Chapter 8: Eshu
The gray concept is Mercury. Gray is neither black nor white. Of all the planets that can be seen, the planet Mercury is the hardest to find. Mercury is the God of knowledge. Schools, learning, and teaching are all under Mercury. The sacred name of Mercury, SHIN, means learning. Schools in a civilized society often become institutions of domestication, where people are broken, like horses, to do what the system wants. Schools can be used to train people to steal from each other. Civilization keeps going by organized thievery called business, and everyone in civilization is made a part of it. Mercury is the God of Thieve.
Mercury can also be a necessary part of a nature-loving religion. Our temple can have priests. The priest is the one who ministers the religion to the people. The system of symbols, concepts, and ideas is the Hermetic system of a religion, which the priest might learn and use. Mercury is the messenger of God. A priest is a messenger of God. Mercury is the high priest, who can teach the Hermetic system.
In many ways, a professor at a. civilized university is a priest for the civilization. Civilization itself is a form of religion. In civilized societies, higher education is often limited to the few who fit the system. The universities are there to initiate people into the system, and not really there to teach. Sometimes this forced initiation is done against a person’s will, if he doesn’t want to be made part of the system. I prefer an open culture where anyone can learn if they want to. I also prefer a society where no one is forced to learn.
In ancient times, the priest would wear horns at the Sabbaths to distinguish himself. When the old pagan religions were replaced by anti-Nature religions, the man with horns became known as an evil symbol. The meanings of many old pagan Gods were forgotten. Many civilized religions consider the old pagan Gods evil Demons. I prefer the old pagan, nature-loving cult. The Horned God is the good God in my religion.
You might notice how different cultures often write different stories about the same God. In Egypt, Thoth is considered wisdom. In Greece, Hermes is a messenger of God. In northern Europe, Odin is king at the center of everything. In Babylon, Nebo was an astrologer. In India, Agni is the god of ceremonial fire. These are different ways of looking at Mercury. Even within a culture different people can have different points of view, so you might find all these different Mercuries in every culture. All these Gods are classified in my Hermetic system as Mercury, because each of these Gods was the high priest. The ancient Greeks knew that Thoth, Odin, Mercury, Agni, and Nebo were all really Hermes.
In ancient times, people often exchanged information over long distances. A fairly similar Hermetic system was being used in ancient times all over Europe and the Mediterranean. Everyone worshipped the same family of Gods, even though they gave them different Names. Other cultures that were completely separate from Europe, such as the Mexican Indians, also have similar Gods. These Gods can easily be classified on the Hermetic system, as if all mankind really worships the same Gods. I think each culture discovers the same family of Gods simply because all people encounter the same conditions in life. I discovered many of my Gods simply by thinking about things that I have seen happen.
Reality is more than point-of-view, and there is a real world out there. Our view is only an imaginary butterfly that someone could follow over a cliff that he never thought was there. We have to keep our senses open to find our way in this world. Our inner nature motivates and guides us as we explore our world. Each person is different. Just observe a bunch of babies and you will get an ideal of what I mean. Notice how different people search in different places and specialize in different kinds of knowledge. Adults do it, too. We never stop doing it.
Our environment leads us to believe in things, even things that don’t exist. The way something makes a person feel affects how a person sees it. Our feelings create images. Man is biologically made to see things in at particular way, in a particular place. It only works properly when things are in their right place. If we were another species, we would have a different system and see things in a different way, but we are not another species. Only someone living naturally can see things naturally. Anyone outside of Nature will see things distorted, develop perverted ideas, and never know what he could know if he was natural.
By world, I mean every-thing in that world, even the thoughts and opinions of people are part of that world. Man synthesizes his knowledge to create it, but the raw material he uses to make knowledge comes from what he has learned or felt from the world. This is true of everyone—even those who deny the material world. Those who deny the world simply got the wrong idea somehow.
As we discover the world, we create opinions about it. It is possible for these opinions to be wrong, especially when a person is letting a belief decide things for him, rather than actual facts. For example, a civilized man who has never been in nature might think Nature is evil. In civilization, many people are conditioned to believe that what they are doing is right, even if it isn’t. The preparatory process of conditioning, through which civilization puts its chosen, removes the person’s ability to distinguish right from wrong.
Environmental factors that can influence a person are people, ideas, emotions, politics, philosophy, expectations, and anything else that affects your life. Your environment is also made of things that you have done. The environment is creating you, but you also create your environment. People have a way of doing things that is caused by their way of seeing things. Their way of seeing things is caused by their way of doing things. Ideas influence the way people act. There are idealistic ideas, which are false, but the influence they have on people is real. An insane idea. would be one that causes you to act unnaturally, or create an unnatural situation. Unnatural situations can cause unnatural ideas.
Man’s knowledge is not limited to each person alone, because people group together into a knowledge pool, where people learn from each other. Even the words you use to think get meaning by how people use them. A society’s behavior can be affected by how its members think or feel. A society acts the way it feels, much as a single man would. It is affected by the environment, and also creates its environment. Different conditions can cause different societies to think differently. Some cultures, such as civilized cultures, are detached from nature and their mind thinks unnaturally. Some are part of Nature and their mind thinks naturally. Most civilized men have never really examined their beliefs. They just think whatever cultural bias is the norm in their culture.
There are many things people want and expect to get. You might find a lot of expectations that don’t happen, even when you try. You might see that Good does not always win over Evil, nor is the end of the tunnel always lighted. There is no divine law that makes our expectations the purpose of the universe, even though we might want them to be. The holy spirit that guides the world might seem sometimes to be a wise guiding hand, or sometimes he might appear to be purposely deceiving us. This holy spirit is called Eshu. You can see him as an Angel or a Devil, depending upon how he fits your expectations.
As we go through life, we make choices and develop plans. When we get to the crossroads, we have to choose which path we want to take We might not know where the road will lead us, but we have to use what we think we know to make the choice. The way You see things can determine which path you take. Eshu means rising or beginning, such as the beginning of an ideal or the beginning of a. journey. The word, initiation, can also mean the beginning of journey down a path. Each step You take throughout your life is your own initiation. You choose to do it and you discover from it. The word, initiation, also means learning.
For some people, initiation means the beginning of their religious devotion. For many priests, it is an IAO ritual where they destroy their old self and start a new self. This could be very self-destructive. Perhaps it would be better if your initiation is a natural continuation of your life or you will wind up fighting yourself. I want a nature-loving religion, where even the priests walk down a natural path.
Some people think Eshu is the Devil, because he sometimes leads us down the wrong path. Actually, there is nothing evil about going the wrong ways occasionally. We learn from our mistakes. If Eshu sent us down the right path all the time we would never learn anything. There are many wrong paths you have to take to find the right path. Man’s natural ability to think is not evil. Today, man’s ability to think has created civilization, which is a wrong path, but we can still realize our mistakes and try to find the right path.
At the crossroads there are many paths to choose. A belief is where we think each path might lead. The truth is where each path actually leads. You can picture the crossroads with Eshu in the middle of many paths leading away from him. Each path leads to something different. You can think of the Zodiac as the truth at the end of each path. The Zodiac is everything, stable and absolute. Mercury is a point-of-view in the Zodiac and the active thinking of man.
Every time you start a new journey, you will be starting over again, like the rising Sun. You can become experienced, but you cannot know if your knowledge is true or not. You are always starting from the beginning, every moment of your life. Eshu is always young. There is a grown up, mature Eshu called Legba, but you will never be completely grown up. There is always more to learn. You can try to become Legba but you will never reach that point. There is always another hill to climb. The crossroads is where you always are. If you think you have reached the end, you’re mistaken and Eshu will trick you again.
The name, Eshu, can be spelled as Esu. This name appears in the center of Yesuo, which is Jesus. Jesus is sometimes called the Christ spirit. I’m not too sure what the Christ spirit is supposed to be. Esu is sometimes called the Devil spirit. Eshu is the rising sun and the point where everything begins. Yesuo is what everything is traveling through. Yesuo is man’s body and his environment. The S in Yesuo is Shin and means learning.
Eshu means rising. Evo means setting. Eshu is East, where the Sun rises. Evo is West, where the Sun sets. The path between the two words is the path of life. Eshu is the source of the word, Asia, the land of the rising Sun. Evo is the source of the word Europe, the land of the setting Sun. Evo was once pronounced Euo, even though modern witch cults pronounce it Evohe. Evohe comes from the word EUOI, which is a sound people make while having sex, and was used in the mystery cults of ancient Greece, as a secret sacred name. It is Tetragrammaton, the four-letter word. There is another sacred four-letter word that was used since ancient times, and is still used today by just about everyone. Only a real pagan would recognize its sacredness.
The environment can affect how you feel and what you believe, and your biggest environmental factor is yourself. The path you choose will be your environment. Everything you do is done to yourself. You might take a wrong path, which would lead you to wrong ideas, which can lead you farther down the wrong path. People often get into an uncomfortable situation and can’t get out of it because their self-made environment has given them an attitude that prevents them from getting out. They don’t realize that they are creating their own Hell, that a simple change in course could free them from. It may be difficult to break a habit that keeps you on a wrong path.
Mankind has many choices to make as he selects his path A shaman can help our society become more uncivilized. A shaman is not exactly a priest. Generally, a priest learns his craft from some kind of institution in his cult. I usually think of priests as lawful and solemn. A shaman is someone who has the ability to communicate with the Gods. They invent their own religion. They are known as wizards. Generally, shamans are chaotic personalities, under the influence of the dark forces of Evil. They are the most uncivilized of all people. Usually after a society is conquered by civilization, a few shamans are the only ones who still try to live in the old ways.
Only a few people are born with the shaman’s curse. Shamans were a vital part of a primitive society. They can see things in a way most people can’t. They could make a society’s view of the world make sense, or not make sense. They ministered religion to people, back when we were part of Nature. They are not just plugged into their own unconscious, but also the unconscious of a society. The mythology, ethics, styles, and attitude of a culture is like a map that the Shaman can read. Perhaps they could feel Nature’s ways and a society’s needs, and guide people to follow the right natural path. All societies produce a few of them. The genetic trait that produces them could be a natural part of us. Even though they are often insane, they could be a selective advantage to the society. Their insanity keeps the society sane; therefore, natural selection has molded mankind to be a species that produces a few shaman. They are the gifted winged ones. In a natural society they become important, but in a civilized society shamans are lost. Their vision fails to fit civilization, so they end up as confused social rejects. Civilization has rejected the shaman in the same way that it rejects all Nature. The shaman should be up on a hill seeing and dreaming about their view of Nature but most cannot find Nature in civilization.
Even back in primitive times, the shaman was often considered a crackpot. Generally they separate from society, alone with their personal Demons. They would only come back to the rest of the tribe when they had some reason. A shaman’s reason for doing anything is something even the shaman might not understand. A vision quest is like performing a spell. And the meaning of this spell is the important part. Perhaps, in order to know this meaning various allies are needed. These allies can be almost anything, from things to thoughts. The shaman’s magic bundle might look like a bag of junk. His activities might seem pointless. The places he goes might seem strange. The shaman can seem quite mad.
Often, the shaman has to travel through a mystical door to enter the world of the Gods. In order to better demonstrate what I am talking about, I will show you what this door might look like, using some of my own concepts. The gray, circle, with the six-pointed star in it is a map, which uses a mystical order of the concepts. The circle is eight, the number of the priest. In the middle is four, the number of the door between this and that. The six-pointed star inside is made by uniting two triangles. The red triangle, pointing up, represents fire, the spirit. The green triangle, pointing down, represents matter. This is the symbol of the seasonal God.
During the winter solstice, the creator spirit unites with Mother nature and conceives a son. He is born in the Spring, reaches maturity during Summer, and dies during the Fall. Each point in the symbol is connected by a line to a point on the opposite side of the symbol. A brown line represents the circle of the equator and connects the Morning Star of denying passion, which appears in the East, with the Evening Star of asserting passion, which appears in the West. The purple line represents the circle of the Zodiac. The two lines cross during the spring equinox. The spring equinox is the Door through which the son is born. An invisible mystery line connects the Sun with the Zodiac. The mystery line also connects the top point of the red triangle with the bottom point of the green triangle. The red triangle is South and the green is North. If you picture this symbol in the sky, East and West would be on opposite sides of a. picture of this symbol on the ground. This symbol had a very special meaning during the Golden Age, when the mystery line was the Milky Way.
In each age, the symbol has a different meaning. The Taurian age was a door, along the purple line, with Saturn on one side and Mars on the other. During the Taurian Age, The equinox began moving away from the Milky way. For 6,480 years Man became more civilized, as fate moved away from the Milky Way. During the Age of Aquarius, the equinox will begin to move back towards the Milky Way. For the next 6,480 years the equinox will move towards the place where the Milky way crosses between Sagittarius and Scorpio. Scorpio is Earth, and in the Age of Scorpio, the celestial North Pole will be near the Milky way. The Age of Aquarius has Leo and Aquarius on the mystery line, which means that the Morning Star and the Evening Star were in their proper house. Hopefully these signs indicate that progress will stop. The halves of a figure eight represent Fall and Spring. Spring is the time of birth and youth. Fall is the time of death. Both halves equal four and represent the West. The God of the Spring is Dionysus, a God of passion, called EVO. The God of Fall is Zeus, a destructive thunder God, and the west wind, called JOVE. In the middle of the figure eight is the Door. Two triangles can be drawn, with one in each side of the figure eight. One triangle is Spirit. One is matter. If the triangles touch, it is a symbol of conception. If the two triangles point away from each other, it is a symbol of death and fall.
The symbol for the number four is one branch of the swastika. Eight is two branches. All four branches would equal 16, the number of transcendence. Two branches of the swastika can be drawn as two lightning bolts that stretch through the two sides of the figure eight. One bolt is 2/3 in Spring and 1/3 in Fall. The other is 1/3 in Spring and 2/3 in Fall. The symbol is only complete with both sides. The complex symbol is made from a swastika, two triangles and a figure eight, and is called the Druid. Crossing the center of the figure eight, between both sides, is a red line of the soul, which also represents the mystic who may choose to explore this symbol. It can be a door that rests between anything.
Imagine two triangles passing through each other. They touch point to point and there is conception. They unite and there is life. They separate and there is death. The purple and brown line remain connected to their points of the triangle as the triangles move through each other so that they cross each other differently in the spring equinox than they do in the fall equinox. During a Year, the Sun moves eastward along the purple line. It rises north of the equator during Spring, and sets south during the Fall.
As You draw a figure eight, you may notice how it is clockwise on one side and counterclockwise on the other. The west can be Nature’s greatest enemy or it can be a mystic’s greatest view of Nature. The door is a mystic eye between your two eyes. You can often see things better when you see the clockwise turned counterclockwise. This does not mean you destroy them.
I like to set my temple clockwise and set things that I consider wrong counterclockwise, but you don’t have to do this. It is possible for there to be a counterclockwise temple where evil is clockwise, which would be just as Nature loving as my temple. You can set things anyway You want. You can give the Gods any meaning you want. My temple is just a way of classifying things. People can see things in many different ways. Not all of these ways are right, but there can be more than one right way. Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, and any others who invent written dogmas, really don’t understand religion at all. Religion comes from the free imagination. Only the primitive shaman understands. The truth is that 10 is everything, 4 is the door and 10 is the mystic number of 4, because 1+2+3+4=10. Everything is the mystic truth of the door. The mystic truth is the key that can unlock the door. Beyond the door is the mystery line. On it a shaman can see the meaning of his culture. He can see the meaning of his age on it. If he can see far enough on it, he can see that one voice common to all shaman, Azoth.
A shaman will usually start to feel the effects of his curse when he is young. His first experience can be a total mental breakdown. In primitive societies an older shaman may help him develop his vision. Without this help, the young shaman may become confused and never realize the full potential of his gift.
When I was young in Brazil, a man who worked as a handyman at the school I went to was a sort of hermit and had a reputation of being a witch doctor. He was supposed to be a mixed South American Indian and African. He also supposedly knew both African and Indian black magic. He often noticed how I didn’t act like the other kids, and he would sarcastically tell me that I would grow up to be like him. When I started to see things and hear things and feel things, none of the civilized people understood. They wanted to destroy my vision by using psychology. I wanted to keep my vision. During recess after lunch in school, I talked to the witch doctor. He told stories. I only remember parts of a few of the stories.
In his stories, he often mentioned the Devil, usually as a cause of accidents. He usually called the Devil, "the Devil." Occasionally, during special parts of stories, he called the Devil "EXU." This had a very dramatic effect and helped me to realize the importance of sacred names. He said that Sunrise is birth; noon is maturity, and sunset is death. This helped me to construct a temple. He told me EXU is the rising Sun at the center of the crossroads of life. He told me a few stories about the female Jaguar of the jungle called Nemora. Nemora was deadly, death herself. The nuns at school taught me that Nature was deadly, and that technology could save man from Nature. The witch doctor did not condemn Nemora. Instead, he said that he himself had hunted with her. As a kid, I liked the brutality of the stories. I began to realize that his way of seeing things was not civilized. I began to realize the difference between what is civilized and what is savage. I only talked to him a few times, but I learned a lot. His information helped me develop my own vision, so I didn’t end up as confused as I would have been if I let civilization destroy my vision.
After a short time the young shaman may return to normal behavior. Many years later, he may start to feel a calling. This calling is an obsession that just happens. He might be living a happy life before the calling, and suddenly becomes mad. He might remember the breakdown he had long ago, and the things the other shaman showed him. That breakdown is the key that can help him unlock the door that the obsession wants to enter.
The shaman is the door through which powers can act upon the Earth. Through him all things are made. He gets sacred power by walking in a sacred manner. He may show other people ways to walk in a sacred manner. Though him people are healed. The fire that Prometheus gave man was religion. As he hung upon the tree, Odin found the sacred letters of this religion. This tree grows in the middle of the Earth circle. Black Elk saw this tree become weak, as civilization infected the circle of his people, but he also saw that the tree could bloom again It will, when the ancient Gods rise again. The shaman will open the door. No one else has the keys.
In Mexican mythology, there is a great king who created civilization. One day a trickster came to the temple with a black mirror. This mirror was the night sky with all the stars that represent what is, was, and will be. Inside this mirror was the truth about men. Inside of it the king saw the reflection of a man. Before this, the king did not know that his reflection was that of a man.
