ord oreol

Ordeal X

Reading Section 8 of Vol. IV of HPB's Secret Doctrine, I started looking at possible hints regarding the "Ordeal x."  So first, I thought it would be good to examine the specific verse from Liber AL.

AL III.22:  "The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me.  I am the visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x.  What is this?  Thou shalt know."

Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the solar-phallic god is revealing a bit of his nature. All the forms of the deity attributed to Tiphareth are prophesied to ultimately "cluster" and "exalt" Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Jesus, Buddha, Krsna, et al). The "others" referred to in this verse are the secret or invisible Beast and Bride; a suggestion that the union of man and woman as the original biune gods depict, together unite a combined spiritual energy that becomes the 'Magickal Childe,' which to describe would be lengthy and comprises some the writings in the Breviary of the GCL.  But it is the "Ordeal x" that has no clarifying reference.  Crowley first describes the original solar-phallic nature of all these deities, then he writes in his commentary to his verse:

This is also a reference to the 'Crowned' and Conquering 'Child' in ourselves, our own personal God.  Except ye become as little children, said 'Christ', ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of Malkuth, the Virgin Bride, and the Child is the Dwarf-Self, the Phallic consciousness, which is the true life of Man, beyond his 'veils' of incarnation.  We have to thank Freud -- and especially Jung -- for stating this part of the Magical Doctrine so plainly, as also for their development of the connexion of the Will of this 'child' with the True or Unconscious Will, and so for clarifying our doctrine of the 'Silent Self' or 'Holy Guardian Angel'.  They are of course totally ignorant of magical phenomena, and could hardly explain even such terms as "Augoeides'; and they are seriously to blame for not stating more openly that this True Will is not to be daunted or suppressed; but within their limits they have done excellent work.
This Augoeides is the star of the silent self...the true self...the Atman...the H.G.A. that is the projection of this into an aethyric image. We may deduce that the "Ordeal x" is the successful linking with this image to the archetypal avatar.

Motta writes in his commentary to this verse:

Some technical aspects of this verse must be mentioned.  First, the Ordeal x consists in the perception that 666 is the Christ, or Messiah, of this Aeon.  This perception must be intuitional; it cannot be a matter of dogma or of faith. 

Human intuition is pure psychic perception combined with knowledge, which is why Thelemic Doctrine and the Holy Books should be a prolific study.  The intellect is then balanced with the opening of the heart and the influx of the energy of the divine that is perceived as a presence of holiness (letting the Sun in; taking in of the solar Prana).  The Prana or Aethyr is congealed, psychically into an image perceivable on the astral (and possibly with great effort, even the physical) plane.

And on to Blavatsky's tome:

It is no explanation to say, as Eliphas Levi does, that God, the universal Love, having caused the male unit to dig an abyss in the female Binary, or chaos, produced thereby the world. Besides being as gross a conception as any, it does not remove the difficulty of conceiving it without losing one's veneration for the rather too human-like ways of the Deity. It is to avoid such anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates never use the epithet "God" to designate the One and Secondless Principle in the Universe; and that -- faithful in this to the oldest traditions of the Secret Doctrine the world over -- they deny that such imperfect and often not very clean work could ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no need to mention here other still greater metaphysical difficulties. Between speculative Atheism and idiotic anthropomorphism there must be a philosophical mean, and a reconciliation.

HPB further addresses the issue of these images; that human culture has managed to anthropomorphosize these archetypal avatars into egregores that now resist the changing psychic tide that AL champions.  Considering the prophecy and the nature of the Law as a natural law, we can see that as people's sentiment about themselves moves away from the slave-mind mythologies, these egregores will be modified to suit their new perceptions.

The Presence of the Unseen Principle throughout all nature, and the highest manifestation of it on Earth -- MAN, can alone help to solve the Problem, which is that of the mathematician whose x must ever elude the grasp of our terrestrial algebra. The Hindus have tried to solve it by their avatars, the Christians think they did it -- by their one divine Incarnation. Exoterically -- both are wrong; esoterically both of them are very near the truth. Alone, among the Apostles of the Western religion, Paul seems to have fathomed -- if not actually revealed -- the archaic mystery of the Cross. As for the rest of those who, by unifying and individualizing the Universal Presence, have thus synthesized it into one symbol -- the central Point in the Crucifix -- they have shown thereby that they have never seized the true Spirit of the teaching of Christ, and by their interpretations they have degraded it in more than one way. They have forgotten the Spirit of that universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized it -- as though the Boundless and the Infinite can ever be limited and conditioned to one manifestation individualized in one man, or even in a nation!
The Rose at the center of the Cross of the Rosicrucians is then the human 'heart of hearts'.  It is from here that the Silent Self is concealed.
The four arms of the " ," the decussated cross, and of the "Hermetic," pointing to the four cardinal points -- were well understood by the mystical minds of the Hindus, Brahmins and Buddhists, thousands of years before it was heard of in Europe; and that symbol was and is found all over the world. They bent the ends of that cross and made of it their Swastica  now the Wan of the Buddhist Mongolian (The Swastica is certainly one of the oldest symbols of the Ancient Races. In our century, says Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie (Royal Masonic Cyclopeadia) it (the Swastica) "has survived in the form of the mallet" in the Masonic Fraternity. Among the many "meanings" the author gives of it, we do not find, however, the most important one, masons evidently not knowing it.). It implies that the "Central point" is not limited to one individual, however perfect. That the Principle (God) is in Humanity, and Humanity, as all the rest, is in it, like drops of water are in the Ocean, the four ends being toward the four cardinal points, hence losing themselves in infinity.

This 'heart of hearts' is then the Universal Avatar; the one that sees beyond the boundaries of the individual and into the cosmic schematic of the current Age (the space-time continuum).

Isarim, an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, on the dead body of Hermes, the well known Smaragdine tablet, which, it is said, contained the essence of Hermetic wisdom . . . . "Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross . . . . Ascend from the earth to heaven and then descend again to earth" was traced on it. The riddle of the cross is contained in these words, and its double mystery is solved -- to the Occultist.
"The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite directions, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting point, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific quaternary, when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the basis of the occultist. Within its mystical precinct lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent in succession birth, life, death, and IMMORTALITY.
" 'Attach thyself,' say the alchemists, 'to the four letters of the tetragram disposed in the following manner: The letters of the ineffable name are there, although thou mayest not discern them at first. The incommunicable axiom is kabalistically contained therein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum by the masters.' " ("Isis Unveiled.")

Connecting with the cosmic and Universal Avatar, one then connects with that which is larger than oneself.  This is the key to Immortality.  There is also an allusion here to the squaring of the circle, which in its failure, is taught by Liber AL to also be a 'key.'  I covered this in my previous post, which is worth repeating (in red) here:

Continuing my reading of Section 8 of Vol. IV of HPB's Secret Doctrine, I find something interesting and relating to AL:III.47 -

"This book shall be translated into all tongues: but always with the original in the writing of the Beast; for in the chance shape of the letters and their position to one another: in these are mysteries that no Beast shall divine.  Let him not seek to try: but one cometh after him, whence I say not, who shall discover the Key of it all.  Then this line drawn is a key: then this circle squared in its failure is a key also.  And Abrahadabra.  It shall be his child & that strangely.  Let him not seek after this; for thereby alone can he fall from it."

HPB quotes John A. Parker:

"The key of the Kabala is thought to be the geometrical relation of the area of the circle inscribed in the square, or, of the cube to the sphere, giving rise to the relation of diameter to circumference of a circle with the numerical value of this relation expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter to circumference, being a supreme one connected with the god-names of Elohim and Jehovah (which terms are expressions numerically of these relations respectively, the first being of circumference, the latter of diameter), embraces all. Two expressions of circumference to diameter in integrals are used in the Bible: (1) The perfect, and (2) the imperfect. One of the relations between these is such that (2) subtracted from (1) will leave a unit of a diameter value in terms, or in the denomination of the circumference value of the perfect circle, or a unit straight line having a perfect circular value, or a factor of circular value" (p. 22).

This mysterious line from Liber AL:III.47 shows the author declaring Liber AL to be a key to the Qabalah.  It is connecting the Book of the Law to the original half of the Jews.  In his original comment (refuted in his later comment), Crowley notes that "the letters of the Book are the letters of the Book of Enoch" and refers to the 15th Aethyr.  What remains significant about this is that the Enochian tradition is the Merkabah tradition and Liber 418, having been generated through this, provides the doctrine that encases Liber AL.  There are also synchronicities in some of what we seen in Crowley's skrying of the 15th Aethyr that also pertain to what HPB is saying in this extract and well worth noting here:

Now it is clear what she has woven in her dance; it is the Crimson Rose of 49 Petals, and the Pillars are the Cross with which it is conjoined. And between the pillars shoot out rays of pure green fire; and now all the pillars are golden. She ceases to dance, and dwindles, gathering herself into the centre of the Rose.

The Rosy Cross as much can be a depiction of the circle squared.

Now it is seen that the Rose is a vast ampitheatre, with seven tiers, each tier divided into seven partitions. And they that sit in the Amphitheatre are the seven grades of the Order of the Rosy Cross. This Amphitheatre is built of rose-coloured marble, and of its size I can say only that the sun might be used as a ball to be thrown by the players in the arena. But in the arena there is a little altar of emerald (The colour of {Venus}, love. This is the basis of the act of worship.), and its top has the heads of the Four Beasts, in turquoise and rock-crystal (Sacred to the sphere of the stars, and to Malkuth, the sphere of Earth, respectively.). And the floor of the arena is ridged like a grating of lapis lazuli (The body of Nuith, the star-strewn Blue.). And it is full of pure quicksilver (The Universal Mercury, instrument of the constant Change and Flux which constitutes life.).

This details as much the legions of angels belonging to the original seven gods (planets) that came from the ONE; all woven into the fabric of the Universe, symbolized in the skrying by the 'arena.'

The voice of him that is above the altar is silence, but the echo thereof cometh back from the walls of the circus, and is speech. And this is the speech: Three and four are the days of a quarter of the moon, and on the seventh day is the sabbath, but thrice four is the Sabbath of the Adepts whereof the form is revealed in the Aethyr ZID; that is the eighth of the Aires (The Seven are the inferiors, unless the reference be to Babalon, as in the table of 49 squares. Twelve refers to HUA = 12 and the Zodiac The interweaving of multiplication is to the juxtaposition of addition as is chemical combination to mechanical mixture.). And the mysteries of the Table shall not be wholly revealed, nor shall they be revealed herein. But thou shalt gather of the sweat of thy brow a pool of clear water wherein this shall be revealed. And of the oil that thou burnest in the midnight shall be gathered together thirteen rivers of blessing; and of the oil and the water I will prepare a wine to intoxicate the young men and the maidens (Cf. the Zohar for 13 rivers of Holy Oil that flow down the Beard of Macroprosopus. (These are the first 13 letters.)).

Thrice four becomes the cube and also may be added to give the number 8.  Obviously, as the cube, there is an allusion to the circle squared.  The 8 also makes sense in relation to my previous post, per its three-fold form (888) and as reprinted here (in italic):

It is strange that if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the gnostic Kabalistic value of the name Christ, who was Jehoshua or Joshua. And so also the division of the 24 hours of the day gives three eights as quotient. . . . The chief end of all this system of number checks was to preserve in perpetuity the exact value of the Lunar year in the natural measure of days."

Again, the half of the Jews and in relation to the solar mythos.

Also the 13th letter belongs to the Hanged Man of the XIIth Atu; wherein the Cross is depicted.

And now the Table is become the universe; every star is a letter of the Book of Enoch. And the Book of Enoch is drawn therefrom by an inscrutable Mystery, that is known only to the Angels and the Holy Sevenfold Table (See 22nd Aire for a fuller indication of this mystery, and infra.). While I have been gazing upon this table, an Adept has come forth, one from each tier, except the inmost Tier.
And the first (5x = 6{square x}.) drove a dagger into my heart, and tasted the blood...(This Adept guards Tiphareth and tests the heart (which pertains thereto) for its purity.
And the second (6x = 5{square x}. Adept has been testing the muscles of my right arm and shoulder, and he says: fortis, fortis, fortis, fortis, fortis (Similarly the right arm (of Geburah) five times. Fortis means strong.).
And the third (7x = 4{square x}.) Adept examines the skin and tastes the sweat of my left arm, and says: TAN, TAN, TAN, TAN. (Similarly the left arm (of Chesed) four times, for the virtue of Chesed, Mercy. (See 17th Aire).)
And the fourth (8x = 3{square x}.) Adept examines my neck, and seems to approve, though he says nothing (The neck is of Daath which is not a Sephirah, and so has no number or corresponding symbol.); and he hath opened the right half of my brain, and he makes some examination, and says: "Samajh, samajh, samajh. (This part of the brain is of Binah (3). Samajh means understanding. That is, he admitted the right of the seer to the grade of Magister Templi.)"
And the fifth Adept examines the left half of my brain, and then holds up his hand in protest, and says "PLA . . . (The seer was not worthy of the grade of Magus. Note that each adept uses a different language.)" (I cannot get the sentence, but the meaning is: In the thick darkness the seed awaiteth spring.)

These Adepts are the Elohim; leaders of the 7 planetary legions of angels.

And now am I again rapt in contemplation of that universe of letters which are stars.
The words ORLO, ILRO, TULE are three most secret names of God. They are Magick names, each having an interpretation of the same kind as the interpretation of I.N.R.I., and the name OIT, RLU, LRL, OOE are other names of God, that contain magical formulae, the first to invoke fire; the second, water;

the third, air; and the fourth, earth (All these practical mysteries must be worked out by the student himself. Any formula given by the annotator would probably be "dead" in the hands of another man.).

Obviously, anything in relation to INRI also relates to the cross and the circle (squared).  These other names obviously pertain to formulae having to do with 3 and 4...even an allusion here to the Starry Gnosis, which depicts certain formulae of the Cross quite lucidly.

And if the Table be read diagonally, every letter, and every combination of letters, is the name of a devil. And from these are drawn the formulae of evil magick. But the holy letter I above the triad LLL dominateth the Table, and preserveth the peace of the universe (The easiest explanation of this is to suppose that the letters are not attributed as usual (i.e. I to {Sagittarius}, L to {Cancer}), but taken for their English shape: I the Middle Pillar, L the Square --- but this is far from satisfactory.).
Is it a failure such as this that provides a key?
Now the exceeding light that was behind the Pyramid, and the Rosy Cross that is set thereon, hath fulfilled the whole Aire. The black Pyramid is like the back of a black diamond. Also the Rosy Cross is loosened, and the petals of the Rose are the mingled hues of sunset and of dawn; and the Cross is the Golden light of noon, and in the heart of the Rose there is the secret light that men call midnight.
As if the circle and the square are to be blended to symbolize the circle being squared.

Again: -- The  (Tau), and the astronomical cross of Egypt  are conspicuous in several apertures of the remains of Palenque. In one of the basso-relievos of the Palace of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured as a hieroglyphic right under the seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure, which leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often represented while at the Last Supper. . . . The Egyptian Hierophant had a square head-dress which he had to wear always during his functions. . . . The perfect Tau, formed of the perpendicular (descending male ray), and a horizontal line (matter, female principle), and the mundane circle was an attribute of Isis, and it is but at death that the Egyptian cross was laid on the breast of the mummy." These square hats are worn unto this day by the Armenian priests. The claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the men of Judah, who feared the Lord (Ezekiel ix. 4), with the signum Thau, as it is translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was formed thus  , but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as a perfect Christian cross  (Tat, the emblem of stability). In the Revelation, also, the "Alpha and Omega" (spirit and matter), the first and the last, stamps the name of his Father in the foreheads of the elect, (p. 323, Vol. II.) Moses, in Exodus xii. 22, orders his people to mark their door-posts and lintels with blood, lest the "Lord God" should make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead of the doomed Egyptians. And this mark is a tau! The identical Egyptian handled cross, with the half of which talisman Horus raised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured ruin at Philoe.

The Tau in the circle seems to be one way of illustrating the 'failure' of the squaring of the circle.  If so, this 'key' is being well-considered by HPB at this point in her tome.  The cross as well as the Rosy Cross (being the key to Alchemical science) is the symbol of the union of Spirit (the highest) and Matter (the lowest); and it is from this that 'immortality' (again, a loaded concept) is derived.

I've now said this twice; that 'immortality' is a loaded concept.  Certainly we know one thing that all the great seers of the past have told us (with the exception of Sri Arubindo...though he seems to have disproved his own assertion), the body belongs to the world of change and must die.  So what then is immortality?  It seems to me, that it must be a condition of seeing.  In other words it is the connection with the cosmic schematic and vision of that which is greater than self that must be accomplished...the Ordeal x!  The Universe must then be perceived in its objective and not subjective relation; something incredibly difficult to achieve, but well detailed from an epistimological perspective by the NYU philosospher, Thomas Nagel in his book: The View from Nowhere.

Enough was said in the text about the Swastica and the Tau. Verily may the Cross be traced back into the very depths of the unfathomable Archaic Ages! Its Mystery deepens rather than clears, as we find it on the statues of Easter Island -- in old Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks as Tau and Swastica, in pre-Christian Scandinavia, everywhere! The author of the "Hebrew Egyptian Mystery" stands perplexed before the endless shadow it throws back into antiquity, and is unable to trace it to any particular nation or man. He shows the Targums handed down by the Hebrews, obscured by translation. In Joshua (viii. 29) read in Arabic, and in the Targum of Jonathan, it is said: "The king of Ai he crucified upon a tree." The Septuagint rendering is of suspension from a double word (Wordsworth on Joshua.) . . . The strangest expression of this kind is in Numbers xxv. 4, where, by Onkalos (?) it is read: "Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against the Sun." "The word here  , to nail to, is rendered properly (Fuerst) by the Vulgate to crucify. The very construction of this sentence is mystic."
So it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. "To crucify before (not against) the sun" is a phrase used of initiation. It comes from Egypt, and primarily from India. The enigma can be unriddled only by searching for its key in the Mysteries of Initiation. The initiated adept, who had successfully passed through all the trials, was attached, not nailed, but simply tied on a couch in the form of a tau  (in Egypt) of a Svastika without the four additional prolongations (thus:  , not  ) plunged in a deep sleep (the "Sleep of Siloam" it is called to this day among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt). He was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to confabulate with the "gods," descend into Hades, Amenti, or Patala, (according to the country), and do works of charity to the invisible beings, whether souls of men or Elemental Spirits; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King's Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris, and Thoth the God of Wisdom.

Before the L.V.X. of the Sun is the vision into the darkness that is the traveling to the Hekaloth in the Merkabah tradition.  This prophetic seeing brings divine revelation into the apocalyptic writings; the travelling or chariot riding then being the trance consciousness also called the Sleep of Siloam.  In light of the above paragraph, the following opening paragraphs of the GCL document, Liber Siloam Ophidian are also worth noting here.

"Siloam" is the transliteration of the Hebrew word meaning "peace.  In nineteenth century ev occult literature the spelling "Sialam" is used.  Siloam or Shalom translates from the Hebrew as peace, wholeness or completion.  The 'Sleep of Siloam' is a method of trance by which may come contact with praeter-human intelligences; most particularly that which is called one's Holy Guardian Angel.  This document is presumed to have been lost and to have resembled instructions given in the secret documents of the O.T.O.; particularly that which is called 'Eroto-comatose Lucidity'.  The document you hold here is an attempt to restore a more complete rendering to our lineage.

The "sleep of Siloam" (or 'Sialam') appears to have been a term used in certain occult fraternities to denote a controlled deliberate trance state (according to the editors of The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor the term originates in a 19th-century British army officer's memoir of his time in India, and was taken up by P.B. Randolph and H.P. Blavatsky).  In the "Religio-Philosophical Journal 22/20, May 19, 1877:p. 4, Blavatsky wrote that the separation of soul and body is "one of the last and very highest achievements of magic."

Related to this in Blavatsky's schema was the sacred "Sleep of *** " an obvious reference to the Sleep of Sialam, a term used by P.B.Randolph in his Rosicrucian novel Ravalette (1863) for the highest, drug induced vision state. It was taken up in Isis Unveiled where it relates to a drug- induced, prophetic "sublime lethargy" in which the unconscious subject is made the "temporary receptacle of the brightness of the immortal Augoeides."

P.Deveney in "Astral Projection or Liberating of the Double and the Work of the Theosophical Society," writes: “Later the "Sleep of Sialam" came to mean the soma-induced trance during which the new initiate- both in the Orient and in the ancient Mysteries-comprehends the ultimate mysteries after undergoing the tests of Initiation.” ("The Esoteric Character of the Gospels, Lucifer, November 1887)

Deveney ads that: "I do not think that drugs can be ruled out as a possibility in seeking practical techniques in the Theosophical Society - and would appear to be related to the degree structure or sections adopted by the Society at least as early as 1878 and which G.H.Felt were adopted from the very beginning." (Deveney gives then more evidence as he goes on, and this is indeed one of the books that is recommended reading if one wants to study this subject further, see: Deveney, "Astral Projection and the early Theosophical Society") In The SD (1888), Blavatsky specifically identifies the term as the one in use "to this day"among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria and even in higher Egypt.

P.B. Randolph's [Theosophist] method of attaining spiritual knowledge was known as the sleep of Sialam, or Siloam. Shiloam, from the Hebrew Shiloah (literally, sending forth), was a spring outside Jerusalem mentioned in the Bible (John IX.7). Randolph would fall into a trance and experience visions. This method was probably developed during his spiritualistic period, although he referred to it as a Tibetan method.

Colonel Stephen Fraser, in his glorious volume entitled Twelve Years in India says:

"We joyfully, gladly went, five of us, her Majesty's Officers, on a tour of military inspection, the toils of which were likely to be rewarded by an opportunity of witnessing the dance of Illumination, of the MUNTRA-WALLAHS, or Magic-working Brahmans, whose strange miracles, worked apparently by the triple agency of Battasahs (rice), Gookal (red-powder), and strangest of all, by means of oval glasses or crystals, but black as night, in which it is reported, some very strange things were to be seen. We were all prepared to witness skilful jugglery, for which the residents of Muttra [1] are renowned, but fully resolved to ascertain, if possible, how it was all done, rejecting, of course, everything claimed to be either supra-mortal or hyper-natural, so far as the underlying principles were concerned. ...It was sheer skill, but such as no European could pretend to equal. Yet how the sleeping girl could tell our names, ages, place of birth, and fifty other true facts, she never having seen either of us before - because the dust of Jubalpore was still upon our clothes, we having been but one day in Muttra - was a problem not easily solved. They call it the Sleep of Sialam, and she passed into it by gazing into a dark glass.”

The similarities with Randolph, even on the verbal level, are apparent. It is the will alone that can save the disernbodied and lost criminal, and in the process of salvation he becomes a “vampire"-an echo of Dhoula Bel, the vampire, the enigmatic alter-ego that haunted Ravalette's steps in Ravalette. To drive home the comparison, moreover, Blavatsky goes on to add that “few kabbalists" believed in the possibility of this sort of reincarnation, and that the idea had originated with the astrologers who had come upon it in casting nativities for historical figures and found that the results tallied perfectly with certain prophecies.

“Observation, and what would now be termed ‘remarkable coincidences,' added to revelation during the ‘sacred sleep' of the neophyte, disclosed the dreadful truth. So horrible is the thought that even those who ought to be convinced of it prefer ignoring it, or at least avoid speaking on the subject."

Ibid., 1:357. The same idea is set forth in ,,Madame Blavatsky on the Views of the Theosophists," The Spiritualist (February 8, 1878): 68-69, reprinted in BCW, 1:290ff., 295-98.

This “sacred sleep" can only be Randolph's sleep of Sialam.

“This way of obtaining oracles was practiced in the highest antiquity. In lndia, this sublime lethargy is called ,"the sacred sleep of * * * " It is an oblivion into which the subject is thrown by certain magical processes, supplemented by draughts of the juice of the soma. The body of the sleeper remains for several days in a condition resembling death, and by the power of the adept is purified of its earthliness and made fit to become the temporary receptacle of the brightness of the immortal Augoeides. In this state the torpid body is made to reflect the glory of the upper spheres, as a burnished mirror does the rays of the sun.

What his lips utter he will never know; but as it is the spirit, which directs them they can pronounce nothing but divine truth. For the time being the poor helpless clod is made the shrine of the sacred presence, and converted into an oracle a thousand times more infallible than the asphyxiated Pythoness of Delphi.”

Isis Unveiled 1:357-58.

In the English Qabalah, 451 equates with the phrase 'Burn Up'; a reference to inflaming thyself with prayer and also the consumption of the lower ego by the higher ego (Asar Un Nefer).

________________________________________

 [1] Muttra, a town in the province of Agra, India, on the west bank of the river Jumma, in latitude 27 deg. 31 min. North; longitude 77 deg. 33 min. East; a place famous for the manufacture of Magical apparatus, and one of the only two places on earth where the Paranaphthaline gum is prepared, wherewith the adepts smear the backs of these extraordinary mirrors, so celebrated by the various authorities named in the text." Twelves Years in India. Vol. 2, p. 286.
Paranaphthaline is also called Anthracene.  It is a solid hydrocarbon, C6H4.C2H2.C6H4, which accompanies naphthalene in the last stages of the distillation of coal tar. Its chief use is in the artificial production of alizarin.
Alizarin is an orange-red crystalline compound used in making red pigments and in dyeing.  It is a coloring principle, C14H6O2(OH)2, found in madder, and now produced artificially from anthracene. It produces the Turkish reds.
Madder (from which we get the English word ‘mad’) is a plant of the Rubia (R. tinctorum). Eurasian herb having small yellow flowers and red roots formerly an important source of the dye alizarin.  The root is much used in dyeing red, and formerly was used in medicine. It is cultivated in France and Holland.