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Sword: Difference between revisions
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== Spoken Word == | == Spoken Word == | ||
The word ''sword'' can also refer to “[[spoken Word]].” This is reflected in the ancient [[Pythagoras|Pythagorean]] maxim, “Do not stir the fire with a sword.”<ref>Helena P. Blavatsky, ''Isis Unveiled'', Vol. 1: Science, p. 247.</ref> | The word ''sword'' can also refer to “[[spoken Word]].” This is reflected in the ancient [[Pythagoras|Pythagorean]] maxim, “Do not stir the fire with a sword.”<ref>Helena P. Blavatsky, ''Isis Unveiled'' (Pasadena, Ca.: Theosophical University Press, 1960), Vol. 1: Science, p. 247.</ref> | ||
Iamblichus in his ''Life of Pythagoras'' says this maxim warns us to be prudent. He says: | Iamblichus in his ''Life of Pythagoras'' says this maxim warns us to be prudent. He says: | ||
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One of the words that is the root of the name Methuselah means “sword” or “he sent.”<ref>''Legends of the Jews'', vol. 5, p. 165.</ref> | One of the words that is the root of the name Methuselah means “sword” or “he sent.”<ref>''Legends of the Jews'', vol. 5, p. 165.</ref> | ||
Methuselah’s sword appears again in Jewish lore. Tradition says that thousands of years later [[Abraham]] used the sword of Methuselah in his conquest of the kings<ref> | Methuselah’s sword appears again in Jewish lore. Tradition says that thousands of years later [[Abraham]] used the sword of Methuselah in his conquest of the kings<ref>''Legends of the Jews'', vol. 5, p. 165, n. 63.</ref> in about 2100 <small>B</small>.<small>C</small>. These kings had invaded the Jordan valley where Abraham’s nephew Lot had settled. Abraham routed the kings and rescued Lot and others who had been taken captive. | ||
Genesis tells us that on that occasion: | Genesis tells us that on that occasion: | ||
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We can look back at Jesus’ instructions to his disciples to sell what they have and buy a sword as a spiritual initiation itself that has nothing to do with physical self-defense but rather has everything to do with the raising of the Kundalini and with the use of the sacred word by which they did command devils. And when they came back, the other seventy from their mission, did they not tell Jesus, “Even the devils are subject unto us through thy name”? And Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.”<ref>Luke 10:17, 18.</ref> They were disciples of Jesus, and the sword that was their sure defense was the sword of the Divine Mother on the spinal altar. | We can look back at Jesus’ instructions to his disciples to sell what they have and buy a sword as a spiritual initiation itself that has nothing to do with physical self-defense but rather has everything to do with the raising of the Kundalini and with the use of the sacred word by which they did command devils. And when they came back, the other seventy from their mission, did they not tell Jesus, “Even the devils are subject unto us through thy name”? And Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.”<ref>Luke 10:17, 18.</ref> They were disciples of Jesus, and the sword that was their sure defense was the sword of the Divine Mother on the spinal altar. | ||
<blockquote>Understand that it is a rod of sacred fire fashioned by the Divine Mother out of your own sacred life-force. Therefore, the sword that is taken from the stone of Matter is a spiritual fire. Legend would have it that it is a magic sword. Beloved, the spiritual fire does dissolve on contact all unlike itself.<ref> | <blockquote>Understand that it is a rod of sacred fire fashioned by the Divine Mother out of your own sacred life-force. Therefore, the sword that is taken from the stone of Matter is a spiritual fire. Legend would have it that it is a magic sword. Beloved, the spiritual fire does dissolve on contact all unlike itself.<ref>Jesus, “The Foundation of Christendom That I Have Laid.”</ref></blockquote> | ||
[[File:003.Adam and Eve Are Driven out of Eden.jpg|thumb|Adam and Eve Are Driven out of Eden, Gustave Doré]] | [[File:003.Adam and Eve Are Driven out of Eden.jpg|thumb|Adam and Eve Are Driven out of Eden, Gustave Doré]] | ||
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<blockquote>Glanvil gives a wonderful narrative of the apparition of the “Drummer of Tedworth,” which happened in 1661; in which the scin-lecca, or double, of the drummer-sorcerer, was evidently very much afraid of the sword. Psellus, in his work gives a long story of his sister-in-law being thrown into a most fearful state by an elementary daimon taking possession of her. She was finally cured by a conjurer, a foreigner named Anaphalangis, who began by threatening the invisible occupant of her body with a naked sword until he finally dislodged him. Psellus introduces a whole catechism of demonology, which he gives in the following terms as far as we remember:</blockquote> | <blockquote>Glanvil gives a wonderful narrative of the apparition of the “Drummer of Tedworth,” which happened in 1661; in which the scin-lecca, or double, of the drummer-sorcerer, was evidently very much afraid of the sword. Psellus, in his work gives a long story of his sister-in-law being thrown into a most fearful state by an elementary daimon taking possession of her. She was finally cured by a conjurer, a foreigner named Anaphalangis, who began by threatening the invisible occupant of her body with a naked sword until he finally dislodged him. Psellus introduces a whole catechism of demonology, which he gives in the following terms as far as we remember:</blockquote> | ||
<blockquote>“You want to know?” asked the conjurer, “whether the bodies of the spirits can be hurt by sword or any other weapon? Yes, they can. Any hard substance striking them can make them sensible to pain; and though their bodies be made neither of solid nor firm substance, they feel it the same, for in beings endowed with sensibility | <blockquote>“You want to know?” asked the conjurer, “whether the bodies of the spirits can be hurt by sword or any other weapon? Yes, they can. Any hard substance striking them can make them sensible to pain; and though their bodies be made neither of solid nor firm substance, they feel it the same, for in beings endowed with sensibility, it is not their nerves only which possess the faculty of feeling, but likewise also the spirit which resides in them.... The body of a spirit can be sensible in its whole, as well as in each of its parts. Without the help of any physical organism, the spirit sees, hears, and if you touch him feels your touch. If you divide him in two he will feel the pain as would any living man, for he is matter still, though so refined as to be generally invisible to our eye.... One thing, however, distinguishes him from the living man,...: that when a man’s limbs are once divided, their parts cannot be reunited very easily. But, cut a demon in two, and you will see him immediately join himself together. As water or air closes in behind a solid body passing through it, and no trace is left, so does the body of a demon condense itself again, when the penetrative weapon is withdrawn from the wound. But every rent made in it causes him pain, nevertheless. That is why daimons dread the point of a sword or any sharp weapon. Let those who want to see them flee try the experiment.”</blockquote> | ||
<blockquote>One of the most learned scholars of his century, Bodin, the Demonologian, held the same opinion, that both the human and cosmical elementaries “were sorely afraid of swords and daggers.” | <blockquote>One of the most learned scholars of his century, Bodin, the Demonologian, held the same opinion, that both the human and cosmical elementaries “were sorely afraid of swords and daggers.” It is also the opinion of Porphyry, Iambilichus, and Plato. Plutarch mentions it several times. The practicing theurgists knew it well and acted accordingly; and many of the latter assert that “the demons suffer from any rent made in their bodies.” Bodin tells us a wonderful story to this effect in his work ''On the Daemons''....</blockquote> | ||
<blockquote>“I remember,” says the author, “that in 1557 an elemental demon, one of those who are called thundering, fell down with the lightning into the house of Poudot, the shoemaker, and immediately began flinging stones all about the room. We picked up so many of them that the landlady filled a large chest full, after having securely closed the windows and doors and locked the chest itself. But it did not prevent the demon in the least from introducing other stones into the room, but without injuring anyone for all that. Latomi, who was then Quarter-President (a magistrate of the district), came to see what was the matter. Immediately upon his entrance, the spirit knocked the cap off his head and made him run away. It had lasted for over six days, when M. Jean Morgnes, Counsellor at the Presidial, came to fetch me to see the mystery. When I entered the house, someone advised the master of it to pray to God with all his heart and to wheel round a sword in the air about the room; he did so. On that following day the landlady told us, that from that very moment they did not hear the least noise in the house; but that during the seven previous days that it lasted they could not get a moment’s rest.”<ref> | <blockquote>“I remember,” says the author, “that in 1557 an elemental demon, one of those who are called thundering, fell down with the lightning into the house of Poudot, the shoemaker, and immediately began flinging stones all about the room. We picked up so many of them that the landlady filled a large chest full, after having securely closed the windows and doors and locked the chest itself. But it did not prevent the demon in the least from introducing other stones into the room, but without injuring anyone for all that. Latomi, who was then Quarter-President (a magistrate of the district), came to see what was the matter. Immediately upon his entrance, the spirit knocked the cap off his head and made him run away. It had lasted for over six days, when M. Jean Morgnes, Counsellor at the Presidial, came to fetch me to see the mystery. When I entered the house, someone advised the master of it to pray to God with all his heart and to wheel round a sword in the air about the room; he did so. On that following day the landlady told us, that from that very moment they did not hear the least noise in the house; but that during the seven previous days that it lasted they could not get a moment’s rest.”<ref>''Isis Unveiled'', Vol. 1, pp. 362–64.</ref></blockquote> | ||
Everything that Blavatsky says here is true and confirmed by the ascended masters. | Everything that Blavatsky says here is true and confirmed by the ascended masters. | ||