Opening the Stargate

This is part 2 of a series: Heart Shaped Coffin, Opening the Stargate, The Journey Back Home, Purification, and Bee Seeing You Through the Veil.

In the introduction to this article, the shorter Heart Shaped Coffin post, I dropped a not-too-subtle hint of a link between sex and death. The clues, symbolic and synchromystic, are simply too numerous to avoid. Sexual symbolism is the root of (dare I say?) all religions. And religion was created to explain all the mysteries of life, the most profound of which is death. The Mysteries are symbolized by Isis, the virgin goddess, and as any man can tell you - women are a mystery. And life, death and resurrection are symbolized by her husband and brother Osiris: the father in the Holy Trinity. To "know" Isis (the Mysteries) is to lift her veil which only happens upon spiritual enlightenment. In Manly P. Hall's "The Secret Teachings of All Ages," he adds a section about mummification to the end of the chapter: "Isis, The Virgin of the World." It seems a bit out-of-place at first, goddess symbolism and death, but when one considers that Osiris (always depicted as a mummy) was recently deceased when Isis became pregnant with Horus, then things start to click. Isis found Osiris' body and brought him back to life using a spell taught to her by her father (most likely being Thoth), and had sex with Osiris to become pregnant with Horus; Osiris died again afterwards. Even Osiris had to die in order to have access, "to know," the Mystery of Isis - to peek behind her veil. I'm putting "know" in quotes because it's a common biblical euphamism for sex: a female virgin is someone who "never knew a man's touch." When an Egyptian pharoah or other person of high rank and therefore initiation into the Mysteries died, they were mummified and in this context they symbolized Osiris. Some say there's an Egyptian obsession with death, but it's really an obsession with eternal life and the goal of (spiritual) immortality. As Isis states: "No mortal man hath me ever unveiled."

Upon initiation to the Mysteries the initiate underwent a symbolic death and resurrection, and in early forms of these initiations it is possible that they had an out-of-body experience via suffocation (being sealed in the stone sarcophagus of the Kings Chamber) or via psychodelic mushrooms (possibly amanita muscaria); additionally, forms of meditation specifically meant to induce an out-of-body experience may have been used (the Jewish Paradise Experience). Technically the physical initiation only mirrors the personal inner transformation, and is symbolic of the state which the initiate will achieve or already has achieved. This symbolic death and rebirth gives them access to the Mysteries - passage through the veil. The troubadours, famous for their poems of courtly love, were scattered after the Cathars were declaired heretical, but according to this site, their influence would be seen in later groups such as: "the Minnensingers in Germany (including Wolfram von Ehrenbach, author of the first Grail romance), the Fideli di Amore in Italy (including Dante)." The subject of the troubadours affection was Sophia, the Virgin Goddess of Wisdom (Isis). It is interesting then that Mystery dramas such as the Grail Story and Dantes Inferno were influenced by men who devoted their attention and affection to the Mysteries (Isis/Sophia). Connecting back to my previous post, the phrase "courtly love" is frightningly similar to Courtney Love, the possible subject of Kurt Cobains's song "Heart-Shaped Box," which I pointed to as a indicator of the attainment of Nirvana.

Women can open their "heart" to god and recieve God’s jizdom, I mean, wisdom, but what of men? Fear not my brothers, years of hermetic drift of language and symbols have given men a connection to god as well (or the goddess if you prefer - through the temple-whores of course.). The purple-headed monster that is the penis can also be represented by the heart. (This should give new meaning to a couple who is having "a heart to heart.") Below the purple heart also has gold, and the McDonald's sign is ringed with golden lights. Gold is always associated with the male/solar deity, as in the golden capstone of the pyramids and obelisks, or the originator for this symbolism - the golden phallus Isis crafted for Osiris so he could impregnate her:

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." - Robin Williams

The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross:
The same idea of sexual stimulation appears in other musical terms, and in general where "praising" the god is involved. Indeed, our word "music", as one of the arts of the Greek Muses, has at heart the Sumerian phrase for "raising the heart" which elsewhere indicates sexual stimulation. In the classical world, the god Dionysus shares honours with his adoptive brother Apollo as "leader of the Muses". Another of his epithets was Dithurambos, Dithyramb, the original meaning of which has long been a mystery. [...] it is now clear from its Sumerian source that "dithyramb" fits philologically into the pattern of other cultic musical terms, meaning literally, "chant for erection of the penis".

heart-headed Dionysus

"The fertility god Dionysos (Greek Dionusos), whose cult emblem was the erect phallus, was also a god of healing, and his name, when broken down to its original parts, IA-U-NU-ShUSh..."semen, seed that saves', and is comparable with the Greek Nosios, 'Healer', an epithet of Zeus." - John M. Allegro, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross

Religions have quite the supply of penis stand-ins in their rituals. The first picture below is a golden wand from Catholic church ceremony which distributes holy water onto the congregation from the holes in the large head. This represents god's semen, which a long time ago was equated with the rain, and today is seen in the rice thrown on a newly married couple. You can bet when I first made this connection I was no longer content to do the sign of the cross while God metephorically sprayed a salty load onto my face. John Allegro, in The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, noted the fertility rites in early Christian cults which included the use of semen:

If the male organ ejaculated this precious fluid and made life in the woman, then above the skies the source of nature's semen must be a mighty penis, as the earth which bore its offspring was the womb. It followed therefore that to induce the heavenly phallus to complete its orgasm, man must stimulate it by sexual means, by singing, dancing, orgiastic displays and, above all, by the performance of the copulatory act itself: [...] The heavenly penis, then, was not only the source of life-giving semen, it was the origin of knowledge. The seed of God was the Word of God.

From Sacredsemen.com: Golden seeds, or often simply seeds, refers to prophecy received from Jesus, likening the practice to partaking of semen from Jesus' "golden rod". In other cases, "seeds" is used literally rather than metaphorically to refer to Jesus' semen.

The Semetic scholar of Sumerian philology, John M. Allegro, of Dead Sea Scroll fame, might ire them further for his research revealed that Jesus/Joshua in its Greek form means ‘the semen that heals or fructifies,’ the god’s juice that gives life. When a Christian devotees were smeared with this powerful liquid they absorbed it into their bodies and were brought into living communion with God and felt divine. The practice of drinking divine juices aided the devotee in his desired "direct access to God." Men and women collected in their hands the mixed love juices of their union, symbolically offer them to their deity, and then proceed to drink and celebrate the Eucharist with their own semen declaring it to be "The Body of Christ."

Enki (Babylonian: Ea) lord of the abyss, semen & wisdom; god of water, creation, fertility. In ancient Sumer, the word "abzu" meant both semen and water, where the chief deity Enki was eternally venerated by drinking semen. A stanza from "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi" [Sumerian poetry, 3000 BCE] reads, "Make your milk sweet and thick, my bridegroom; my shepherd, I will drink your fresh milk. Wild bull, Dumuzi, make your milk sweet and thick. I will drink your fresh milk."

Below is a comparison between the "milk" of men and women, "the pearl in the clam," pearl-colored jam versus mother’s milk, the swollen breast/dome with goddess on top, the milk of the divine cow and bull, and the Milky Way. Below, the image in the top-center is that of the Shiva Lingam, usually egg shaped as seen here, with milk pouring over it into the base which represent the vagina. Also Jesus Christ suckles the Milk of Mary, and in this picture another J.C. does the same.

got milk?

God reached out with his mouth and took the end of his penis in his mouth, and he used his mouth. And, helping things along by masturbating with his fist, god ejaculated into his own mouth, and then he spat out the semen as the god Shu and the goddess Tefnut. - Autofellatio and Ontology - David Lorton

And what of the Ouroboros, taking his own tail into his mouth - autofellatio or autocreation? The Milky Way has been symbolized by the serpent eating it’s own tail, with the Galactic Central point at the mouth of the serpent. The visica pisces (shape of the doors on Cathedrals), was revealed in the last post to be a vaginal-stargate of creation, which when turned in it’s side forms the shape of the Egyptian heiroglyph for "mouth," connecting the two as depositories for the "seed of god." George Carlin (Galactic Center resonator) "takes a shot in the mouth" in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, as a hitchhiker. He is in Bill & Ted as the man from the future who helps them pass their history test by giving them a stargate-opening phone booth. And he is in Dogma as the Bishop who introduces new "Buddy-Jesus" statue (seen in previous post with flaming heart). In the movie Clerks, a old school-mate of the main characters breaks his neck while trying to suck his own dick. "Coincidentally," last night while flipping through TV channels, I happen across an episode of Nip/Tuck where a patient wants a penis reduction surgery because he is addicted to sucking his own dick. I remember that one of those fake rumors that kids like to pass around when I was in school was that Marilyn Manson (MM) had his two lower ribs cut out so he would be flexible enough to suck his own dick. I never got what the facination was, nor why on TV they joke about those who can’t do it: "Oh, so you never tried?" No, I never wanted to suck on a penis - is that odd? I hope not. The sacredsemen.com site points out numerous cultures who have practice or still practice man-boy love, and how semen is thought to extend the life, or pass on life force to the person who imbibes it. Also, another rumor is that it improves the quiality of the singing voice of the person who drinks it. Crowley’s O.T.O. had recipies for mixing semen and menses which was considered by some groups and alchemists to be the Elixer of Life.

Of course, the heart as a vagina, or inverted as a penis, came from the more rudimentary shapes of the upward and downward pointing triangles. The The Da Vinci Code movie made this pretty clear, calling them the chalice and the blade. For Valentine's Day, my dad used to cut out a paper heart and pin it to his shirt with the words: "I have a heart on." Whether he knew it or not, he made a very astute connection. Quoting an animated show which I saw while compiling these notes:

Bob Oblong: "I have the one part that matters, and it's huge!"
Musty: "I'd like to see that."
Bob: "Sorry, but you can't. It's lodged deep in my rib cage - it's my heart."

In Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages, he says of the second image below: "the drawing as a whole represents the throne of God and His heirarchies within the heart of Man. In the first book of his Libre Apologetica, Jakob Bohme thus describes the meaning of the symbol: 'For we man have one book in common which points to God. Each has within himself, which is the priceless Name of God. Its letters are the flames of His love, which He out of His heart in the priceless name of Jesus has revealed in us. Read these letters in your hearts and spirits and you have books enough. All the writings of the children of God direct you unto that one book, for therein lie all the treasures of wisdom. This book is Christ in you.'"

Obviously Jakob Bohme isn't telling us to masturbate or fornicate our way to enlightenmnent, but the sexual imagry inherent in the symbolism is the most easily understood metaphor for the union of opposites in achieving non-duality, the Above (God) with the Below (Man). Bohme is telling us to look into our own hearts, and there we will find "all the treasures of wisdom" and a link to God.

Note that the clusters of grapes is of a similar shape to the human heart, plus they produce red wine and are related to the sun god who turns the waters of the Nile into wine through the grapes. Grapes are associated with the Promised Land, as seen in the central image above where the fruit is so bountiful that two men are required to lift one cluster of grapes. (I also thought they might resemble the Pleiades viewed through the looking glass of a telescope.) From a previous post of mine:

The Promised Land of Milk and Honey is very similar to the Egyptians idea of a promised land which was named the garden of the vine or grapes - Aarru. It is the first region of the Afterworlds (Amenti), reached by the deceased in the after death state which he enters as a khu.

Latin parchments found in Rennes Le Chateau mention Blue Apples in the ciphered text: "This treasure belongs to Dagobert II King and to Sion and he is there dead. Shepardess no temptation that Poussin Teniers hold the key peace 681 by the cross and the horse of God I complete this Daemon guardian at midday blue apples." The Pommes Bleues, or Blue Apples, are apparently the blue circles made from the stained glass windows which appear around January 17 every year. The window depicts the scene of Jesus Raising Lazarus from the Dead, and the blue orbs rest on the altar with its bas-relief of Mary Magdalene kneeling in prayer with a skull at her knees.

egodeath.com:
Now a man named Lazarus was sick (Lazarus = "God Helps"). He was from Bethany (Beth-anu = House of the Sun), the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"
Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light."

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

If there are clear parallels between the "Jesus raising Lazarus" story and some Egyptian "Horus raising El-Azar-Us or El-Osiris" story, and given that there is a gnostic sarcophagus that depicts Jesus as beardless man with a wand raising Lazarus who is wrapped like a mummy, that would suggest the primary of the mythic mystery interpretation over the literal historical report interpretation. John 11:16 indicates that the story of Lazarus is not primarily about literal death and resurrection, but rather the standard, common, and widely known spiritual death and rebirth experience.

The separation of the soul from the body (chained, nailed, nailed into a box, or otherwise shown to be connected to the earth), and the recombination as a spiritual re-brith is analagous to the alchemical process which uses alchohol distilled from red wine which is sometimes called the menstruum: " An alchemical term meaning a solvent or alkahest having both the power to dissolve and coagulate at the same time. Based on the belief that the ovum takes its life and form from the menses, the menstruum was also referred to the as the Mercury of the Philosophers."

In addition to the blue apples, there were Golden Apples in mythology: "The Garden of the Hesperides was Hera's orchard in the east, where either a single tree or a grove of trees bearing immortality-giving golden apples grew. Hera placed in the garden a never-sleeping, hundred-headed, dragon, named Ladon, as an additional safeguard." Could the Tree of Life in Genesis have been the same Golden Apple tree? Tracing the history of hidden knowledge and sex, we come to the first man and woman after the creation of humans, Adam and Eve. Adam may have had a wife before Eve, and possibly another lover as well, but eventually he decided to settle down with a nice inquisitive nudist, one of only two or three women in existence, Eve. It is of course another metaphor, as the actual female precurser to humans would have been some type of ancient rat, common to the eventual mouse and human species. (Of Mice and Men?) And what symbolic act did these two ancestors of ours partake in? They ate the Apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil:

As you can see, others have realized that hearts and apples are interchangeable as well (especially when referencing sex or the sex organs). They're both usually red and have the same basic shape. Even tomatos are called "love apples." They're juicy, and in this reguard link to peaches, as in the line Nicholas Cage gives in Face Off: "I can eat a peach for hours," referring of course to oral sex. In Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Barbosa lusts for the pleasures of the flesh, something he and his crew are denied because of their curse of a temporary death; his particular lust is to be able to taste apples again. When he thinks he is about to lift the curse, he says to his crew: "Do you know the first thing I'm going to do when the curse is lifted?" And leaning towards Elizabeth, he says: "Eat a whole bushel of apples!" The reference clearly hints at sex, and being that it is a Disney movie, it only confirms my suspicion. In The Da Vinci Code, the orb missing from Issac Newton’s sepulcher is describe as having "rosey flesh and seeded womb," (an apple obviously) drawing clear parallels to female sexuality. Once again, apples can represent the male sex organ as well as female. A British euphemism for the penis calls it "a baby's arm holding an apple." For homosexual men, "Adam and Steve," the bottom of the apple, combined with the known star shape of it, can be suggestive of the anus, as seen here. Not too long ago I heard that regular ejaculation was good for the male prostate gland. Perhaps this is why "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." And in addition to baseball and hotdogs, there's nothing more American than warm apple pie:

Pie is sometimes slang for: "vagina." (Suprised? I didn’t think so.) If you remember, the pie in American Pie looked more like the one in the Desperate Housewives picture below, and not like the pentagonal one above (which by the way fits perfectly with the apple cross-section I must say!). In American Pie, Jim comes home to find a apple pie with a note from his mom. The note explains that the pie is apple (his favorite), and that she will be home late; ending the note with a drawing of a heart, which Jim holds for at least a full second over the center of the pie, cementing the connection in my mind. Looking closer at that apple cross section, you may notice that there are 10 dots around the center, 5 of them lined up with the seeds and 5 in between, like two overlapping pentagrams. 10 dots form the Pythagorean Tetractys, there’s 10 sephirot of the Kabbalistic Tree, 10 Kingdoms of Atlantis, 10 original months and 10 original signs of the Zodiac.

Above, Alyson Hannigan plays the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, or rather the nerdy band geek in American Pie. (Earlier, music was shown to be connected to orgiastic rituals with Dionysus and the Muses (music).) Contrary to appearances, she is actually the most sexually experienced person in that movie, explaining that band camp is basically sexual education camp where the kids experiment sexually; Alyson’s character having stuck a flute in her pussy, something the other two girls would never have done. An interesting connection to the "virginal" status of the other girls is that the one the left of the picture would play the "slutty cheerleader" in American Beauty, though in reality she is a virgin who only pretends to be sexually experienced. Anyways, the red-headed girl is again the sexual initiator, as Alyson "rides the beast of revelations" in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where Alyson, as pre-lesbian "Willow," dated (and lost her virginity to) the warewolf "Oz" (Seth Green). In the picture below, the red-headed housewife offers up her "apple pie." The Rider Waite tarot card for STRENGTH shows a woman holding closed the mouth of a lion. Crowley’s Thoth deck changes this to LUST with a picture of the Whore of Babylon riding the seven headed beast, 7 (77, 777) being the number associated with her.

this sigil has the 7 letters of her name: BABALON

He described the scene as: "She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right hand she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death." He continues with a Vision of the card: "And the angel sayeth: Blessed are the saints, that their blood is mingled in the cup, and can never be separate any more. For Babylon the Beautiful, the Mother of abominations, hath sworn by her holy kteis (vagina), whereof every point is a pang, that she will not rest from her adulteries until the blood of everything that livith is gathered therein, and the wine thereof laid up and matured and consecrated and worthy to gladden the heart of my Father. For my Father is weary with the stress of eld, and cometh not to her bed. Yet shall this perfect wine be the quintessence, and elixer; and by draught thereof shall he renew his youth; and so shall it be eternally, as age by age the worlds do dissolve and change, and the Universe unfoldeth itself as a Rose, and shutteth itself up as the Cross that is bent into the Cube." (See: Cross & Cube picture from last post.) Here the Whore of Babylon reconciles the scattered parts of creation into her grail which becomes the elixer of life and is poured out again into the new aeon/world-age. A continuous cycle of creation and distruction, death and (pro)creation. The Celtic Rebel noted in the comments of the previous post: "It occured to me while reading your post the average maximum vagina depth is about 6 inches, which is also the average depth most get buried." 6 feet under or 6 inches deep?

Interestingly: "The "tinman" gene in the fruit fly is so called because, when it is absent, the flies do not develop a heart." The artificial man without a heart, such as the tinman, may be related to other automotons imbued with life. "Sonny," the self-aware robot in I, Robot is actually the only robot without a glowing red heart which indicates an uplink to the US Robotics supercomputer, V.I.K.I., the robotic-demiurge. Detective Spooner states at one point: "Robots creating robots - now that's just stupid." Take one step back and that could mean humans creating robots, or artificial intelligence, or otherwise abominations. Jewish mysticism has the idea of the golem, and alchemists have the humunculous or tiny animals. Several people have claimed to have created new lifeforms in laboratory settings. Man’s creations are a microcosm of God’s creation - us. For instance, we are making highly sophisticated computers, while science is starting to discover that the universe is analogous to a highly sophisticated holographic computer. I feel a bit like Frankenstein's Monster becoming self aware. Sorcerer's Stone, A Beginners Guide to Alchemy:

"During the initial stages of personal transformation, our ego becomes the enemy, the suspicious self that fosters illusions, generates false beliefs, judges and classifies things, imposes habits in thought and body, and literally incarnates an imperfect robotic self."

In I, Robot (a title which when read aloud lets you know who the real robot is) the cheif of police compares Sonny, the self-aware robot, to Frankenstein's Monster; though he actually mis-speaks and compares it to Wolfman first. He says: "Guy creates monster, monster kills guy, everyone kills monster." Spooner corrects him by telling him that he is talking about Frankenstien and not Wolfman, but the Chief doesn't see a difference. (Detective Spooner also wears Converse All Stars, featuring a star on each shoe, incase that interests anyone.) Of interest in the above picture is the color photo of the warewolf which is from Stephen King's IT. The kids in IT all go see I Was a Teenage Warewolf, which leads to Richie’s fear of warewolves. This is the form that Pennywise the Clown later takes on to threaten Seth Green's character "Richie." Coincidentally, if you can call it that, Seth Green would later go on to play "Oz," the teenage warewolf and boyfriend of pre-lesbian "Willow" in the television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

The best movie allegory for ego-incarnate is Darth Vader from Star Wars. Darth represents a person who is more machine than man: more emphasis is put on the "material" half rather than the spiritual half (like the Minotaur who is half animal and half man). It's not until he kills the emporer and saves his son, does he take of his mask and regain his humanity and save his soul (he is seen later as a light-body entity along with other "good" Jedi, Obi-Wan and Yoda). When Luke is training with Yoda he enters a dark cave to do battle with his ego/Self. He askes Yoda what is in the cave, to which Yoda replies: "Only what you take with you." Luke enters and finds Darth Vader who he fights and decapitates. When Vader's head rolls to the ground, the mask blows off revealing Luke's own face. Luke successfully kills his lower nature, or ego-driven self, he had to conquor himself first. In the picture below, Nelson from The Simpsons holds a headless Darth Vader. In The Simpsons, he constantly heckles people with his laughter: "Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Ha-ha," which would kill the ego of just about anyone on the recieving end of such a taunting. Also in an early episode of The Simpsons, Bart Simpson decapitates the founder of their town, Jebbidiah Springfield, in order to impress the older bullys at his school. In the fourth Indian Jones movie, the statue of the recently deceased Marcus Broady is decapitated when the car driven by KGB agents crashes into it. Both of these metallic men (statues) might be comparable to Darth Vader's robotic body. Statues and robots are clearly things which have been created, and thus have a creator. Decapitation kills the ego and releases the true Self.

When I think about decapitation, I always think of the Red Queen (of Hearts) in Alice in Wonderland, who screams: "Off with her head!" Speaking of hearts, and remembering my last post: Valentine's Day is named after St. Valentine, a priest who was martyred (beaten then beheaded) in 270 AD by the Roman emperor Cladius II. In the old Mayan ball game, the captain of the winning team was decapitated. Below is a picture of one such scene where snakes depart the severed neck. Continuing with the theme of snakes and decapitation, there is the Hydra, which when decapitated would grow two heads where once was one. Medusa, with her snake hair and stoney stair, was decapitated by Perseus. The very subject of beheading became popular when "terrorists" (CIA assets) started beheading American captives. American terrorists (CIA agents) have their own method of totally removing the identity of a person, and that is to "black-bag" someone and drag them away to a secret prison, similar to the movie V for Vendetta. The start of the Iraq liberation (invasion & new and improved oppression) began with an attempt to assasinate top leadership of that country with a missle strike, because according to war philosophy, if you cut the head off a snake - the body will die. In the movie Eagle Eye, the artificially intelligent computer "Ariia" attempts to overthrow the American government by killing some of it’s top political and military leadership in an operation called "Operation Guillotine." The head of the snake is where the poison is, and this is what needs to be purified out of the base animal of Man before he can be united with the God-Head.

The cover for the DVD of 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag has a vulture eating the luggage tag which says SAN DIEGO. The part in the vultures mouth only says "EGO." As stated previously, the vulture represents the power of reconcilliation (after the serpent who represents dissection). In Alchemy, the subject of the work is first broken down into its individual parts, purified, and then put back together in a more perfect, or more evolved state. The phrase which describes this overall process is Solve et Coagula, dissolve and coagulate. It is the shortened form of the phrase Solvite Corpora et Coagulate Spiritus, or "Dissolve the body and coagulate the spirit." The phrase used in plant Alchemy is Spagyrics, which means to tear apart (spao) and recombine (ageiro). Paracelsus said of spagyrics: "Spagyria teaches you to separate the false from the true."

In the movie Highlander, immortals fight eachother to the death, which can only be accomplished through decapitation whereby the powers and experience of the deceased pass into the body of the victor through a display of lightning bolts. The tag-line of the movie and television series is: "There can only be one." The Oneness is non-duality, which comes about from the processes of taking apart and recombining until the elements are in a natural balance, as in the Alchemical Rebis or Androgyne. It is interesting to note that the main character Connor MacLeod, and all other immortals, are already "immortal," which is the prize of the Great Work which they haven't yet completed (all the immortals are still alive and separate - not yet "one"). Here immortality may be a metephor for mortality with reincarnation. Connor and the other immortals all live many many lives with different jobs, wives, and so on, much like a mortal who is continuously reincarnated. It's not until the end when Connor (re)combines all the immortals into himself by defeating the last one, that he is granted "The Prize," which is mortality, the ability to have children, and a telepathic gift to know the minds of men. He can now die and move on from the "wheel of karma" and be born into the "higher realms" in order to continue his spiritual quest. "Except that man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) (I wonder if being shot in the head is parallel to decapitation (both work on Zombies... and perhaps metephorically free the Self from the 'mortal coil' of the ego). Check out this video for synchs of Brad Pitt - Death - and Head shots.) Here’s a quote from Jake at the Blob which I like:

Time, Death and the ego dance together in a seamless unity. The Observer beyond form, your true Self, lives in a place beyond time. The mind made limited self craves fervently and desires more Time. Time gives the ego an escape from realization of NOW or SELF. Salvation, heaven and end of suffering, to the mind, is always in the future. It could never be NOW. The mind and Ego says, "If I were whole and complete NOW I would die!"
Exactly..

Orpheus, 'initiator of the Greeks,' founded Grecian mythological system in his tragedy with Eurydice. He was killed by Ciconian women he spurrned (having given up women after Erydice died a second time), and was beheaded. His head was tossed into the Hebrus river and gave oracles to all who passed by. His lyre became the constellation of the same name. He is an immortal who sacrificed himself that men may have the wisdom of gods. The gods feared that he might overthrow them and helped in his downfall. He represents the secret doctrine revealed through music (recall the "raising of the heart" of Dionysus). One skull known in the conspiracy realm is that of Geronimo, which according to several Bonsemen, rests in a glass case in the Tomb at Yale. Another more popular severed head would be that of John the Baptist which may have been kept by the Templars at some time, while wikipedia states that it was the head of female Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon. John is thought to be the forerunner for the Messiah and a earthly personification of Elijah. One of Elijah's tasks was/is to herald the eschaton. Looking at the constellation of Orion, associated with the Egyptian deity Osiris, you might notice that it is basically an hour-glass shape with arms. There's no clear head or legs - the pieces which make up the Skull and Crossed Bones are missing:

The omission of Orion's head and legs in the constellation of Orion [...] is immediately noticeable. It would seem that Orion has had his legs and his head chopped off! A similar practice was observed by the Knights Templar five and a half thousand years later when they were buried. By adopting this practice the deceased Knights Templar became as one with Orion and, by implication, Osiris. The "skull and crossbones" … Orion's missing head and legs … were also adopted by the Knights Templar as their emblem, their symbol of recognition. As we shall soon discover, the severed head of Orion is in fact the Sun. Moreover it is the headless Orion which is the source of legends about severed heads.

Besides the possible decapitation symbolism of Osiris, there is a closly related decapitation story - that of Osiris’ sister-wife Isis:

Isis hid with Horus in the marshes of the Nile delta until her son was fully grown and could avenge his father and claim his throne. She defended the child against attacks from snakes and scorpions. But because Isis was also Seth’s sister, she wavered during the eventual battle between Horus and Seth. In one episode Isis took pity on Seth and was in consequence beheaded by Horus (the beheading was reversed by magic). Eventually she and Horus were reconciled, and Horus was able to take the throne of Egypt. Isis became known, like other fierce goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, as the "Eye of Re" and was equated with the Dog Star, Sothis (Sirius).

So much for removing the veil; Horus removed the whole damn head! The name Isis is believed by some to be derived from a word for ice. The phonetic similarity in english is close enough to reveal a connection even if her name has some other origin. The goddess is associated with the waters of life, and water in general. In Egyptian heiroglyphs, the water jug can represent Osiris, or if he's already being symbolized by a phallic stone, then the water jug represents Isis. The veil of Isis/Ice might now connect to the water-door stargate, a material incarnation of the watery veil of Isis. And how does someone pass through the veil-water-door? They get iced (slang for getting killed). The goddess is also traditionally related to the moon which, like the surface of the waters that it controls, reflects the light of the sun god. The reflective surface, like a mirror, is also often used as a "stargate" stand-in, and symbolizes the reflective waters of chaos which God moved over during the creation of the universe. God's brother, Man, looked at the watery chaos and saw his reflection and fell in love with it - and then fell into it. Or at least that's one of many explanations for Man's fall into material existence. The "man on the moon," or man's reflection? Jim Carrey (JC) played the "man on the moon" Andy Kaufman. Carrey has also been connected, constantly, to the Green Man (death and resurrection god-architype), and played at being god in Bruce Almighty.

Jim Carrey as God is shown as the source for earth and earthly things. (The yo-yo also hints at the wheel of fate, rising and falling and the starting over of life in the physical dimension.) The second picture of Jim Carrey shows him diving into the watery-world from the edge of the bridge, the fool's journey of life. The male and female with the chain around their wrists shows that their true origin is in the Above, like a ship anchor dropping into the abyss, souls drop into the material world but are not of it.

The heavens, with radiant clouds are also depicted in the DreamWorks logo where a boy drops a fishing line, or "silver cord" symbol, down into the waters of life, and like a spiritual umbilical cord connects the material/inferior world to the spiritual/superior world. The silver cord is seen by people who have asteral projected and connects their consciousness (soul) to their body. Imagine that upon death, the anchor is pulled back up to the Ship of Lights (to borrow a Battlestar Galactica symbol) and the soul along with it, leaving the empty shell of the body behind like an old crab shell at the bottom of the sea.

Other ship-related symbols are also quite apropos of this subject. The ships wheel is usually shown as having eight spokes, the compass also has a cross-quarter design, the anchor usually has a cross on the top of it, the mallet is used to metephorically (and perhaps once was used to really) knock a person unconscious during the ritual death and rebirth, and even the ships shape as seen from above is that of a visica pisces or creative yoni.

jim carrey (JC/Jesus Christ) wields an anchor
thanks to A Few Shots To Shaman for the image :D

While going through pictures in my photobucket account, I came across one which shows a Mayan prophecy (below). The Mayans believed that during the eschaton a ladder from the dark center of the milky way (underworld/afterworld, black sun) would descend to earth. Recently a DNA (and thus ladder) shaped nebula was found to be residing somewhere near the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

mayan ladder from heaven and DNA nebula

The descent or ascent between heaven and earth consists of 7 or 9 levels, spheres, rivers or gates. The number seven is usually associated with the seven original planets, or even the seven main chakras, and the seven bands of visible light in a rainbow. Muhammad ascends through seven heavens by grabbing last rung on a golden ladder lowered from heaven. The goddess Ishatar's descent into Hades is through seven gates. Hades = Shade. It was believed that every person has a "shadow twin" in the afterlife/underworld: "Hades was considered a place were the practices of the living were repeated. The kings Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacos or the hero Triptolmus were the judges of the dead. Achilles was still the leader of his men, Agamemnon was strolling around sulking and Hercules' shadow lived there, while the hero himself was celebrating forever amongst the gods." The Egyptian Coffin Text, also known as the Book of the Two Ways, which was perhaps originally titled, the "Guide to the Ways of Rosetau" (Rose-Tau = Rose Cross) describes the deceased persons journey to the Kingdom of Osiris (through seven gates with three keepers each). Rosetau is a term regularly translated by Egyptologists as the Underworld or Netherworld. The journey is made through the sky, first the inner sky along a waterway, then by land through the outersky. Between the "two ways" is the Lake of Flames (Christian Lake of Fire), "where the ambivalent fire could consume (the damned) but also serve the purpose of regeneration (to those blessed followers of the sun god, Re)."

The number nine is associated with the gestation period of humans, and the nine days of initiation into the Mysteries represent the nine spheres which the soul descends through while entering material existence. "The Odinic Mysteries were given in underground crypts or caves, the chambers, nine in number, representing the Nine Worlds of the Mysteries." (Secret Teachings of All Ages) There are nine "chevrons" on the stargate from the movie and show Stargate. The ennegram has eight points on the edge and a ninth point in the center. The cube has eight corners and a hidden point in the center, as well as six sides plus the center point; giving the cube both 7 & 9 resonance. Bringing my blog's name into it, wikipedia gives us:

In Greek mythology, the "River Styx" was a river which formed the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (Hades). It circles Hades nine times. The gods respected the Styx and swore binding oaths by it. Gods that did not follow through on such an oath had to drink from the river, causing them to lose their voices for nine years. According to some versions, Styx had miraculous powers and could make someone immortal/invulnerable. Achilles may have been dipped in it in his childhood, acquiring invulnerability, with exception of his heel, which was held by his mother in order to submerge him. His exposed heel thus became known as Achilles' heel, a metaphor for a weak spot. The adjective Stygian means "of, or relating to, the River Styx", and may also refer to anything that is dark and dismal.

Spoofing "Dante's Inferno," In Futurama episode "Hell Is Other Robots" (the ninth episode), Bender descends down the nine levels of Robot Hell. So we, as souls, fell into existence (and into our created bodies: bender the robot) at some point... falling through the nine gates, all the way down to the:

the twins of the big apple in the 10th kingdom

Plot of The 10th Kingdom from wikipedia:

Prince Wendell is to visit the Evil Queen in a routine rejection of her prison parole request. [...] Prince Wendell is brought before the Evil Queen who then releases a magical dog, switching bodies with him. The prince, now a dog, escapes through an old traveling mirror in the prison basement, winding up in the mythical "10th Kingdom," also known as modern day New York City. [...] The Evil Queen also frees a half-man, half-wolf (called simply Wolf) to track down the dog prince. Virginia Lewis, a Central Park waitress finds Prince Wendell (the dog), and together with her father, Tony, follows Wendell back through the magic mirror to his world, known as the Nine Kingdoms.

The Bhagvad Gita tells us that:"The embodied (Soul) who has controlled his nature having renounced all actions by the mind dwells at ease in the City of Nine Gates, neither working nor causing work to be done."

The BHAGAVATA PURANA then provides a more detailed description of the nine gates of the city inhabited by the King and Queen. Seven of the gates are on the surface (the two ears, two nostrils, and mouth), and two of the gates are subterranean (the anus and the genitals). Five of the gates face east. (The eyes, nostrils, and mouth face forward, like a lotus towards the sun/creator. - my note)

In the BHAGAVATA PURANA, one finds the elaborate allegory of the City of Nine Gates. The account of the City of Nine Gates is specifically identified as allegorical in BHAGAVATA PURANA itself. It was spoken by the sage Narada Muni, who was questioned by King Prachinabarhishat about the nature of the self, and Narada Muni himself explains all the elements of the allegory in the original text [...] and their application to a dualist explanation of consciousness.

The central character in the allegory of the City of Nine Gates is a King named Puranjana. In Sanskrit, the word puran-jana means "one who enjoys in a body." Soul/body dualism is thus hinted at in the King's name. King Puranjana originally existed as a spirit soul in a purely spiritual realm in relationship with a supreme conscious being. Having departed from the spiritual world, by misuse of independence, King Puranjana journeys through the material world, accompanied by Avijnata Sakha ("the unknown friend"). The Unknown Friend corresponds to the Supersoul expansion of God. Then Puranjana leaves God and the spiritual world. His memory of them becomes covered. But unknown to Puranjana, God accompanies him on his journey through the material world. According to the BHAGAVATA PURANA, God accompanies all spirit souls in the material world as their Unknown Friend, who observes and sanctions their activities.

Eventually, Puranjana comes to a place called Nava Dvara Pura, the City of Nine Gates. He finds it quite attractive. The City of Nine Gates represents the human male body, with its nine openings -- two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, mouth, anus and the genital opening. As Puranjana wanders through the gardens of the city, he encounters an extremely beautiful woman. Puranjana is attracted to her, and she is attracted to him. She becomes his Mahisi (Queen). The Queen (the subtle material element called intelligence) allows Puranjana (the conscious self) to enjoy the City of Nine Gates (the gross physical body). Employing a computer analogy, we might say Puranjana represents the user, the City of Nine Gates represents the computer hardware, and the Queen represents the software that allows the user to interface with the hardware and use it for practical purposes.

To get back to Heaven, one must travel through the

This series is continued here: The Journey Back Home. Then Purification, and Bee Seeing You Through the Veil.