Gnostic Wisdom

Traitors After passing over the tenth or innermost concentric bolgia or ditch of the eighth circle Dante and Virgil arrive at the centre of the eighth circle to find a great well or pit. At the bottom of the pit is the ninth and final circle of hell, named Cocytus. Dante discovers that inside the pit are the giants and titans of the past standing guard over those in the ninth circle. Virgil persuades on of them to take them both down into the ninth circle. The ninth circle is a huge frozen lake where those who were treacherous to those whom they were bound by special ties are fixed frozen in the lake. Dante describes the lake as having four concentric circles which represent four classes of treachery. The four classes of treachery: 1.            Caina                     (those who were treacherous against the members o...

The Fraudulent, the Seducers and the Flatterers Dante and Virgil walk beside a boiling blood-red rill or stream that flows from the woods of suicide and across the burning plains of the seventh circle to a great cliff where at the bottom of the cliff begins the eighth circle. While on top of the cliff Virgil commands Dante to drop a chord he had around his waist over the edge. There answering this signal comes the Geryon, the monster of fraud. Dante and Virgil jump onto the back of the Geryon and the Geryon flies them down to the eighth circle. The Geryon had an innocent face yet a body of a reptile. Its back, arms and chest were all very hairy and it had a tail with a stinger like a scorpion. Tradition says that Geryon was a Spanish king that Hercules killed so to acquire his cattle. However tradition, gives another later version of the Geryon, as being a murderer and thief of strangers whom he lured into his realm thus defrauding his guests. Dante gives th...

The Violent Dante and Virgil scramble down an escarpment and enter the seventh circle of hell. There they are menaced by the Minotaur and once again Virgil successfully wards off the danger. Further on, they encounter the river of blood which marks the first sub-circle or round of the 7th circle. The seventh circle has three rounds or sub-circles which are for: 1.            Those who were violent towards others. 2.            Those who were violent towards themselves. 3.            Those who were violent towards God. In this circle Dante encounters many that he knew even his old tutor Brunetto Latini who was there because of having committed sodomy. There we find, Master Samael says: writers, many learned men and even doctors. First Round – Violence Towards Others In the first region Dante and V...

The Heretics (Atheism and Materialism) Before the gates of the city of Dis are opened to them, “three hellish and inhuman Furies”, “bloodstained and wild” whose “limbs and gestures hinted they were women” called Medusa from a tower to come and turn Dante and Virgil to stone. Virgil held Dante’s eyes closed until the danger had passed. These “three hellish and inhuman Furies” are the three furies or the three traitors. Virgil identified each fury by name as is common in every esoteric tradition; the three furies or traitors always each have a name.  Once the gates of the city of Dis are opened by an Angel, Dante and Virgil enter the sixth circle and there they see the landscape like a cemetery littered with tombs of various sizes. Each tomb is like a barrel made from iron that is heated red hot by fires that abound in that region. Here in this region Dante and Virgil encountered the atheists and the heretics. Specifically those who taught that the soul dies with...

The Wrathful & Sullen (Melancholic) In the fourth circle Virgil and Dante come across a black, bubbly spring that has formed what is called the marsh of Styx. The marsh of Styx is the fifth circle which is the last region of upper hell. Styx is a Greek word meaning hatred and sadness. In the black slimy marsh Dante and Virgil see souls fighting, attacking and ripping at one another. These are the souls who were overcome with anger. Below the marsh is another region similar to a sub-region of the fifth circle. There reside the souls of the sullen or the melancholic, who were not happy in life under the sun but instead were sad and sullen when they should have been happy. They say “Sad were we in the air made sweet by the sun, in the glory of his shining our hearts poured a bitter smoke. Sullen were we begun, sullen we lie forever in this ditch.” Anger, arrogance and sadness are the characteristics of this circle. Dante and Virgil encounter Phlegyas the boatman ...

Spendthrifts and Misers In the fourth circle Dante and Virgil see something like a nation of souls divided into two parties. Where both parties heave and roll huge stones at one another, to only then roll the stones back towards themselves and then against each other once more, endlessly repeating the same. One party is the hoarders and the other party is the wasters. The wasters shout “Why do you hoard?” and the hoarders shout “Why do you waste?”. They do this continuously without pause. Dante sees that some of the hoarders were members of the clergy and that they are all so dim and without light. This is because excessive hoarding or squandering is a tremendous bottling of the consciousness and a denial of the light that will allow them to see their predicament. For example, gamblers lack the light to see that their squandering will lead them to complete ruin, and hoarders don’t see that they will die a lonely miserable death and will leave all their precious belongi...

The Gluttons There in the third circle Dante and Virgil find a region where a putrid black snow, hailstones and rain, form a refuse-like icy slush on the ground. The souls in that region lie in the icy refuse-like slush all swollen and inert while the guardian of that region Cerberus the three headed dog, rips and tears at them with his teeth and scratches them with his claws. This is the region of the gluttons, who abused food and drink and only produced “garbage and offal”. Here they lie in an icy slush like the refuse they produced in life and here Cerberus slavers over them as they slavered over food. This circle is the antithesis of the heaven of Venus. The barks of cerebus represent the “violent animal sexual passions that are Luciferian and out of control”. The orgies, insatiable gluttony and drunkenness are the characteristics of this circle. After all pleasure comes pain and bitterness, and the tears produced by this pain is symbolized by the rain that constant...

The Carnal - Lust There in the second circle Dante finds Minos the semi-bestial judge whom the souls of the deceased come before. The souls of the deceased confess all to him and he then decides which place in hell the soul is to go to. Minos then curls his tail around himself a number of times, where the number of turns is the region the soul must descend to. Hurricane Like Winds As Dante and Virgil move through the second circle they encounter terrifying hurricane like winds which sweep up, spin and drive the souls without the minimum rest through the airs of the second circle. The souls swept by the tempest like winds are also black with passion. The souls are punished in this way for having abandoned their reason to the tempest of their carnal passions. So they are swept up and driven here and there by the tempests of the second circle. Lust Lust is the major characteristic of the second circle. In this region are all the souls who lost themselves in...

Introduction After crossing the river Acheron Dante and Virgil stand on the brink of hell where Dante sees hell as a circular funnel shaped bottomless pit with a series of ledges. These ledges, nine in total, are the Dantean circles.  Limbo Here Dante finds the souls that were sinless, however they are here because they were not baptized. Dante after passing through a citadel finds on a green meadow a group of souls surrounded by a radiant dome of light. He discovers that they are the great noble souls of the poets, philosophers, heroes, artists and scientists of history. Virgil says “ The signature of honour they left on earth is recognized in Heaven and wins them ease in hell out of God’s favour. ” Purpose of Limbo The first circle is the famous limbo or Orco where the shadows of the deceased reside. Here all the caves of the earth are astrally connected. Here the souls of the deceased reside until they are given a new body and life on the surface of the earth....

The Gate to Hell Before entering the Vestibule of hell Dante and Virgil must pass through the gate of hell, and inscribed in stone above the gate is the following: “I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE. “I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE. I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW. SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT. I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE, PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT. ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND. ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.” After passing through the gate Dante asks Virgil about the inscription above the gate: “ Master what is the meaning of this harsh inscription? ” And then as initiate to novice: “ Here you must put by all division of spirit and gather your soul against all cowardice. This is the place I told you to expect. Here you shall pass among the fallen people, souls who have lost the good of intellect. ” The Opportunists In the vestibule of Hell, Dante en...

Introduction On the brink of the descent into hell, Dante is overwhelmed with fear. Virgil says to him " I understand from your words and the look in your eyes ,” “ your soul is sunken in that cowardice that bears down many men, turning their course and resolution by imagined perils ”. Fear of the Abyss and Trust in the Divine Virgil explains how Beatrice was sent from heaven by the prayers of the Virgin Mary (Divine Mother) and St. Lucia (divine light) to ask Virgil to help Dante out of their concern for him. Virgil says to Dante “ Why do you lag? Why this heartsick hesitation and pale fright when three such blessed Ladies lean from Heaven in their concern for you and my own pledge of the great good that waits you has been given? ”. Conclusion This is our situation, we feel fear for the work in our own abyss, why? Perhaps out of a certain skepticism or distrust in our divinity, we think out of ignorance that our Being may not perhaps want self-realisation and t...

Introduction The objective of this post is to lay down an outline of the various levels and features of the Earth’s inferior regions. Seeing this outline will allow you to put the posts that are to follow into perspective. Outline The inferior regions of the Earth are structured according to Dante and Master Samael in the following way: ·          The Descent ·          Vestibule of Hell (Opportunists) ·          1st Circle – Moon-Prechamber of Hell – 96 Laws (Limbo) ·          2nd Circle – Mercury – 192 Laws (The Carnal – Lust) ·          3rd Circle – Venus – 288 Laws (The Gluttons) ·          4th Circle – Sun -384 Laws (Spendthrifts and Misers) ·          5th Circle – Mars – 480 ...

Worldliness Midway through his life (35 years old) Dante woke up to find himself alone in a dark forest. This forest symbolizes worldliness with all its passions and vices. Dante recounts that he being “ so drugged and loose ” with sleep entered that forest after deviating from the ‘true way’ - the path. Leopard, Lion and She-Wolf Dante searching for light, saw at the end of the dark forest a little hill glowing with light. As he began to climb the hill he was confronted by three savage animals: a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf, who symbolizing human weakness blocked his way and prevented him from climbing further. She-Wolf The she-wolf was the animal that drove him to despair the most, she was also the one that he could not surpass. To his aid came Virgil who offered to show him the way back to the light, which is the long, narrow and straight way of the Christ. Leopard and Lion Note, the three animals are symbolic, the leopard symbolizes malice and fraud, the lio...

Certainly not for the Body Certainly heaven or hell are not for the body. The body dies and becomes dust but the psyche lives on. Neither is evolution and involution for the body they are for the psyche as well. Our Psyche has a Weight What is really determinant in us is the atomic weight of our psyche. If our psyche weighs down from heavy and strong psychic aggregates or elements and heavy karma our psyche can not go up so easily. It has a very great tendency to slide downward to the heavier regions of nature which atomically are similar in nature and have the same weight. The lighter our psyche the more essence and less karma we have and so our psyche can levitate the to the superior regions of nature. Basically though heaven and hell are all in our psyche when awe are very angry and upset we are heavy in our psyche and we are close in vibration to the inferior regions of nature. Because of that we mechanically and by the laws of physics and nature our psyche de...

Structure of Hell Dante described the infernal world as being a bottomless funnel like structure with nine ledges or circles, with each circle being inhabited by the souls of the deceased, who in life had a distinguishing defect. Here is a diagram of the structure of hell as described by Dante. Present in each circle are the conditions for the souls of the deceased to receive the appropriate retribution for their errors in life. The nature of their punishment reveals the characteristics of their distinguishing defects. In the seventh circle for example, there is a river of boiling blood that the violent souls are immersed in. As they spent their lives living off the blood of others by killing, murdering etc, so in hell/the abyss they are immersed in blood unable to escape. Conclusion Dante gave the inferno a structure and Gnosis agrees with this. Dante’s structure consists of nine circles where each circle has a certain characteristic centre of gravity, that i...