; (XVII.) Of Asclepius to the King, and (XVIII.) The Encomium of Kings.

A portion of the Corpus, The Divine Pymander in XVII books (London 1650) was translated by John Everard into English for the first time from the Ficino Latin translation. You can access this edition at my friend Adam McClean’s excellent Alchemy Web Site. The best source of historical information in the world on Hermeticism is doubtless housed in the 20,000-volume Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, in Amsterdam.


Hermeticism’s very close relationship with Christianity can be seen in many historical records, not the least of which is Augustine of Hippo’s criticism of it in his City of God vii.23–26. Giordano Bruno’s De Umbris Idearum (1548) is a reiteration of Hermetic, and therefore Egyptian, memory magic (ars memoria), which is nothing less than the art of maintaining one’s identity after death – in Christian terms, salvation and eternal life. (4)

The compatibility of Christian and traditional Egyptian beliefs was noted in a regrettably degrading way by British Museum archeologist Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge in his introduction to the 1895 translation of the Book of the Dead.

We can gently forgive Sir Ernest’s ticklish terminology and find much that is useful in his analysis that throughout the centuries there is a noticeable coherence between the two religions.

The chief features of the Egyptian religion remained unchanged from the Vth and VIth dynasties down to the period when the Egyptians embraced Christianity, after the preaching of St. Mark the Apostle in Alexandria, A.D. 69, so firmly had the early beliefs taken possession of the Egyptian mind; and the Christians in Egypt, or Copts as they are commonly called, the racial descendants of the ancient Egyptians, seem never to have succeeded in divesting themselves of the superstitious and weird mythological conceptions which they inherited from their heathen ancestors.

St. John the Baptist and St. John the Beloved, Evangelist and Apostle, are the namesakes of the Johannite Church. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Hermetic knowledge of the “all the degrees of Egyptian initiation” is well represented by the tradition of the two Saints John. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “…on 27 May, 395 A.D., the relics of St. John the Baptist were laid in the gorgeous basilica just dedicated to the Precursor on the site of the once famous temple of Serapis.” (5)

The cult of Serapis is of course the foundation of Hermeticism and the Egyptian religion. This is not to say that the followers of the Christ have been these two millennia duped, but that the dogma and doctrine of Christianity incubated in not only the beliefs of the Hebrews, but in the mysteries of what has been called Hermeticism - the religion of Egypt. We need only to look at the etymology of that word to understand its meaning:

Hermetic: 1605 (implied in hermetically), "completely sealed," also (1637) "dealing with occult science or alchemy," from L. hermeticus, from Gk. Hermes, god of science and art, among other things, identified by Neoplatonists, mystics, and alchemists with the Egyptian god Thoth as Hermes Trismegistos "Thrice-Great Hermes," who supposedly invented the process of making a glass tube airtight (a process in alchemy) using a secret seal. (6)

The parallels between the Gospel of John and Hermeticism are, in a word, astounding. But that must be left for another post.

***

Notes:

(1) The Freemason's Monthly Magazine, Volume 1 edited by Charles Whitlock Moore, London, 1848, p. 170

(2) The Johannite Liturgy: The Graal of Undefiled Wisdom, Calgary, revised 2008


(3) Noted by George Sarton, the historian of science, in reviewing Walter Scott, Hermetica, in Isis 8.2 (May 1926:343-346) p. 345


(4) Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Glenn Alexander Magee


(5) Souvay, Charles. "St. John the Baptist." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 22 Oct. 2009 . Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.


(6) Online Etymology Dictionary, November 2001 Douglas Harper

Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

In the Johannite tradition and that of several other communions, Hildegard von Bingen’s feast is celebrated on 17 September. Although Hildegard is a saint according to our Liturgy, in the Roman Catholic communion to which she adhered, she has been beatified but never officially canonized. Notwithstanding this canonical difference, she has been called “Saint Hildegard” for centuries, even within the Roman jurisdiction.[1] (See the Catholic Encyclopedia entry “St. Hildegard”)

However we choose to style her, Hildegard remains a singularly outstanding example of the ideals, practices, hope and values that form the foundations of the mystical, catholic path towards understanding, celebrating and living the divine. All of this we know not from some martyrology or hagiography, but from Hildegard’s own words, actions and visions – many of which were corroborated by contemporaries as illustrious as St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Roman Pontiffs Eugenius III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV, and Alexander III, the Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick I, Archbishop Heinrich of Mainz, Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg and Abbot Ludwig of St. Eucharius at Trier, and St. Elizabeth of Schönau, who was a very close friend to Hildegard.[2]

These facts alone would make Hildegard exceptional, but it was her life and work that still remains the standard – she was a visionary, which is now attributed to the possibility that she suffered from a complication of severe migraines, scintillating scotomata, and resulting intense perception of light and temporary blindness.[3] She was prolific not only as a writer, seer and giver of spiritual counsel to bishops, kings and other saints, but an innovator in music and the arts, and a specialist in healing, anatomy and herbology, showing an intimate knowledge and appreciation of nature and Greek cosmology. As such, Hildegard was perhaps one of the first women in Western culture to openly discuss feminine sexuality as a positive force, and many historians cite her as the first European woman to describe the physical and spiritual joy of the female orgasm.

When she was 42 years of age, St. Hildegard experienced what we in the Johannite community would describe as “gnosis”: the direct, experiential knowledge and communion with the divine. From that point in her life, she was compelled to share her experiences with others, having been practically commanded to write about her divine encounters by Pope Eugenius III. What Hildegard wrote was incredible:

…the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming... and suddenly I understood of the meaning of expositions of the books...

Hildegard’s fame in so many areas of life never deterred her from speaking truth to power. She was a strident champion of the oppressed, the poor of her community; even jeopardizing her own brilliant position in the religious constellation by demanding the proper burial of a man who had been excommunicated. She prevailed within the system, and died shortly thereafter as a “Holy Woman” in the eyes of her people and of the Church authorities of Rome.

Precious few saints exemplify all of the qualities so dear to the teachings and spiritual traditions of the Johannite family. Saint Hildegard of Bingen is undoubtedly one of those precious few.

---

[1] Lerman, C. The Life and Works of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Fordham University, 1995. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.html

[2] Mershman, F. (1910). St. Hildegard. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Retrieved September 9, 2009 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07351a.htm

[3] Ibid. Lernman 1995.

The Whore and the Holy One

Maria Maddalena by Daniela Dente

For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother and the daughter.

- Thunder, Perfect Mind (Nag Hammadi Library)

It seems fitting to pay a special tribute to the hundreds of millions of women who have been and continue to be subjugated by the culture of misogyny and ignorance, and to transform that pain and injustice into a celebration of the feminine in the Divine, and the Divine in the feminine.

Whether we believe that Holy Mary of Magdala was the counterpart of Christ and the incarnation of Holy Sophia, or if we see her as a true companion and Apostle to the Apostles, the endurance of her spiritual heritage is with us on this eve of her great feast.

A most blessed Feast of St Mary Magdalene to you and yours.

A Prayer to the Black Madonna

DARK MOTHER OF MY SOUL
Come to me as you have never left me.
From you I am, in you I am;
Through you I see the husbandman.

With the eyes of forgotten antiquity,
In pools of another place you saw me;
You touched me,
You raised me a little higher than the angels.

Mysteries melt away in your arms,
And life begins with your cup.
Let me drink from your knowledge so that I may know myself.
Mother, virgin, whore, font of wisdom
Who is clarity in obscurity.

In your darkness we begin to see light.
Never ending Mother, unknowable and yet known to all.
Sister of the rising sea foam,
Star of the Sea,
Queen of Heaven,
Reign quietly as I remember who I am.

Reign quietly, my Lady, heart of my being.
Reign quietly, I pray.

(Written for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, 2009
by The Rev. Deacon Donald Donato)

Faces of Catholicism on St John's Day

Hans Kung describes the “mainstream” Catholic viewpoint of the 3^rd century - that is the view of Irenaeus of Lyons among others - had to make a stand in favor of the “simple” gospels, and “simple” faith (pistis), and therefore Kung suggests that this necessitated a rejection of the Hellenistic tendencies of Gnosticism, its syncretistic mythologization, and most of all its reliance on the apprehension of the divine through gnosis.[1]

It is not necessary, in my opinion, to view these currents in early Christianity as diametrically opposed at all, but the slippery slope of literalism on one hand, and the imperial and patriarchal emphasis of atonement theology has clearly had negative consequences for the life of the spirit among Christians ever since.

But the old ways, the prophets and cults of the saints and mystical leaders of early Christianity did not so easily disappear, and in some respects were not actively squelched out of reverence and common interest. Books of the New Testament were not exclusively chosen from the proto-orthodox, but included the works of the community of John, though heavily redacted.

Nevertheless, we can see now that many of the most vexing issues for Christian unity and improving the health of the Mystical Body of Christ must be addressed through these fundamental issues that were formulated and promulgated with specific intentions and imperial interests in mind. The Emperor Constantine’s calling of the Council of Nicaea in 325 is possibly the most definitive action in the history of the early Church.[2] And as ironic as it might seem, although Constantine called the Ecumenical Council and made his wishes and interests known, he was not baptized as a Christian until just before his death.

From Nicaea, we go to the Council of Constantinople and a further degeneration of ecumenism and of the Church truly catholic. It took another couple of hundred years for the orthodox to take away the threefold existence of humanity – body, soul (or mind) and spirit.

The trichotomy was attacked by the Council of Constantinople in 869. For humanity, the council stripped any reference to the trichotomy, principally abandoning the concept of the spirit as separate from the soul, leaving us with a two-dimensional creature of body-soul. We might call the soul the house of the self-conscious ego. The historical digression from the trichotomy, and the Holy Trinity for that matter, was the subject of intense debate beginning at the Council of Toledo in 589.
[3]

In theological principle, the Western tradition known as the Filioque, asserted to the extreme frustration of the Eastern Church that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son. That is to say that the Son had been elevated in an unequal concept of the Trinity, and that the Spirit was somehow “demoted.” The Eastern bishops held, as they continue to this day, that the Spirit descended to earth through the Son, but not from him.

[4]

In lieu of taking a negative attitude towards the events that would form the history of Christianity after Nicaea and Constantinople, it might be of some use to see where great spiritual technologies converge between the esoteric and the orthodox paths. What is done is done, and the mystical side of Christianity is as strong today as it was during the formative years of the Church. The Tradition of the Saints John and St. Mary Magdalene informed generations of Christians and continue to inform us in the 21^st century.

If we were to follow the time table of the development of Christianity, there might be two ways to look at it. One would be by tracing the history of literalism, the growth of evermore tightly knit codes of interpretation: the rise of the Magisterium and of Protestant literal fundamentalism evidenced in the principle of sola scriptura. This is not, I believe, the path of the essence of Christianity, but the skeleton of its inevitable defects.

Looking back at the first century after Christ, we see in the stories of common folk in France, England and other European and Middle Eastern countries a use of myth, combined with legends and perhaps historical facts that gave rise to very early Christianity. Before creeds and the Bible, Greeks, Celts, Egyptians, Latins, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and many other peoples embraced a radically different kind of Christ: one who was a representative of life, a vicar and a symbol of us all, in union with the feminine nature of our home, the earth. Very early Christianity from the Mediterranean to the Irish Sea was mystical, based on the cults of the saints, and very often led by exceptional women. The Desert Mothers of France are an excellent example of this phenomenon, as is Catherine of Alexandria.

But the traditions interwoven and planted deep within the spiritual fabric of the West in pre-Nicene Christianity did not cease with the codifications and canons of Imperial Rome. If anything, the most beautiful spiritual impulses of orthodoxy have been nourished by a hidden aristocracy of servants: Mary Magdalene, Odilia of Alsace, Mechthilde of Hakeborn, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and hundreds of others.

But there are other servants, and still newer aristocracies that must be included in this long path to the Christian experience of today. In many ways, however, the spiritual history of the Church can never be told without bowing to the mystical, feminine movements which have spanned the length of Christian history.

The supple form of feminine devotion and ecstatic connection with the divine no doubt informed much of deep Christian expression before and during the Renaissance. The Beguines, for example, revered both the original “Desert Mothers” of Israel, Egypt, Syria and Anatolia, as well as the “Merovingian Desert Mothers”, who completed their tradition. By the 12th and 13th centuries, the Beguine movement, which consisted of religious women practicing charity and devotion free from the bonds of monastic life, had become very popular in northern France and the Low Countries. Copies of their medieval Psalters have been preserved. Their devotions were focused on the lives and examples of Mary Magdalene; Mary the Egyptian, Euphrosina, and Pelagia and give us an idea of the tradition stemming from the eastern Mediterranean. But the feminine litany did not stop with Egyptians and Jews, indeed local saints such as Odilia of Alsace (660-720 CE) feature prominently in their homespun liturgies.

[5]

The tradition of the Merovingian Desert Mothers and of Frankish religious practice in general, was highly mystical in nature and relied heavily on personal, spiritual revelation through “visions and dreams.”[6]

The work and traditions of direct experience of the divine that was laid by the Beguines and their sisters and mothers before them no doubt influenced the theological ether of Northern Europe, birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. When Martin Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the proverbial door of the Church, although he was leading himself into a dead end of literalism on one side, he was feeling a shared spiritual impulse with the esoteric underground which the Desert Mothers had begun. Direct experience and knowledge of the divine – be it gnosis or a “personal relationship” with Christ, it has a very similar effect. This yearning for the ancient, simple, and experiential encounter/life in the spirit cried out. John Calvin’s Institutio Religionis Christiannae of 1555-59, and Luther’s legitimate criticism on the corruption of the Church’s system of indulgences both addressed key weaknesses of an assembly that had become a super-state in and of itself, but which was in need of a new life in the spirit.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Luther’s work is the fact that he held the great mystic and patron of the Templars, Bernard of Clairvaux, in such high regard. Even Luther’s self styled symbol, the rose, has obvious mystical connotations having much to do with the sorely neglected feminine aspect of the divine.

But even through the most dogmatic of times, such as the Counter Reformation or the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries, there have been numerous exponents of the very strong, existential spirituality. In the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, which were developed by the Mariologist St Louis de Montfort in the 18^th century (officially added to the other Mysteries by Pope John Paul II)[7] the fruit of the mystery is “openness to the Holy Spirit.” This is an incredibly beautiful expression of the inner meaning of the Baptism of Jesus – and of every one of us who is a conscious child of light.

It is certainly no accident that Johannite exegesis finds itself at a pivotal place between the mainstream Catholic traditions and the esoteric and mystical traditions of the early Gnostics, Neo-Platonists, Freemasons and Rosicrucians. This is the legacy of John, the disciple whom Jesus loved; the Apostle of Fraternal Love, protector of the two Saints Mary, and the receiver of revelation. It’s not easy to be in that very tight spot, largely because the outer and inner traditions mistrust each other for understandable reasons. Johannites are unique in the sense that we embrace Catholicism, Esotericism, Mysticism and Gnosticism, in the tradition of two Saints John and Valentinus.

This tradition is not merely a reinvention of what once existed, but a continuum from Apostolic times through the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The collective work of Catholic clergy, the great Christian mystics, and a cadre of the Poor Soldiers of Christ who brought knowledge of early Christianity back into the mainstream of Western scholarship. The person-to-person lessons and perspectives emphasized by the tradition of St. John the Baptist is the heritage that bridges the past and the future.

This is the human chain of exploration and self-realization that resulted in the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the gifts that make a new era in both the spiritual and material celebration of the unity of life.

History in its totality has never occurred by happenstance or coincidence. The unique position of our communion invites a new dialogue and a more meaningful understanding of the purpose of the most profound meaning of Christianity, and a celebration of this great aristocracy of servants from whom we have inherited it.

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[1] Ibid. Kung:27

[2] Ibid. Kung: 36-37

[3] Bokenkotter, Thomas. A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Doubleday Books, New York, 1979: 145.

[4] Ibid, Bokenkotter, 1979: 145.

[5] Oliver, Judith, “Gothic Women and Merovingian Desert Mothers.” Gesta, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1993), pp. 124-134

[6] Moreira, Isabel, Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul, Cornell University Press. 2000

[7] John Paul II. Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002

Consciousness, Light and Inspiration: The Holy Trinity

The Trinity by Salvador Dali, Vatican Museum

There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one. 1 John 5:7-8

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday on the liturgical calendar. We move into the long swath of "Ordinary Time" that takes a journey through the summer all the way until Advent. The vestments are green as is the earth. For the eastern Church, the Trinity is celebrated along with Pentecost. Trinity Sunday does not appear as a regular feast in many lectionaries until the 9th century CE, and it was not ordered for the entire Roman Church until the pontificate of John XXII in the 14th century. (To read more on the history of Trinity Sunday click here>>>)

The Trinity is woven into the fabric of Christian thought and practice from the liturgical Sign of the Cross, normally done with three fingers, to the Trinitarian Forumula “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, taken directly from the “Great Commission”: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”(Matt. 28:19) In the kabbalistic Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9) and the Celestial World of the Aeons (Valentinus) the Trinity appears to head the lower forms and planes of existence. It is the triangle, the three, the strongest form in the cosmos, Thrice Greatest, the union of opposites atop the Ground of All Being.

While the origin of the idea of the Trinity may be as old as the first human thought of the divine, evidenced in the most ancient religious texts known to us from the Indus Valley, it was not elaborated on by the early Christians without heated controversy. Fitting the concept of the Christ as Incarnation and eternal Logos has its pitfalls. The rifts created by the clashing descriptions of the Nestorians and Monophysites, each claiming to depict the nature of Christ, tended to focus on the person of Jesus and his spiritual role without taking into consideration the possibility that the dynamic that unpinned the existence of Christ was itself the most profound reflection of human potential.

No doubt many an early Christian pulled quite a lot of hair out over the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From my viewpoint, I side with neither the Monophysites, who held that Christ had but one nature which developed from human toward the divine; nor the Chaldcedonians (most mainstream Christians today) who see Jesus of Nazareth in terms of having a nature which is dualistic: fully human and fully divine. I do not disagree with the basic premise here, but I think it overlooks some important contingency thinking that I believe is necessary to fully appreciate self awareness. The way in which each one of us relates to the hypostatic union of the Holy Trinity may necessarily need a unique spiritual interpretation as a personal means of filling metaphysical gaps in one’s own mystical experience.

I neither confirm nor deny the many theories presented in the discussion of the Trinity and Christology. I therefore introduce to you the framework put forward by the Oriental Orthodox communions known as Miaphysitism (a.k.a. henophysitism) which basically does a Hail Mary punt and leaves us with the notion that holds that in the one person of Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are united in one "nature" (physis), they are one. How to interpret that is likely outside the boundaries of rationality.

These are attempts to describe spiritual impulses and realities that, although encompassing our universe, are not limited by it. From my vantage, spending too much time on these things is tantamount to standing on top of a high mountain and trying to draw an accurate map of the entire world – it just doesn’t work that way.

Beyond faith there is another, more human way to make the connections to understand and feel the presence of the Trinity. When we look at the names of the Trinity in Greek, it’s abundantly clear that what is being described is both mystical and practical. The Father is called the “Thought” (Nous); the Son is the Logos which is really more than just a “word”, it is more akin to “reason.” Finally, the Holy Spirit - Pneuma Hagion, sometimes referred to as the primal Queen of Heaven, Sophia – that which binds us all together, and inspires us – the honey that binds our existence in both spiritual and sensual realms.

The Trinity for me is the Nous that gives me consciousness, the Logos, the light to use it; and Sophia, the wisdom of divine inspiration to truly live it.

From Hell to Heaven with Dante

Dante and Virgil in Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

When Dante Alighieri was born 688 years ago today, the newborn suckled his mother’s breast in a beautiful and yet extremely violent world. As he grew to maturity, Dante lived in a time of incredible genius and dastardly wickedness; not very different from any other time in history except that the geniuses were particularly ingenious, and the villains particularly villainous. His contemporaries were people like da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo - and the not-so-fondly remembered folks who paid their salaries - the infamous Borgia Pope Alexander IV, and his son, the brilliant but rather homicidal Cesare Borgia.

The Divine Comedy is Dante’s best known and best loved work, probably because it can be read as superficially or as esoterically as you’d like. Very much like life itself, in the end you will be entertained and inspired regardless of your tack.

Dante and his wealthy Florentine family were members of the Papal supporters known as the Guelph party, and for that reason he spent quite a long time exiled from his home city when it was under the control of the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor. Scholars and historians have often theorized that Dante’s exile pushed his limits, and through that adversity he began to discover the value of inner work.

Although little is known about the details of why Dante chose the symbols and numbers that make up the bones of his magnum opus, the parallels with the Christian kabala are just too uncanny to be accidents. In Inferno, for example, there are nine Circles of Hell, and the Well of Giants; (9 + 1) representing the 10 Sephiroth of the kabalistic Tree of Life. In Purgatory there are seven Ledges, and Dante falls asleep three times, so that each Ledge reveals three numbers (3,1 and 3 again) that add up to seven. This formula suggests that Dante was well acquainted with the Western Mystery Tradition, and that he also knew of The Book of Creation, known in Hebrew as Sefer Yetzirah, which bears exactly the same combination in the path of Initiation. Once Dante has proceeded through 33 cantos, he arrives at the Terrestrial Heaven; again pointing to the kabalistic 32 inner paths + 1 external path on the Tree of Life = 33, the number of years from the Incarnation to the Resurrection of Christ. Coincidence? Hardly.

When Dante is brought safely to the Terrestrial Heaven by Virgil, he is then given to the protection of Beatrice, who in my opinion is clearly representative of the Queen of Heaven – the divine feminine who leads us to the Temple of Mysteries.

If you haven’t read The Divine Comedy, why not celebrate Dante’s 688th birthday and treat yourself to a copy of your very own? It might be a good book to tuck into that bag for all of you Johannites who will be traveling to Conclave in Boston next week...