The Magician's Dictionary

L-5 SOCIETY

R.A. Wilson and Tim Leary's Space Migration project.

LAFCURSIAX

The 22nd kala is the scales of justice tossed aside and mis-weighted.

LAFET FURCAS, LAFET VANASCOR, TORX GLUST HAHAHA

An Enochian evocation (Crowley?). It has not been translated

LAMEN

Mystic breast plate. Crowley insists that it need not be a pantacle, but can take any form that the magician cares to make, provided it serve as a vehicle for displaying the secret keys of power to be used in the Great Work.

10;

LANGUAGE

Maurice Nicoll in Living Time says: "We communicate badly, partly because we never notice how we are doing it, and partly because it is an extremely difficult matter to communicate anything save the simplest observations, without the danger of our signals being misinterpreted. Also, as often as not, we do not exactly know what it is we are trying to communicate. Finally, nearly everything of importance cannot be expressed."

Since this is so, doesn't it stand to reason that we should devote a good deal more time to language than we do? And since the more tongues we learn the better we understand our own, shouldn't learning other languages have a high priority? Part of the teaching we should impart to our chelas is never to stop struggling with language, recognizing that it must always be welcomed as a challenge. In every M/magic(k)al community - whether in a sophisticated modern city or in the midst of a Stone Age tribe, the magician is always the one who knows the longest words and can use them. What is a "spell", after all? What is gematria, but an attempt to dissect words and rebuild them? A "grimoire" was originally a "grammar." "Vedanta" is actually the "grammar" of the Sanskrit Vedas! As we begin to understand more about the Past and the necessity to turn back to it, we see that language looms larger and larger in human consciousness. The ancients understood what we have forgotten - birds fly and lions predate, but language is what man does. It is language that lies behind everything we make, which is why the word "poet" derives from a Greek word meaning "one who makes," the most important thing being, for the Greeks, to make words and which is why in the bible it is said, "In the beginning was the word." Words, like all things that are made, come out of the Void, magically. And words come before the thing! A spider may weave a web but it is always the same web built on the same blueprint resident in her instincts, no different from the eggs she lays instinctively. Compare that to the variety of human works! By the same token, the man who has no language is not just a spider that can't weave webs. He is a frog that can't leap, a seal that can't swim, a deer that can't run.

The reason Latin, Greek and Sanskrit are hard to learn is that they are ancient tongues and our linguistically-diminished consciousness is no longer able to deal with convolutions of thought and esoteric syntax. Nevertheless, it's still true that if you really want to understand Plato or the author of Genesis you must learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew. There was a time when English also used conjugations and declensions as highly structured as Latin. Today we can barely translate Shakespeare. The progress of language always mirrors the deterioration of the human spirit and moves downward from difficult to easy. And in return, as language decays it brings civilization down with it. Already it's virtually impossible for all but a handful of scholars in the world even to attempt to master anything bizarre, like Babylonian cuneiform or Mayan hieroglyphs - although a century ago, when all well-educated people knew Latin and Greek, such studies, had the material been available, would have been relatively common. If the day ever comes that we should actually encounter an extraterrestrial civilization, we will discover to our dismay that our technology is useless. Because we have lost our sense of language, to attempt to learn what they are saying may be completely beyond our capacity. We've traded communication for the ease of machines.

LANOO

A Disciple.

LAPIS EXILIX

Magical, pre-Xtian stone, later identified with the Grail and with the Lapis Philosophorum.

LARES

Ancient Roman (prob. originally Etruscan) household Gods. Every home has its own individual God whose propitiation and honor guarantees happiness and security. The Lares extended their influence to farms, countrysides and crossroads. The common assumption is that they wre the ghosts of dead ancestors - but, even a brand new hearth, without ancestors, also had its Lar.

LARVAE

Involutional astral entities, of two types. The first are those created by wicked imagination. They can infect and enter human beings as vampires or leeches. The way to deal with such an invader is to reject it utterly and to substitute a better image. When encountered on the physical plane, a larva was, in ages past, destroyed with a magical sword. Today it would be more effective to use a laser beam. The second type of larvae are the shades of those who have lived on earth but who have, according to HPB, "refused all spiritual light, remained and died deeply immersed in the mire of matter, and from whose sinful souls the immortal spirit has gradually separated."

LEFT-HANDED TANTRA

A euphemism for sex magick.

LEGERDEMAIN

Sleight-of-hand. It is said of Mohammed that he put seed in his ears in order make it look as if the birds were whispering messages to him. True or not, for some reason, that weighs more heavily on the minds of some than the power of the Koran to affect the behavior of millions over a span of centuries. HPB was often caught out trying to create some magical effect to prove that she had mystical powers over the material world. (Since matter is the manifestation of spirit, what could be more reasonable?). On more than one occasion she was seen to attach strings to make letters and documents drop from above at critical moments. She constantly deplored the fact that she was trapped in a physical body (obese, crippled) that she could not control. Yet, through her role as amanuensis for the hidden masters of metaphysical wisdom, she managed to transcend the temporal, physical world, after all.

It seems to be a rule that the more advanced into magical understanding that the initiate proceeds, the more he is obliged to recognize his own physical limitations. Crowley, for all his miracles, never really overcame his addictions to morphine and cocaine. Gurdjieff was more successful in being able to control his body and to transfer energy and healing powers from himself to others because he abandoned the occult early on for "objective magic", his own brand of highly pragmatic community yoga. But to acquire even the slightest control over basic physiological functions takes several years of serious yogic practice. And to effect the most minor of changes in the nature of human society takes all of one's efforts over a long course of time.

The all too common notion that "magic" is a synonym for "easy" is deplorable. People seem to be impressed more by speed of accomplishment and minimization of human labor than by the things themselves. Rather than being awestruck by the beauty of the palace, we are impressed instead by the djinni's instantaneous teleportation of it. Magic in the 20th Century has become a minor attribute of technology. Jet flight, television and micro-wave cooking at the touch of a button - these are magic for the multitudes, the limits of hoi polloi imagination. Yet there is more wonder in a horse than in an automobile. A good meal that takes hours to prepare is a lot more "magical" than a fast-food sushi-burger.

A student of the Academy of M/magic(k)al Arts recently asked, "How can you tell when what appears to be magic is really a trick?" I suppose most people will always confuse prestidigitation with thaumaturgy. Although stage magic never has any but a trivial, useless result, "real magic" is a significant act that alters reality for the better. Never forget that we dwell in a world of illusion - what the East calls maya - indeed the roots of magic and maya (mag-, may-) are the same. Reality is nothing more than a consensus, an agreement of the crowd, that thus and thus is so. If your eyes were closed you'd be unable to tell the difference between a peacock feather tickling your nose and a fly lighting upon it. The true magus doesn't do "tricks" because the world itself is already a piece of legerdemain. Instead, he is bent on embuing the world with a new meaning, with transforming the basic foundation of the hell that we inhabit.

LEGBHA

African (Dahomey, Yoruba.). When the Sun-God Damballah touched the penises of Leghba's four sons,they ejaculated the logoi spermatikoi into the heavens, whence the philosophers received reason and wisdom.

Papa Legbha is the god of the knotted stick (phallus), the strongest God of the Voodoo religion. He is the guardian of the crossroads and opener of the way for the other gods to follow, and the last son of the Creator God and equated in the New World with the Devil. He appears as a ragged old man with a crutch, pack on back and pipe in mouth. Leghba desires the human race in a lustful way and every voodoo magician, at some point, experiences a desire for sexual union with Leghba, whereupon, if he is accepted, the supplicant enters an initiation into the deepest mysteries of all.

(Note: Readers who wish to know more about Voodoo, should read Bertiaux's "Voodoo-Gnostic Workbook" and those who are familiar with computer games, will find Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers (which is set in New Orleans) very instructive.

LEO

(Jul 23-Agust 22). The fire of the fixed signs. Sign of courage and strength. The Velle of the Tetramorph. The Lion is characterized by the solar heart of born leadership and has the strongest, most dramatic, sensitive and temperamental personality of the zodiac.

Some typicl Leos are: Napoleon, Simon Bolivar, Amelia Earhart, Bella Abzug, Maxfield Parrish, G.B. Shaw, Carl Jung, Mick Jagger, Aldous Huxley, Alexandre Dumas, Charlotte Corday, Mussolini, Emperor Claudius, Henry Ford, Melville, Scopes, Shelley, Neil Armstrong, Tennyson, Andy Warhol, Mata Hari, Sylvia Sidney, Madame Blavatsky, Diamond Jim Brady, Alfred Hitchcock, Fidel Castro, Annie Oakley, Mae West, Mme. du Barry, Melvin Belli.

LEYS

Ancient British megaliths (see DOLMEN) were noted by archaeologist Alfred Wakins to indicate lines of psychic power in the earth. Ufologists also believe ley-lines are guides for ultramundane visitants who have been using them throughout history. The word is a variant of lea, or "meadow" and surviv in in British place-names, such as Bradleigh and Waterloo, etc.

LHA

Tibetan gods. Also, a term for the highest spirits. Saints and yogins are sometimes respectfully addressed as "lhas". (See LOA).

LIBRA

(Sept. 23- Oct.22). Equilibrium in both psychic and material works. The sign of the Sun's decline, hence Librans tend to passivity of some type, preferring to act behind the scenes and avoiding the limelight except when it becomes necessary to act as society's balance or opposition. Librans are either remarkably accommodating and cooperative or they are deliberately contradictory, negativistic and anti-social. In pre-writing times, during the oral tradition, Virgo and Scorpio appear to have been one sign (which can be observed by the similarity of their symbols, Virgo being closed, Scorpio being open. Libra is then the balance between the two extremes.

Famous Librans: Pavlov, Gandhi, Le Corbusier, Himmler, Saint-Sa�ns, Annie Besant, Verdi, Virgil, Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Cervantes, Joan Fontaine, Carrol Lombard, Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary.

LIGHTNING

(Poetic: Leven). Sudden, divine illumination occurring simultaneously in mind and matter. Zeus and Thor, bearers of lightning bolts, are the most demonstrative of divine powers. They are the makers, but not the deliverers of Omniscience and Omnipotence. Since they preside only over special occasions, it is left to Hermes and Odin to do the everyday work of fetching and carrying. Thus we come more often in contact with them. The tree most often struck by lightning used to be the oak (hence its numinosity for the Druids), but whether this is still true in our forestless and ruined world is no longer known.

LILITH

A powerful female archetype. Princess of the Night (in Hebrew, literally a "night demon"), who presided over the succubi and other night-fliers, a destroyer of newborn infants (typical of the lowly position assigned to ancient, replaced divinities). Although there is no mention of Lilith in the Bible, she is said to have been Adam's first wife, before Eve, and Cain's mother (or his wife in the Land of Nod?). Lilith, as Satan's wife or concubine or shakti, is an irresistible temptress: a kind of mermaid, whose lower body fuses into a serpent. She ultimately derives from Assyria (Lilatu < lili, Mesopotamian demonesses), but is also, surely, a thinly disguised portion of the Egyptian goddess, Isis -- not to mention the satanic opposite of the Virgin Mary. The latter attribution is justified by the Talmudic history of Jesus as the son of Mary Magdalene. In spiritual understanding opposites are equivalents. Parthenos he porne.

LIMBO

The Afterworld ("beyond the border") of the Non-Xtians. Not defined by the Galileans except to say that these souls have been lost from Xtianity.

LOA

Voodoo Gods. (See LHA).

LOGOPLASM

An unnatural neologism.

LOGOS

In the original Greek sense, it doesn't just refer to any spoken or written word, but also to innate meaning or the thing itself that is to be expressed, whether an idea or a rationale or a philosophical principle. Hence it is the "Creative Word" or even the manifested deity, deva or ourgos who utters it and creates the world out of no-thing. When it is used literally as "word" it has various interpretations, such as "Consciousness" or "Language". Gnostically, certain "words" or names are necessary to allow the soul to get past the archons.

In traditional Xtianity, Logos is the actual and exact word of God incarnate; Controlling principle of the Universe (Jesus as the second person in the Trinity); Divine Creative Word. To understand what "Logos" means in a non-Xtian context, it is necessary to understand the Greek philosophical concept of language and the Greek recognition of the mythopoetic power of words. This dynamic was uprooted from its normal place in the language, redefined as a Xtian principle and thereby stripped of all past associations.

LONGEVITY

Zanoni's three keys:

1. Dynamic breathing to store up oxygen in order to supply tissues with fuel.
2. Coatings of lime or carbonate of lime must be removed from all channels (drink distilled water, apple, grape juice). Living lime is needed by bones. Food contains lime (water contains dead limes). Excess of food is certain death and petrification.
3. Keep young ideas (stereotyped thinking is mortal).

Leary, R.A. Wilson and P.K. Dick must all have picked up the same vibration, being convinced that old age and mortality should no longer be necessary in the 21st Century. The telomeres (cellular time-clocks) can be manipulated. The resultant immortals will not be eternally youthful eloi, but will resemble ordinary middle-aged folks. Jonathan Swift in his A Voyage to Struldbrugg points out that immortals tend to weary of life after a hundred years or so and to forget what they have learned. If birth is not controlled in a world of immortals, the extras will have to deported into outer space... to go hence, whither? Of course, the cost of building enormous spaceships to accommodate billions of passengers may exceed our monetary limits, not to mention the natural resources available within the solar system.

LOROO

A Forgotten One who dwells in the interstellar spaces. Best not remembered.

LOTTERY

To obtain a winning number, use this formula:

in which P-P₁ representes the difference between the last winning number and the previous number, N is your personal numerological designation (or lucky number) and L is the new winning number.

LOTUS

The lotus is the symbol of conscious immortality. It is also the symbol of the world of manifestation. As the seeds contain the plant in miniature, it is the microcosm in the macrocosm, past present and future. Brahma was born from the lotus, and the Buddha called therefrom. In Egypt, Horus was born of the lotus, and it was equated with the Sun. Rooted in the mud, it rises through the water and opens in the air to receive the fire of the sun. Thus it encompasses all elements.

(See OM MANI PADME HUM).

LOVERS, THE

The 6th Arcanum, lettered Zain ("a sword"). Ouspensky calls this frankly "Temptation". A choice between "lovers" is necessary - i.e. a choice between the World of the Mind and the Temple of Flesh. Gemini is the astrological attribution. Spirtitual growth as opposed to the "gross procreation" of the Devil.

LUNATIC

(Accent second syllable). Strongly affected by the Moon. Since the Moon is the unconscious mind, those laboring under this planet bring forth things that are ordinarily repressed. Hence the notion of the werewolf, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, etc. Also, over-exposure to a study of the lunar side of things can result in a very peculiar and eccentric personality. The Moon is also the feminine cycle of the menses, and so has to do with the feminine mystique and mystery.