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THE CAVE

Hermes said: 

When I wanted to reveal the science of the mystery (‘secreta operas mundi’) and of the processes of creation, I found a dark cave, full of shadows and winds. I could not discern anything because of the darkness and I could not keep my lamp alight because of the force of the winds. Then a being appeared to me in my sleep whose aspect was one of great beauty. It said to me: take a light and put it in a glass lantern which will protect it from the winds, so that it will shine despite the strength of the wind. Thus is will penetrate into the subterranean room.”

Picatrix, IV, 3 (trans.cit. pp. 254-5). From: Garin, Eugenio, Astrology in the Renaissance, The Zodiac of Life, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London,  1983, p.53.

INTRODUCTION

            In general, this aspect of Initiation involves a subterranean descent into the Element Earth, or Mother Earth.

            Ancient Man (possibly) worshiped caves for their darkness - the brave priests alone penetrating this vagina/womb of the Earth Mother and 'painting' the ideographic representations/projections which thus control their outer world. The brighter the sun, the darker the cave - and the safer is the secret within. CAVE - sub-conscious/un-conscious.

            Caves and Underworld Gods underworld are mentioned by Pausanias vol. 2, p. 236 & note, - where he mentions the ash-altars of Pergamon and their earth-god connection. P.36 The Hieron.

CAVE - BEE - SUBTERRANEAN.

            The Cave and the Bee repeat as interconnecting factors in the material. This seems to lead to myths that have a subterranean origin. It would thus be important to examine all ritual use of honey in Myth and Religion.

            Faber on bees and The Cave of Porphyry.

            e.g. Honey-cakes in descent into the Cave of Trophonius.

            This preparation for the descent into the Underworld is also known by the acronymic constructed by Basilus Valentinus of V.I.T.R.I.O.L. which in full is; VISITA INTERIORA TERRAE RECTIFICANDO INVENIES OCCULTUM LAPIDEM "Visit the Interior of the Earth and By Purification Thou Wilt Find the Secret Stone." The Interior of the Earth can be seen in various ways...

THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS

De antro nympharum

            The Cave of the Nymphs leads us into a vast amount of material on the Cave as an archetype in its own right.

            "...nymphs were weaving and bees were going in and out."

            We establish that this Cave of the Nymphs in the Memory Theatre has two mouths.         (Homer, Odyssey,XIII,102 ff.).)

            Frances Yates says that:

            "The interpretation of the Cave of the Nymphs as the mixture of the elements derives from Porphyry, DE ANTRO NYMPHARUM.' Yates.

"The Cave grade thus represents a further stage in the creation, when the elements are mixed to form created things or elementa. This stage is illustrated with quotation from Cabalistic commentary on Genesis."

Yates, F. The Art of Memory, p.140.

            Robert Graves describes the Cave of the Nymphs:

            "Its northern entrance was for men, the southern for gods; and it contained two-handed jars used for hives, stone basins and plentiful spring-water. There were also stone looms - stalactites? - on which the Naiads wove purple garments. If Porphyry (On the Cave of the Nymphs) was right in making this a cave where rites of death and divine rebirth were practised, the basins served for blood and the springs for lustration."

            In the `Memory Theatre' - the 3rd Level is the Homeric Cave (See: The Od.) - the Cave of the Nymphs, were weaving as the bees were going in and out of the cave. This signifies according to Camilio: "...the mixtures of the elements to form the elementa - i.e. when the elements are mixed to form created things - in accordance with the nature of its planet." (Yates.)

            The Double Entrance; THE TWO GATES or THE TWO PORTS:

            "The most ancient of mankind then, before temples were raised to divinity, consecrated caves and dens to the gods." p.308.

North and South Entrance to the Cave of the Nymphs - p. 308.

North and South entrances of Egypt - p.9, Bembine Tablet.

UNION IN THE CAVE

THE CAVE OF KYBELE IN ATALANTA FUGIENS.

            Ovid mentions a Sacred Cave full of statues of the ancient Gods, where Atalanta and Hippomenes made love, and were turned into lions. The Cave of the Nemian Lion, and the Cave of the Nymphs is definitely linked. The love making in the cave is here a reflection of the weaving in the Cave of the Nymphs.

            This is the deepest Key of `Atalanta Fugiens' where Atalanta and Hippomenes enter the Sacred Cave of Cybele as Humans and leave as Lions, yoked to Cybele's Chariot.

            Ovid informs us that the Union of Atalanta and Hippomenes did not take actually take place in the Temple of the Mother of the Gods, but:

            "Near the temple was a dim recess, like a cave, roofed over with natural rock, which had long been regarded as a holy place. In it, the priest had gathered together a large number of wooden statues of ancient gods." (Metamorphoses, Ovid.)

            Kybele changes the 'guilty pair' into lions, and it is in this form that they emerge from the Cave. And as we know, these two Lions become "One".

            What emerges here is a solar symbol (the lions) in a subterranean matrix (the Cave). The Cave appears on the Third Grade of the 'Memory Theatre, which Camillo describes:

            "The third grade will have depicted on each of its gates a Cave, which we call the Homeric Cave to differentiate it from that which Plato describes in his Republic."

            The entrance of Atalanta and Hippomenes into the Sacred Cave of Kybele/Selene/Diana now takes on an esoteric, initiatory aspect. One question arises. Is one mouth of the cave an entrance and the other an exit? That is, entering from the North as a human and exiting from the South as a God? Do Atalanta and Hippomenes enter from the North as mortals and exit from the South as immortals? Were they initiated into the "...rites of death and divine rebirth?"

THE ZERYNTHIAN CAVE THE SAMOTHRACIAN

GROTTO/ CAVE

            The classical literary sources describe a Thracian grotto or cave in Thrace, sacred to Rhea, or Hecate, as well as Thracian sanctuaries of Ares and Aphrodite, who as we recall, were the parents of Harmonia.

            A discussion of KRATEIA as HECATE in the names of the Kabiri - and the Zerythian Cave of Hecate is dealt with under the section on the Mysteries of Samothrace and the KABIRI.DOC.

THE ATTIS CONNECTIONS

BIRTH IN THE CAVE

            A descent into a Cave is shared by many myths and religious systems. This descent leads to a profound cluster of myths which bear fruit as an initiatory Death and Rebirth, or as a Birth of the Divine Child in subterranean Fire. Esme Wynne-Tyson says:

            "The symbolic descent into the Cave, an re-ascent, occurs in all the Mystery Religions."

            She quotes Julian as supplying the esoteric meaning:

            "The association of Attis with matter is the descent into the cave."

            Mary, according to one tradition, gave birth to Jesus in a cave. As Jung mentions, this cave was actually an Shrine or Sanctuary of Attis in Bethlehem.

Jung, `Symbols of Transformation.

"And they stood in the place of the cave: and behold a bright cloud overshadowing the cave. And the midwife said: my soul is magnified this day, because mine eyes have seen marvelous things: for salvation is born unto Israel. And immediately the cloud withdrew itself from the cave, and a great light appeared in the cave so that our eyes could not endure it. And by little and little that light withdrew itself until the young child appeared: and it went and took the breast of its mother Mary."

            Book of James, or Protevangellum -XIX.2.

            In the Book of Enoch and the Apocryphal material, there are links between Mary and SYBYLIA and therefore CYBELE, wife of Attis or Attys.The Sibyls are always located in caves. This places Mary is a dominant position as the Vessel of the Mystery. See Jung. But where???

            The Child is born, sotto terranea, in Fire, or in a higher frequency, in Light. As in the Mysteries of Eleusis, the descent of Persephone and then Demeter/Ceres is a Fire Epiphany.

            The Outer meaning leads to an Inner and Secret version. As one sifts through the material, certain themes seem to run parallel to each other. This convergence has an obvious resonance, that leads to the inner content of the myth under scrutiny.

A SPECULATION

            Birth takes place in the Attis Shrine-Cave in the Apocryphal story of the Birth of Jesus, while Atalanta and Hippomenes achieve Union in the cave of the "ancient Gods. In both examples, Fire emerges, but in `Atalanta' it is in the codified form of the two lions, a Key that indicates Fire emerging from beneath the Earth.

            Could we suggest that these caves are also the `Doors' of the Nine Excavations of Enoch leading to the central core of Fire?

            The Cave as a nursery, as a birth-place, as a centre of conception.

THE MASONIC CAVE OF ENOCH

Corinne Heline:

"There is a very old Masonic legend stating that the biblical Master Initiate, Enoch, made excavations through the entire nine layers of the Earth. In each of these excavations he placed a four-square door, and in the ninth door he set a golden triangle bearing the mystic four-letter name of Deity. He then fashioned two columns wherein he placed the secret instructions on how to find the nine excavations with their closely guarded foursquare doors; in other words, how to pass through the Earth's nine-layers and so reach its central core."

Corinne Heline, `Mystic Masonry.'

 
            A grave is an excavation into the Earth. In the case of the Three Fathers of Orion, it is the Seed of the Gods that enters the Grave of the Mother.

            One could speculate that there are nine layers of subterranean initiation, prior to reaching the Central Core. This descent, or journey down to the Central Sun is codified within the two ancient acronym

V.I.T.R.I.O.L

            As the number 9 has three as its square root, or, consists of a Trinity of Trinities, we conclude that an inner archai would be 3 - reflecting the 3 Bardo States between Death and Rebirth.

            Descents into the Underworld, via a Cave, are the natural domain of the signifier Element Earth, and the Planet Pluto with all its associated imagery and material.

            But all subterranean routes lead to Fire, in its simple elemental form and in the vast network of associated material in the Heat, Fire and Light Series, in all, encapsulated in the I.N.R.I. cipher.

            When Pluto returns to the Underworld with his captive bride Persephone, his route of return is through the Element Water, in the location of the stream Cyane, a stream personified as the nymph Cyane.

            Does this indicate a sequence of from Air, through Water to Earth, to reach Fire? As the sequence would not be linear, a chain could be created by Fire returning to Air, which feeds it. It is a great mistake to view the Alchemical and Hermetic processes as linear.

The initiatory descent into the element of Water, though viewed by Jungians as the `subconsciousness', may merely be a moist portal to the Nine Doors, leading to the Central Core.

            The element Air, is the realm of all codified references to flight. This is: ASCENT, or the Journeys Up .

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

            At this time - a dream in which I find a Cave, bricked up with ancient stones, and use the (my) psychic sense to discover a weakness in the wall to be able to penetrate inside. An awareness of the ancient air within. One would have to wait for the rotten air (lead, the dross and slag) to escape before entering. The smell of the chthonic atmosphere within. This linked to all alchemical Caves or subterranean vaults, (INFERIOR) and V.I.T.R.I.O.L.

THE CAVE OF THE NYMPHS - ITHACA.

            The Cave of the Nymphs leads us into a vast amount of material on the Cave as an archetype in its own right. In general, this aspect of Initiation involves a subterranean descent into the Element Earth, or Mother Earth.         

We continue the argument by looking at a scene from The Odyssey: Book XIII:

            "When the brightest of all stars came up, which often ushers in the tender Light of Dawn, the ship's voyage was done and she drew near to Ithaca. Now in that island is a cove named after Phorcys, the Old Man of the Sea..."

            This is the setting for the Homecoming of Odysseus. The Cove of Phorcys, on the Island of Ithaca, on whose sands, the sleeping Odysseus is laid. This Cove is also the site of the:

            "Cavern sacred to the Nymphs whom we call Naiads

            The treasures of Odysseus are "..stacked in a pile on the beach near an old olive tree..., ", "...well away from the path."

            The narrative introduces an archetypal cluster of images: Dawn, the Rising Venus, a Ship, a Cove, an Olive Tree, a Cave and a Path.

            It is therefore of some significance that these auspicious signs orbit around and lead to the Cave of the Nymphs. Some sense of encoding pulses out of this section of the Odyssey. I feel intuitively, that in the original Greek, it would be obvious to the initiated reader, that the paragraph on the Cave of the Nymphs, is in itself, a semiotic Cave, a Path to deeper nuances, a maze of interwoven stories and legends. We have to resist the temptation and select the themes and possible approaches necessary for our symbolic amplification of Weaving.

            The great neo-Platonist Porphyry certainly considered this passage of profound significance, for he wrote a beautiful piece called 'De Antro Nympharum' on it. Thomas Taylor made a paraphrase translation of this text, 'Concerning the Cave of the Nymphs' which we will use here.

            The Cave of the Nymphs also appears in `The memory Theatre of Giulio Camillo' and also as "...the wonderful palace of the Naiads' in the story of ARISTAEUS (Graves 82 passim) which again suggests Lybian origins for the Naiads.Herodotus says that Poseidon is of Libyan origin.

THE PORPHYRIS

            Kerneyi gives another insight to the secret streams at work in Homer. Odysseus receives from The White Goddess, LEUKOTHEA, her Veil, which:

            ...by tying it like a belt around his waist, he was able to escape from the shipwreck and swim to the distant coast. Afterward he had to throw the veil back into the sea."

Kerenyi, Gods, p.233. 

            But even more astonishing is:

"It was later said that this veil was really that strip of purple cloth which people initiated into the Mysteries of the Kabeiroi received on Samothrace and always wore around their bodies as a protection against the perils of the sea."

            This `veil' or `belt', or `strip of purple cloth', a purple waist band, or sash, is a clue, an encoded reference to the Nature of the Mysteries of Samothrace, and therefore the Kabiri.

            Orpheus was an initiate of these Mysteries and persuaded the Argonauts to put in at Samothrace to take initiation as well. The Phoenician founder of Thebes and his wife Harmonia, were both initiates, as were the parents of Alexander the Great, King Philip and Queen Olympia of Macedonia.If Odysseus was an initiate of Samothrace, then it seems logical that Homer was also an initiate into the Mysteries of the Kabiri. Though certain, this is not obvious on the surface of the narrative of the Odyssey.

            Ithaca, with its Cave of the Nymphs, the Naiads, in the Cove of Phorcys, is the initiatory Goal of the Odyssey.

The Oracle of Trophonius

            I do not agree with Jane Harrison, when she says that "...puberty rites change ... into other forms of initiation as medicine or seer or member of some secret society."

            These rites and rituals are shamanistic in essence and divination features prominently in their operative aspects. The Oracle of Trophonius is one of such sites of shamanistic initiation.

            "The sources of our knowledge of the ritual of Trophonius are three:

1. The account of Pausanias when he visited Lebadeia.

PAUSANIAS

Says that:

            "...Trophonius was in form and function, analogous to Asklepios..."

            Could there be a Telesphoros-Trophonius link? The names are similar in structure?

THE DESCENT

"The way in which he goes down is this. First, during the night two citizen boys about thirteen years old lead him to the river Herkyna and anoint him with oil and bathe him. The boys are called Hermai, and they wash him and do all the necessary things for him. Then the priests take him not straight to the oracle, but to certain springs of water which are close to each other. Here he must drink what is called the Water of Lethe, that he may forget all he has hitherto had in mind. Next he drinks of another water, the water of Memory, and by it he remembers again what he sees down below. Then having seen it and worshipped and prayed he comes to the oracle itself dressed in a tunic of linen, girded with fillets and wearing the boots of the country."

            Then, says Harrison:

 "...follows a detailed account of the actual structure of the oracular chasm. It is artificial and shaped like a pot for baking bread in. It is about eight ells deep. The consultant goes down by a ladder."

            "When he has gone down he sees a hole between the ground and the stone-work. He then lays himself down on his back, and holding in either hand barley-cakes mixed with honey, he pushes his feet through the hole first and then follows himself, trying to squeeze his knees through the hole. When he has got his knees through the rest of his body is immediately pulled in, and shoots along as a man might be caught and dragged along in the swirl of a mighty and swift stream. The future is not revealed to all in the same way. To one it is given by sight, to another by hearing. They return through the hole feet foremost."

PLUTARCH

            "2. The treatise of Plutarch on the Daimon of Socrates, in which he recounts the experiences of a young philosopher who went down into the chasm of Trophonios to find out what the Daimon of Sokrates was.

Jane Harrison, in Themis, Chapter XI, pp. 508-509. The Oracle of Trophonius.

            "(2) Plutarch's account of the experiences of Timarchos adds certain details to the picture, and greatly emphasizes the importance of the revelations imparted. When Timarchos after the accustomed preliminaries entered the chasm, thick darkness was about him. He paryed and lay a long while upon the ground uncertain whether he was waking or dreaming. But it seemed to him that he felt a sharp blow on his head with a great noise, and that through the..." &c.

dib. De Genio Socrates, XXII.

            3. Plutarch's treatise on The Face in the Orb of the Moon, in which he relates the rite of Trophonius to other ceremonies, and thereby lets out their real nature."

            Cave 15 and Cave 26 in Allora and Elephanta are specialities of Carmel Berkson , who is also an authority on the Jewish communities of Bombay. Via Dalu.

TOMB

TOMB The womb of the earth and of the Earth Mother; the body imprisoning the soul. A symbol of the Mother Goddess as both death-dealing and sheltering; dying to the world. In Alchemy the grave, with the skull and the raven, represent the blackening and mortification of the first stage of the Lesser Work, it is 'earth to earth', dying to the world. Tombs were often the setting for ritual meals for the benefit of the dead on anniversaries and at seasons associated with death and resurrection, such as the New Year, Spring and Easter festivals.

Cooper, Dictionary of Symbols.

            A question: What is the relationship between Pluto and Saturn? If Pluto is Hell, and Saturn is seen as Selfishness, of The Self - then the answer is obvious. It is the Self, and the idea of a self that leads to Hell.

            Hell, in this sense is seen as a negative subconsciousness. Or, unconsciousness. To be unconscious, in the sense that Jesus Christ said: "Father, Forgive Them, for they know not what they do? They know not. This is agnostic - the antithesis of gnostic! And it is Hell! Logically, therefore, heaven, would be to Know What you are doing.

            Hell and the subconscious repeat the Four of Scorpio in the 22 (2 + 2 = 4) of the House co-ruler Pluto, and Pluto releases the layers of data on the Nigredo, the Black, the Nekyia - i.e. the Descent into the Underworld; VULCAN and The Legends of Hiram Abiff and Tubal Cain. All so clearly coded in the acronymic V.I.T.R.I.O.L

            This chain of associations has no limit and is merely a seminal concatenation.

            We can go on. Behind the Skeleton in Aries (Arcanum 13) is a Rainbow - suggestive of Rain and Dew. Much on this is elaborated in 'Monas Hieroglyphicus' of Dr John Dee, where the glyphs of all these processes are contained. But ceasing for the moment at one possible cumulative interpretation on Aries and Transformation in general, bearing in mind The Lamb, the Pelican, The Martyr, Chinnamasta, Vajra Varahi, Golgotha and the Athanor of Mars, the Fiery Furnace and holding in front of us - The Reaper/Harvester of Aries - this can be stated:

            LIFE IS A FOUNTAIN OF BIRTH AND DEATH.

Or:

BIRTH AND DEATH IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE.

            In the sense that the absolute totality of the processes of Death (dying) and Birth (birthing) are merely a FLOW.           

            This is 13 = Transformation = Parturition =

            MEM - 2nd of The Three Mother Letters = Water = Blood = Fish. =

            THE WATER,

            FOUNTAIN,

            STREAM OF TRANSFORMATION.

NOTES: CAVES...

Caves of the Nile in Egypt.

Cave of the Nymphs on Ithaca in the Bay of Porcrys, Book 13 of The Odyssey. Through Homer we are brought via Kirke, to Samothrace again.

The Cave of the Curetes in Crete

The Birthplace of Zeus in Crete is also a Cave.

The Zerynthian Cave of Hecate of Samothrace & Thracian Mainland.

Trophonius - oracular Cave.

Naples - Caves.

Mithras - worship is performed in caves.

Naxos - a cave sacred to Bacchus.

Guru Rinpoche Caves in Tsopema.

Lyceum cave sacred to Pan.

Arcadia, a cave sacred to the Moon.

Cave: Robert Graves, p.318, Daedalus myth: Labyrinthe as Cave

Quentin David Jones, The Foundations of Christianity, search for CAVE document - which bombed out - I need to download a new one.