Quotations relevant to the Path

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Nefastos
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Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Nefastos »

I found quite a striking Luciferian quotation from Dante via Eco. In his Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (a fitting name here) Eco has an article "Languages in Paradise", where he studies Dante's Divine Comedy.
Languages in Paradise wrote:In Paradise XXVI, 24–138, however, Adam says:

"La langua ch'io parlai fu tutta spenta
innanzi che all'ovra inconsummabile
fosse la gente di Nembròt atenta:
ché nullo effetto mai razionabile,
per lo piacer uman che rinovella
seguendo il cielo, sempre fu durabile.
Opera naturale è ch'uom favella,
ma, così o così, natura lascia,
poi fare a voi, secondo che v'abbella.
Pria ch'i' scendessi all'infernale ambascia
I s'appellava in terra il sommo bene,
ondo vien la letizia che mi fascia
;
e EL si chamò poi: e ciò convene,
ché l'uso dei mortali è come fronda
in ramo, che sen va el altra vene."

A literal translation would be:

"The language that I spoke was entirely extinguished before the uncompleatable work (the tower of Babel) of the people of Nembrot was even conceived. For no product of the human reason, from the human taste for always having something new, following the influence of stars, but, whether this way or that, nature lets you do yourselves, as it pleases you. Before I descended into the pains of Hell, on earth the Highest Good was called I, from whence comes the light of Joy that enfold me. the name then became EL, and this change was proper, because the customs of mortals are like leaves on a branch, one goes and another comes."

This means that the Hebrew spoken before the building of the tower, when God was named El, was not the same as the Hebrew spoken in the earthly paradise, when Adam called Him I.

[---] A first and absolutely ridiculous [?] interpretation goes: I is the Roman numeral signifying the number one, the number of perfect unity.


(Underlinings are mine.) It is weird to say the least to find from the ancient proto-Italic language of Dante Alighieri the same name for the "pre-Hell earthly God", who gave "the light of Joy" the same name that I have often mentioned that is the perfect English name for Ego-Lucifer, the Watcher (the vesica piscis Eye of guardian angel Azazel within), namely "I". It is by pure chance – as is said about these things – that this particular word and letter also means one's self in English.

I had read canto 26 in Finnish, and paid only passing interest on the translation that mentions the sacred name of "I", since the original meaning was left hazy by the translator, and I considered it might be a typo. But it is not, and here in Paradise of Adam we have the whole line of God, Lucifer, and Man, unbroken, from the dialects of Paradise, via Umbria, to English.

I disagree with Eco that taking this "I" is not fitting to be taken also as the Roman number for one, unity (cf. Luciferian doctrine of occultism as the "Philosophy of Oneness"). His claims for making it "ridiculous" do not hold water in the least, but I will not encumber this simple quotation by starting to analyze the problems of his criticism.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Angolmois

Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Angolmois »

I think it was Guénon who assimilated Lucifer to represent the impulse towards individualization, thus also Egoism (in occult terms), but also the impulse toward separation (into separate individuals). I'll go find a quote from Esoterism of Dante, but this also brought to my mind another quote:

"It is said that Dante never smiled. Was it because he had descended from heaven or because he had arisen from hell?" - René Guénon
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Nefastos
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Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Nefastos »

Rúnatýr wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:20 pm"It is said that Dante never smiled. Was it because he had descended from heaven or because he had arisen from hell?" - René Guénon

From the White aspect perspective, it was of course neither of these, but because he had lost Beatrice (See Dante's Vita nuova)!

* * *

"Therefore when a man wishes to be purified, he receives help from above, and the help of his Master encircles and protects him. He is then called "holy"."
– Zohar: Chayei Sarah, 72

I consider this to be beautifully in line with our most important prayer, the Prayer to Azazel, which unites humility (asking only purification, when the Master lets us ask of anything in His name & it will be granted) to elevated Luciferian pride of sanctificating the innermost Ego & its vehicle, the Azazelian center in a striving human personality.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Angolmois

Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Angolmois »

Nefastos wrote: Sat Oct 31, 2020 12:26 pm
Rúnatýr wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 12:20 pm"It is said that Dante never smiled. Was it because he had descended from heaven or because he had arisen from hell?" - René Guénon

From the White aspect perspective, it was of course neither of these, but because he had lost Beatrice (See Dante's Vita nuova)!
O' you white aspect Venetian romantics!
Angolmois

Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Angolmois »

"Play the openings like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the end game like a machine."

- Chess proverb
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Smaragd
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Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Smaragd »

Rúnatýr wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm "Play the openings like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the end game like a machine."

- Chess proverb
On the Spring of this year I took chess as something to distract my mind with when needing a break, and while the proverb offers an interesting metaphorical suggestions on spiritual development, I can't resist trying it on the board. Although, it is quite hard for me to change the style of playing just like that. Might be a good practice to learn to adjust to the situation at hand instead of going by the temperamental habits.

***

"Venerable Brotherhood, so sacred and so little known, from whose secret and precious archives the materials for this history have been drawn; ye who have retained, from century to century, all that time has spared of the august and venerable science,——To rebuild on words the fragments of this history, it seems to me as if, in a solemn trance, I was led through the ruins of a city whose only remains were tombs. From the sarcophagus and the urn I awake the genius (The Greek Genius of Death.) of the extinguished Torch, and so closely does its shape resemble Eros, that at moments I scarcely know which of ye dictates to me,—O Love! O Death!"

From the novel Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
Angolmois

Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Angolmois »

Smaragd wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 1:07 am
Rúnatýr wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:08 pm "Play the openings like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the end game like a machine."

- Chess proverb
On the Spring of this year I took chess as something to distract my mind with when needing a break, and while the proverb offers an interesting metaphorical suggestions on spiritual development, I can't resist trying it on the board. Although, it is quite hard for me to change the style of playing just like that. Might be a good practice to learn to adjust to the situation at hand instead of going by the temperamental habits.
I seem to have a tendency to play only the end game, and Everything is a distraction.
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Insanus
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Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Insanus »

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

– Chinese proverb
Jumalan synnit ovat kourallinen hiekkaa ihmisen valtameressä
Angolmois

Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Angolmois »

"Succeed or perish!"

- esoteric proverb
Angolmois

Re: Quotations relevant to the Path

Post by Angolmois »

From the conversation in the Finnish side this quote came to my mind.

“In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence. A kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die and how many are killed; but, from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A Power, a violence, at once hidden and palpable. . . has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. . . And who [in this general carnage] exterminates him who will exterminate all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man. . . The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.”

― Joseph de Maistre, St Petersburg Dialogues: Or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence
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