Welcome to Metaphysics of the Real. It is Friday 13th December 2024 and this is your host, Oliver St. John. Sophia is our Guiding Light.
This third episode of the new series returns to some of the subject matter of our latest book, Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power. In the first half of the nineteenth century French Socialists, who sought an explanation for social inequality, persuaded Allan Kardac, the founder of the French School of Spiritism, to accept their theory of souls being born into a succession of lives taking place in the same ‘world’ following a time-line through ‘history’. Reincarnationism was thus born into the world—a totally modern invention owing nothing to ancient doctrines. The second part of this episode features Telesma and Familiar Spirits, an important aspect to magick, both modern and traditional. While there is plenty of literature with instruction on how to consecrate talismans, some of it going into utmost detail, there is almost nothing on how to deconsecrate such an item. We look at this in depth, revealing some very little known facts about talismans—facts that will surprise many of today’s occultists.
The classical guitar was played and recorded by myself and features an extended flamenco improvisation on ‘Waves of Spain’ by Y. Shilin and an original composition of mine called ‘October’.

Metaphysics of the Real, Episode 3 Part One: Reincarnationism
Reincarnation is an entirely modern invention. It consists of the theory that individuals are reborn in a succession of earthly lives for perpetuity, following a historical time-line. Reincarnation has been falsely ascribed to the Hindu doctrines, whereas it simply does not exist there. It has been used to explain metempsychosis and the transmigration of souls as also found in other traditions, for example the Orphic Mysteries and the ancient Egyptian tradition. The notion has become so deeply ingrained one might say that it is by now embedded at a deep stratum of modern thinking. Reincarnation is accepted without question and even if not believed, is falsely ascribed to all ancient civilisations and what are typically and insultingly called ‘ancient beliefs’ by those supposed to be experts in such studies.
The term ‘reincarnation’ thus frequently appears, and without any explanation, in commentaries and translations of Vedic source texts—the latter being all the more possible owing to the fact that translations from Sanskrit to English are necessarily more in the way of paraphrasing; a literal translation makes no more sense than the Egyptological renderings of the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts and others.
Reincarnationism was originally unique to modern Europe until it spread to America and Britain and from there to the world. In the first half of the nineteenth century French Socialists, who sought an explanation for social inequality, persuaded Allan Kardac, the founder of the French School of Spiritism, to accept their theory of souls being born into a succession of lives taking place in the same ‘world’ following a time-line through ‘history’.
A detailed account of this is given in The Spiritist Fallacy, René Guénon, Part Two, Chapter Six.
The Spiritists made a dogma of reincarnation. They extended the notion from inequality of social conditions to include even physical and intellectual inequality. Given the pervasive moralistic tendencies of socialistic thinking, it is perhaps hardly surprising that the reincarnation theory implied the punishment for wrong-doing in past lives being carried over to the present. In more recent times this notion has been modified by its adherents so that the progression of lives is compared to life seen as a ‘classroom’, learning ‘lessons’ along the way and improving always; this is of course reflective of the academic background of many of today’s alternative therapists and entrepreneurial healers, who go so far as to attach ‘spirituality’ to what they do.
The Theosophists took the notion from the Spiritists (also called spiritualists in America and Britain)—a collection of groups involved with séances, who believed they were in communication with the ‘spirits’ of deceased human beings. The Theosophists developed this idea, little known at the time, alongside two others of their own invention and now common among neo-spiritualists: Evolutionism, based on popular scientism and ‘progress’, and a completely false idea of Hindu karma—a word that only means ‘action’ but to which the Theosophists ascribed sentimental moralist valuations, which they pushed to the level of total absurdity. Reincarnation, evolution and ‘karma’ became veritable articles of faith within the movement, and they wasted no time in working tirelessly, using every means at their disposal, to spread the propaganda. The campaign has been remarkably successful. 
The theory, in essence, rests on the absurdity of the ideal of equality, which inevitably rests on all being the same, which is a natural impossibility. While today’s version of the theory insists that equality is about ‘respecting the differences’ between people, it also insists ferociously that all people must accept the same ideals and values, which then automatically suppresses real individuality and most especially, all traditional civilisation. The idea of ‘progress’ built into this presupposes that one must accept every new scientific theory and its applications as inevitable and necessary, however destructive that may be. In the present times we see compulsion now brought to a level that can only be described as totalitarian.
The fallacy of reincarnation can easily be shown. There must be a starting point for the projected ‘evolution’ of lives but if the starting point is not the same for all, so that some men have passed through more lives than others and have made more ‘progress’, then this is an injustice, and so the theory itself has inequality built in to it.
Further, if the differences between people are accepted, then there must have been a point somewhere in the supposed evolution where inequality was begun, which must have a cause. Given that the cause is put down to actions done previously then an explanation is required as to how they behaved differently in the first place. Self-contradiction is implicit in the theory for if perfect equality was the rule then people would be alike in every way. For inequality to come about then the potential for it must have pre-existed latently within the person, thus they were not equal from the very beginning.
The point of view accepts, necessarily, that there are inequalities between species in nature while other differences are not seen in that way. Therefore some inequalities are acceptable while others are not. No being is exactly like any other being in nature, and so to question the equality of beings is to question the difference, which is absurd. So long as there is a multiplicity of beings then there must be as much difference, otherwise beings would comprise a single entity. To see injustice in this is to superimpose sentimental or arbitrary moral concerns on reality. There is no injustice, in fact, in the truth of the matter, which is that each being carries its own possibilities within itself, as inherent in its own nature. According to René Guénon, The Spiritist Fallacy, p. 172:
“The notion of justice stripped of its sentimental and specifically human character is in fact that of equilibrium and harmony in the universe [that is to say, all manifestation taken as totality]. Now, in order that there be total harmony in the universe it is necessary and sufficient that each being occupy its proper place as an element in the universe in conformity with its own nature. And this means precisely that the differences and inequalities which one is pleased to denounce as real or apparent injustices necessarily and effectively contribute to this total harmony. And this total harmony cannot but be; to wish it otherwise would be to suppose that things are not what they are, for it would be an absurdity to think that something can happen with a creature that is not a consequence of its own nature [that is to say, the moral and sentimental view that it must come about from the result of past actions].”
Total harmony is total possibility and it is in fact unjust to steal this away from people, as is now happening everywhere in the world.
See ‘Uniformity against Unity’, Thunder Perfect Gnosis.
One of the many damaging consequences of reincarnationism is that it has been used to interpret the Hindu doctrines, even though reincarnation has never had a place within them. It is not only a misinterpretation but also an obscuration—carried out with relentless thoroughness, so that even those who have read the modern language translations of Hindu texts would be astonished to learn that reincarnation is simply not there. Reincarnation supposes that a being has previously been embodied and upon death takes a new body, returning to the same state it has already passed through. This is not in any way the same as transmigration, which is part of Eastern doctrine and is found in other traditions. Transmigration involves a change of state in the being; it is a passage to completely other worlds of existence, not returning to the same one.
By different states (Sanskrit avasthā) is meant entirely different conditions than those of the commonly accepted human world, though in the Hindu doctrine ‘man’ can adopt different forms in different worlds or through the Cosmic Cycles—these forms differing because they do not have the same spatial or bodily parameters that are defined by the terrestrial ones. This is held in common with all ancient traditions and not only the Hindu one; for example, the Orphic and the Egyptian. A being cannot have two existences in the corporeal world when considered in its fullest extent and this applies equally to any supposed existence on another planet or a distant star system—the corporeal world is not limited to earth but is a very particular state of being. There is no repetition in the universe, and it might as well be noted here that the monstrous ‘eternal recurrence’ of the philosopher Nietzsche was a purely imagined theory, resting on his incomprehension of Eastern texts.
Nietzche took years working up ‘eternal recurrence’ in notebooks before tagging it into his Thus Spake Zarathustra, in an attempt to fill the vacuum left by his general theory, which itself rested on a negation of Christianity.
From a metaphysical point of view, universal and total possibility is infinite and must include all, leaving nothing outside of itself. There is no repetition in infinity, which would otherwise be limited and so not infinite. Repetition can only take place in a finite grouping or ‘set’ (as in mathematics), and even those elements could not be absolutely identical.
The Zermelo–Fraenkel ‘set theory’ is used in modern mathematics.
There are no closed cycles in the universe when seen as absolute totality—an identical possibility would be the same possibility. This concords with the Hindu doctrine, where for anything to exist (to emerge from undifferentiated prakriti) it must have at least one change in characteristic.
The human individuality includes the gross and subtle states of form and there is no return to these states; yet it is these states that the Spiritists and subsequent reincarnation theorists are exclusively concerned with. To return to this world would mean never leaving it. To quote René Guénon once more,
“Nothing can ever return to the same point, even in a system that is only indefinite (and not infinite), as for example the corporeal world. While tracing a circle, for example, a displacement is effected and the circle is not closed except in an entirely illusory manner.”
The Spiritist Fallacy, p. 180.
The hub of much common confusion over the ‘cycle of births’, in common with all ancient traditions, rests to a certain extent then on metaphysical incomprehension. A cycle of births does not mean returning to the same state and can be regarded as both macrocosmic and microcosmic. For example, there are cosmic cycles, which from our point of view look like great aeons of time, and which can be understood analogously not as closed circles, as in a sphere with a central point, but as open spirals. There can be no closed system. One must study René Guénon’s The Multiple States of Being and The Symbolism of the Cross to gain a complete idea of all that is implied here.
It is naturally likewise on the microcosmic scale, where there can be countless births without ever returning to the same state. The states of being in their multiplicity, as with the cyclical manifestation of the worlds of being, which we see as ‘cycles of time’, are simultaneous in reality and may be viewed in this way as well as a succession, relative to the human point of view. Time is only a condition of one of these states, viz., the human state; duration only takes place in some of them, so succession is best understood as symbolic rather than actual.
A further distortion rests on confusions of metempsychosis, where it has been supposed, owing to a misunderstanding of the analogies used in Hindu and other texts, that a man or other being will pass through forms of life such as mineral to vegetable, to animal and then human, a notion that was also formed from the popular evolutionist theories. The true doctrine is that an individual, when taken in its entirety, already includes all the possibilities of terrestrial life forms, though not in the physical sense. Thus reincarnationists have seen ancient texts and superimposed the theories they already want to prove, and which have nothing to do with the sources they use as ‘evidence’ of the same theories. The Spiritists, who developed reincarnationism in the first place, failed to understand—or did not want to understand—that metempsychosis means that after death fragmented components, physical or psychic, may form other bodies, but these elements do not in any way constitute a human being, whether that is called ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’.
There is more to be said on metempsychosis, which along with transmigration is the fundamental basis of ancient teaching on the cycle of births. The word is rarely if ever used in translations, however, though it is frequently alluded to in the texts, including the Yoga-Sutras. Following death, the psychic elements in man are dispersed and it is possible for them to enter other living beings, whether human or animal, in the same way that the elements of the physical body dissolve and some of these serve to form other bodies.
The real being, its imperishable, immutable essence, cannot be in any way affected by the mutation of the aforesaid psychic elements. It is these dissociated psychic remnants that sometimes occur as the phenomena thought by Spiritists to constitute whole human beings, which they call ‘spirits’. Thus reincarnation rests on a confusion of two distinctly separate aspects of ancient teaching, metempsychosis and transmigration, in which they perceive no difference. The psychic elements may include the mental images that are retained in the memory, and which are sensorial impressions. Such faculties are formed by attachment to the corporeal state and are perishable, and not in any way immortal.
Memory itself is a defining characteristic of the corporeal state as it is allied to time, which is a conditioning factor of the human. The transmission of psychic elements to another being still living can take place. This also occurs in the ordinary way of hereditary line; as physical characteristics are normally passed on to children from their parents, so are psychic characteristics. Guénon defines these phenomena as ‘physical seed’ and ‘psychic seed’. The psychic elements when latent in the subconscious are also what are called ‘latent impressions’ in the Hindu doctrines, and these can even be passed across cycles of birth. Such characteristics may find outward expression or remain dormant until activated by something, be it a memory, circumstance and so forth.
Anti-spiritual forces can make use of these dissociated psychic elements. For example, in recent times mass hypnotism through technological means has been successfully employed to implement sweeping social, economic and financial agendas under the pretext of ‘health and safety’, which operates on the base level of the survival instinct. Once the threat—even a continual threat that changes in its form—finds its sympathetic ground in the subconscious of a whole people, almost any other suggestion will be accepted as the condition of that collective mind has been weakened; compliance is made easy.
Posterity is the pseudo-immortality of the ordinary person, or the person without knowledge, and which constitutes the great majority in the present times. Nothing of the individual being is truly ‘passed on’ to future generations, only physical and psychic dissociated parts. In fact most persons by now can only imagine immortality in terms of posterity, seeing in this a kind of prolongation of their self.
Rarely, a considerable collection of dissociated psychic elements can be transferred from a deceased person to a living being, and this can convey the illusion of reincarnation. One most notable case is that of Dorothy Eady and it is perhaps equally notable that Eady herself always denied that reincarnation was involved. See Omm Sety’s Egypt, Hanny el Zeini and Catherine Dees, St. Lynne’s Press.
This is one reason why the use of funerary rites with proper religious foundation has always been, until very recent times, considered so important. It was known by the ancients that prevention of haunting and other kinds of phenomena could only be ensured by the correct procedures being observed. It has become increasingly the case in secular societies that there is a total abandonment of all religious factors, and only some form of remembering the person as they were when living is carried out. This does not only leave the field wide open for the transmission of dissociated psychic elements to the living, which can lead to all sorts of morbid and other ill consequences, but also encourages it, as the whole concentration of the congregation is placed on the recollection of the same dissociated psychic elements or memories.
While religious rites, notably Christian ones, allowed the first part of a service to include a memorial, it was not for a long time framed in sentimental terms and was superseded by the doctrine of salvation and the recollection, instead of that of the person’s life, of the life of Christ Jesus, so that participation in his resurrection might remain a possibility. Thus the traditional funerary rites act directly upon the psychic elements in question. The abandonment of orthodox funeral rites is already having very far-reaching consequences but the real cause of such malign resultants will never be suspected.
The ancients never envisaged such a thing as reincarnation but in order to convey certain ideas that are beyond normal imagining—for example we can only imagine other states of being as somehow modelled on terrestrial life—symbolism and analogy is used that can easily be misconstrued. Ancient teaching on cycles of birth always amounts to either transmigration or metempsychosis, and once this is understood then the meaning of the texts becomes clear—though the reincarnationists will never accept this.
After a short break, we will resume with Telesma and Familiar Spirits

Metaphysics of the Real, Episode 3 Part Two: Telesma and Familiar Spirits.
While there is plenty of literature with instruction on how to consecrate talismans, some of it going into utmost detail, there is almost nothing on how to deconsecrate such an item. As to why we might want to go to all the trouble of preparing and making a talisman, completing the operation through magical manipulation of the life-force, and then undo that work at a later date, we will look at that later. In the meantime, if it was really a matter of expediency then we would adapt the ritual that was used to consecrate the talisman in the first place, so the same powers are invoked. Instead of charging with the Oath and so forth, the spirit is given a blessing in the name of the powers and asked to return to its natural abode and habitation. When the charge has definitely left, the ritual is closed and—if really needed—the talismanic object destroyed (depending on what sort of object it is). There would be no need for any ‘banishing’ ritual added at the end of proceedings if that were seen to be accomplished, unless the talisman was made for some evil purpose involving demons. In that case a blessing would not count for anything and the devil might be hiding in your hat or a favourite piece of ceramic art.
That is the simple expedient solution, but the matter is far from being that simple in reality. Assuming the ritual of consecration was done effectively: by the will of the operator, a non-human intelligence has become part of his human individuality. It thus gains an individuality it would not otherwise possess. If that were not so then no result could be obtained. Taking the consecration of a planetary talisman of Mercury, for example, out of one of our books:
“I shall consecrate and charge a talisman so as to form a true and potent link between my human soul and the wisdom of TAHUTI. To this end I have brought into this circle a talisman, covered with a veil and bound thrice with a cord, so it shall not move until it be duly consecrated…”
Furthermore, it is declared towards the end of the ritual:
“May the spirit Taphthartharath charge this talisman with mighty force! Thus may his nature become illumined and glorified, even as the crown is placed upon my head, and the knowledge received in my heart that abideth forever and forever.”
That is a mighty spell! The oath declares that this spirit has become part of the soul of the magician and so when the magician achieves salvation, or liberation, then naturally the spirit achieves it too. It has become absorbed into the individuality, as was explained previously, and even the integral individuality. Is it the will of the magician at a later date that this should not be the case, having declared such a solemn oath? A father can legally revoke an inheritance afforded his offspring, but can he revoke all the elements that clothe that soul that are the inheritance of metempsychosis? It is true that such elements are strictly temporary and are as ‘clothing’, so not forming part of integrality. We have explained this previously in ‘Reincarnationism’.
But in the case of the talismanic operation divine power has been invoked so the talisman enjoys human life for the duration of that life and even beyond, so participating in the spiritual destiny, be it heaven or hell. The term ‘familiar spirit’ is derived from the Latin familiaris. It has intimate implications and is related to trusted household servants. The earliest known Egyptian kings arranged it so all their family and very extensive retinue and domestic servants could be buried in, or otherwise around and nearby, their very elaborate and astronomically constructed tomb—a temple that was in every way a talisman intended to endure for thousands of years, and millions of years in the hereafter.
The word ‘talisman’ is derived from the Greek telesma, which shares a root with ‘Tetelestai’ said at the conclusion of a Mass, ‘It is complete, it is accomplished’. Then how can it be undone? Taking this further along, Nescit Vox Missa Revertis (NVMR) is inscribed on the Ace of Discs in our Tarot, ‘a word once uttered is irrevocable’. No past deed can be undone in reality because the past does not exist, it has returned to the undifferentiated prakriti ground substance. It can only exist as smrti retained impressions, in the memory. What is done is done. And yet human beings put themselves through endless suffering when they enter into the delusion that thoughts and actions can be undone or ‘put to rights’, which also leads to seeking revenge in the name of ‘justice’, and which only perpetuates the vicious nature of sin, bearing forth more and more poisoned fruits from the same poisoned tree of afflictions.
Talismanic operations are a willed production of samskara latent impressions. Those are sometimes referred to as ‘indelible’ in the Yoga-Sutras, and while the use of the latter term is not absolute as such things are subject to mutation over time, there comes a point, from the human perspective, where the karma has reached the end of its karmasaya cycle and is exhausted. By the law of apurva, the knowledgeable relation between two things, Nuit (as Shakti power) is not only the ‘cause’ that is in itself causeless, and unaffected by anything, but is also present in the resultant.
See ‘I Am That’, The Way of Knowledge in the Reign of Antichrist.
Certainly, one must give very careful thought to such a matter as the deconsecration of anything, before going to action over it. This is not to say that it cannot be done, only that it needs thinking through as to whether it really needs to be done and if so, to know exactly what is being done. Supposing, for example, the object itself was imperfectly made. This is comparable to making a bad drawing that one wants to dispose of. Likewise, potters smash up pots when they come out of the kiln a bit wonky. The pot is a very useful analogy and we will return to it. 
This brings to mind the whole question of what is a talisman and where is it really, if it has a location? That touches on the nature of being and how we perceive reality. The Golden Dawn very usefully provided the Z ‘lightning flash’ formula for talismanic and evocatory operations. They had a very peculiar notion about talismans though. They obviously thought it was about ‘bringing life and movement to inert matter’. Aside from the fact that both ‘matter’ and ‘inertia’ are modern concepts unknown to the ancients, it is impossible to make a non-sentient object ‘come alive’. A pot is a pot and while a pot can undergo changes of state—as for example when someone smashes it—no amount of saying magical spells will change the pot to such an extent that it will get up on legs and dance around the room. It is true that in ancient times there were magicians or fakirs that were so skilled they could produce illusions that would be very convincing, but it is unlikely anyone can do that now. The modern conjuror is no more than a clever engineer. Such engineering can be extended to modern governmental and corporate campaigns in the ‘public interest’, especially where ‘safety’ is concerned.
The ancient Egyptians had no concept of ‘matter’ and their view of objects was very different from ours. It was less removed from the idea of consciousness itself. So in their art they depicted pots on legs and there are no ‘inanimate’ objects in their works. The boat has a face on it, the oars and rudder are creatures, and so forth. We must not suppose that the Egyptians imagined that pots really get up on legs and dance around while we are asleep at night—although if we bring the dreaming realm into it then that is much less restricted than the corporeal, so almost anything can happen. The figures were to communicate principles. So the pot walking about on two legs was to indicate ‘bringing forth’.
To get back to the absurd notion of ‘bringing life to inert matter’, we have to recollect, as within the bounds of ordinary physics, that nothing in nature is really inert. We know the talismanic object itself, as exterior to our perceptions, is neither inert nor sentient, so where does a creature of talismans reside? It is the space occupied by an object that is the ground for the Samyama Yoga meditation.
See ‘Power of Knowing Distant Objects’, Metamorphosis—Hermetic Science and Yoga Power.
If a pot, for one example, is destroyed, this does not alter space in any way. Also the fact that there are multitudes of pots, each a container or envelope of space, does not change space, apparently contained by them.
While air or vayu is not the same principle as space, the vayu principle is very much involved in talismans. The character of vayu is movement, and to move anywhere there must be space to move in. All talismans, whether their telesma finality is deemed as one of the four elements, seven planets or twelve signs, are of the nature of vayu. The latter is a modification of prana, the essential substance of ‘life’, or ‘breath’, of which everything is made. It has a quite exact relation with the Hebrew ruach, mind, spirit, and breath of life. The Ruach Elohim is said to have brooded upon the waters of the deep and Being was produced therein. This is why we have the saying that a talismanic operation is to give life and movement to something, even when we know that ‘something’ is not truly inert and cannot become sentient, as exterior object, however much we will it to be so.
The vayu principle is the key to knowing how aspiration, inhalation and expiration take place with regard to assimilating unindividualised elements from the cosmic environment and then sending them back out in a changed form, so they become a part of the integral being, which is vastly more than the individual human modality. This has its correlation with pranayama and the ritual movements that follow the motions of stellar bodies as about the Pole star. The Pole star is called Antriksha, ‘fixed’ in Sanskrit, as it is relatively motionless.
Aspiration, inspiration and expiration are also mirrored in a Mass. The chalice is raised, and then brought back down, a cross signed and marked in the centre and then the contents consumed. Although the Mass is then done, accomplished in the Greek word Tetelestai, it does not stop there but goes on and is able to effect transformation in all states of the being.
To return once again to the question, ‘where does a creature of talismans dwell?’ We infer that the creature of the telesma does not actually dwell in a piece of parchment paper or some other housing. At the same time we are careful to wrap the talismanic object in a covering of cloth. The consecrated object is a type of condenser for the storing of a particular kind of force, as has been determined by the operation of consecration. It requires some kind of insulation, to ensure its effectiveness. It has written on it the name of the spirit, and very likely a sigil or ‘signature’ formed from the number of the name and letters, especially if it is a planetary intelligence
By the name, Nama, the subtle form, Rupa, is produced. It is a principle not an individuality, until it is joined with the soul of the magician. Thus it is the principle that is wedded to the soul of the operator and assimilated. That is not the end of the matter, however final the word telesma is regarding the due actions of the operation; the effect is ongoing and undergoes transmutations that are even able to obtain outside of and completely beyond the human modality. This is, in a certain respect, one reason for doing such an operation in the first place. In the wording of any spell to return a creature of talismans to its natural abode and habitation is then implied the idea of a change of location (and so a change of state). The true location, as has been established, if the consecration was effective, is not only the soul of the practitioner but also the integral being, which is much more than human as it encompasses all states of the being. Such a return of the creature or soul then is not truly feasible, as we have shown by now. Once a change of state has been undergone, there is no return to a previous state of being.
What then of the talismanic object itself, assuming it is no longer wanted? An amulet is made to ward off undesirable forces, whereas a talisman is made to attract forces that are desirable towards the sphere of the operator. This goes on working in the way of a cathode. The nature of the intelligence in regard to the spirit or telesma has been assimilated by the magician—although that is not a foregone conclusion for every time someone consecrates a talisman. For example, one person will hear the words of a guru and get nothing from it at all. Another hears the same words and knowledge is awakened in them. In the case of assimilation, the product of the original operation would not be affected by any kind of removal or ‘banishing’. The ritual of deconsecration would amount to simple neutralising of any force, ‘magnetism’ or residue still active. The blessing to the spirit is really a matter of observance of the principles involved. So long as due attention is given to the powers concerned, there should be no harm done by tracing pentagrams or hexagrams in the reverse direction to that used for invocation. Getting such a procedure in the right order is quite important: One does not close the door on the guests and then, in the way of an afterthought, thank them for their company from behind the closed door!
It remains for something to be said about talismans that are carelessly taken out of their locations, even thoughtlessly unwrapped and exhibited for public amusement. The breaking open of ancient Egyptian tombs and plundering of the treasures sealed up in them was at first the work of tomb robbers, always regarded as criminals by the ancient Egyptians, and was later continued by adventurers and Egyptologists. This pastime was particularly popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but no doubt it still goes on. It is ignorance of a magnitude but there it is.
The ancient Egyptians were very accomplished at magick and whenever such desecration is perpetrated, whether ‘in the name of science’ or ‘for public interest’ or whatever, psychic residues break out and cause havoc. The extent of this might even be of the order of major catastrophe sometimes but it is best we do not speculate here.
What we can do is recollect the astonishing (true) account of Dorothy Eady. It is not possible even to summarise the beginning of that story as it is very involved but what is relevant here is that while a child—she was born in 1904 at a time when unwrapping mummies was at its height—Dorothy’s mind and body was completely taken over by the psychic remnants, with complete memories, of an ancient Egyptian priestess of Isis. This is not ‘reincarnation’, as Eady always pointed out, though she was not completely sure what it was.
The Egyptian King Sety I that subsequently visited Dorothy also denied reincarnation as a possibility. And this is completely correct, for reincarnation has no part in any traditional knowledge and is a metaphysical impossibility. Metempsychosis on the other hand does fully explain what took place. A soul that enters discarnate existence after death is no longer human but can retain human memories and desires. Both the king and the priestess entered a part of Amentet that corresponds to the nether worlds—not the darkest hells but far from heaven or the celestial abodes. The priestess had broken her vows of celibacy when she gave way to the desires of the king. On realising that she was pregnant, she committed suicide before the priesthood could find out. King Sety was wrought with grief and guilt, as well as desire for the priestess, and he retained all that in Amentet after the death of his body. He confessed in the narratives that he suffered very greatly. Therefore, by the power of desire and magick, and it seems with the help of a learned priest, he sought to do what is otherwise impossible, to re-enter a human life to fulfil his yearning. This was done by the transfer of the complete memories of the priestess to the mind and body of Dorothy Eady, and then by taking vitality from the latter to build a semblance of a subtle form by which he could enjoy conversation and sexual congress with his former lover. While all of this explanation will seem as improbable to most persons as the highly detailed account of Dorothy Eady herself, if knowledge of the principles involved is gained it is not at all improbable—though no less extraordinary for that.
That brings Episode 3 of Metaphysics of the Real to a close. The music I played on the guitar was a flamenco improvisation on ‘Waves of Spain’, Y. Shilin, and my original composition called ‘October’.
Thank you for your attention.
Sophia be-with-us forever.