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“It is a stone and it is not a stone, it exists everywhere in nature but is ignored or despised, it is unknown and yet known to everyone, it is made of fire and water, it is fluid without weight, it comes from God but does not come from God.”  (The Philosopher’s Stone – the summit of philosophy)

An “Occult Blind” is the concealment of hidden and symbolic meanings of secret arcane knowledge within couched terms of a “Secret Language”. Occult Blinds are used to satisfy those who might be idly curious or seeking power and influence over others and in seeking Occult Secrets will read advanced magical manuals but who will be tricked by believing the surface meaning of the carefully written text and will then leave satisfied thinking they have gained high level powerful knowledge and believing also that they understand the secrets of practical occultism. In this way through the use of the Secret Language the true meaning behind the Occult Blind is cunningly concealed and protected so that only the most devoted occult student or genuine seeker of inner truth will spot the hidden meanings for they have as it is said “Eyes to See” and “Ears to Hear” for they can “Read Between the Lines”. In this way a whole sub system of high level spiritual knowledge and wisdom is carefully preserved but available to all who have done the necessary preceding groundwork. The beginner can read the most advanced manual yet they will only pick up the surface meaning, whereas the Initiate or Adept will get quite a different meaning and interpretation depending upon their own level, previous experience and knowledge. It is however said that the real secrets of Higher Occult Knowledge cannot be simply learnt from books for they have to be tasted through experience and digested over long periods of time and accordingly the knowledge will gestate Within and reveal deep mysteries for the seeker in the future. Occult Knowledge and Secrets are accumulate in their net effect and gradually the pieces of a massive mystery puzzle will come together for those devotees who persist upon the Quest for Higher Spiritual Knowledge.

For example the Spiritual Quests for the Holy Grail, the Elixir of Life and Alchemy and the Gold or the Philosopher’s Stone are all not literal quests to be taken as they stand, in order to be understood properly it must be realised that they are allegorical and full of metaphores. The real meaning of these Mystical and Magical Quests is carefully hidden and concealed for they represent Magical Initiatory Systems and Paths that are Inner Journeys whose results will be Life Changing and may bring about a total transformation in terms of our consciousness and in how we live our daily lives. Therein is of course a clue to the key for the fact that these Spiritual Quests exist suggests that since the dawn of time the average human being does not live truthfully nor in alignment with the principles of the Absolute Divinity. These Quest are all about coming to know the Reality and Truth behind and about the very existence of man and woman upon the Earth in relation to the smallest DNA molecule through to the entire Cosmos itself. These High level Secrets will eventually reveal the Inner Revelation of “As Above So Below” and the Lightning Flash of personal Enlightenment will bring Unity and a connectedness to ALL THINGS within. Life is amazing but how much better it is when you “Come to Know” what it is all about for then you can begin “Truly Living”.

Occult Blinds are employed to convey Higher Knowledge and Wisdom to the Initiates without revealing these Secrets to the uninitiated who might profane the Mysteries or do harm to themselves or to others. For this reason the Spiritual Path also unfolds in stages through a series of minor Inner Initiations that will eventually lead to the Initiation Proper and eventually to Advanced Adeptship for some. Also no one else can Initiate you for the Initiation takes place within – it is an internal process of personal empowerment. Much garbage is talked about with regard to Initiation and the Blind Seeker of Truth would think it was the formal Ceremony of Ritual Initiation that conferred power to them, however this is not the case as a Ceremonial Initiation is simply a formal gesture that suggests Initiation may or may not have already occurred. There are many Initiated people who have not really got a clue about Higher Knowledge as equally there are extremely Advanced Adepts who have never been through a formal Initiation Ceremony. Initiation can only ever take place Within us it is not conferred or given to us by others. As the acclaimed Occultist and writer Dion Fortune once said “There is One Initiator” and by this she meant YOURSELF for she also was employing an Occult Blind as this fact was also once a High level Occult Secret. Even today there is a gross misunderstanding about the processes of Initiation particularly in what is termed as “The Craft of the Wise” a misnomer indeed in many instances that I have seen across the years.

Nostradamus for example had to conceal his Occult activities or he would have been tried for Sorcery by the Inquisition under their so called “Divine Authority” conferred upon them by the then all powerful exoteric church authorities. The Prophecies of Nostradamus, or Quatrains as he termed them, were all cleverly written, encoded and encrypted into anagrams and further they were written in mixed languages including French, Portuguese, Greek, Latin and Qabalistic Hebrew. Yet even in these more enlightened times there is still a disturbingly unenlightened tendency for people to attempt to read and interpret the prophecies and work of Nostradamus as it stands. The Prophecies of Nostradamus cannot be taken at value but must be read “Between the Lines” so as to speak for they are a clever and intriguing puzzle indeed. This same practice of reading between the lines has to be applied to Hermetic Texts, Gnostic Literature and all quality Esoteric, Mystical and Occult Literature for there are “None so Blind as Those who Cannot See”. It might be added also that there are those who cannot see and also those who will not see and this is something worth gently reflecting upon.

Occult Language and terms are in a somewhat perilous condition today with regards to the existing terminology that they employ. Modern Occult Language or parlance is an idiom composed of Ancient Sanskrit terminology that has been through Western processing through the application of Theosophist Wisdom, this also has been merged with archaic or barbarous jargon that has it’s origins in the Ancient Mystery Traditions of Egypt, Greece, Chaldea, Qabalistic Hebrew, Mediaeval Alchemy and bastardised Latin. Added to this adventurous esoteric language melting pot is also terminology from modernist Christian Mystical literature, psychological terms, the principles of Cosmogony, and increasingly new terms from physics and metaphysics. Thus Occult Language, terminology and parlance is pretty much a complex study in it’s own right even with the matter of Occult Blinds put to one side. It is no wonder that the Adepts say even today that “The Mysteries are well guarded and protected”. The Occult Language in it’s own right is a kaleidoscope philosophy which requires much sorting out before it will even reveal the beginnings of a coherent and meaningful pattern. When Kenneth Grant for example wrote that “the Alchemists Metals were living substances” he refers to the erotic secretions especially those of women, this in turn is a pointer to the Mysteries of Tantra or The Yoga of the West. Whilst Kenneth Grant’s late mentor Aleister Crowley referred to the Elixir of Life in his book Magick In Theory and Practice as “The highest form of the Eucharist is that in which the Element consecrated is One. It is one substance and not two, not living and not dead, neither liquid nor solid, neither hot nor cold, neither male or female. So Crowley was referring to the Eucharist or Christian Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ as the united sexual fluids and secretions of man and woman during sexual intercourse.  Yet how many Christians that attend the conventional church would realise what exactly they were religious celebrants of and how many of the clergy would also know the significance that they were celebrants of the reproductive life force. Odd then that prudishness has often ruled unrivalled within the Christian Church for it’s celebrants perhaps do not practice that which they are preached as a belief system.

The Secret Occult Language has many names such as the Green Language (Langue Vert), the Language of the Birds, the Twilight Language, Closed Language. Twilight in Sanskrit is “Sandhyabhasa” and this too is a secret name for the Twilight Language of esoteric terminology in which Tantric Knowledge and Sacred Texts are recorded, it is also sometimes termed as “Intentional Language” as it can often lead to several different interpretations. Sandhyabhasa” itself is said to be an “amalgam of Sanskrit and Bengali language”. Very similar Hidden Language as already alluded to is included within the Bible and can be interpreted and made use of through the Qabalistic System of the Tree of Life. Alchemists, Occultists, Tantrics, Gnostics, Hermetic Heretics and the like have long written down their mysterious secrets in carefully couched and veiled terms that may only be grasped by those understand the symbolic hints, prompts and guarded explanations – this being the reason why Initiation Rituals are or at least should be guarded and secretive. In the East menstrual fluid is spoken of as “Red Wine” and the Lingam and Yoni are called “Thunderbolts” in Tibet (the “Bell Ghanta”). Many advanced occult secrets are hidden within Gematria or numbers. Also in Taoist Wisdoms the Uterus becomes the “Deep Veil” and the Vagina becomes “The Mysterious Gate” and other terms such as “Union of Skilful Means and Profound Cognition” may offer esoteric insights – this being a secret codified term about the transmission of secret techniques and images that are based upon sexual energy or Kundalini – it is a way of referring to the sexual union between a Man (Means) and a Woman (Cognition) who are Adepts, all very highly secret stuff whose real significance is known only to Initiates of a certain calibre and degree. This being much the emphasis of the point of the Secret Language for nothing can be taken to mean exactly what it says at a surface level – it has to be regarded at a far deeper level and then the inner truth of the matter will be revealed and the Higher Mysteries may begin to become clear over a longer period of time.

The Twilight Language is especially constructed and structured language that works upon more than one level or indeed many levels, indeed it is fascinating to think that Magicians and Occultists throughout the ages have formed their own Mystical Language. It is an obscure language with a set of surface meanings as well as a possible whole series of concealed or hidden meanings. It is the concisely structured language which teaches the Mysteries of All things and Unveils the Most Hidden Truths if you can interpret it aright. The Twilight Language is pretty much universal in it’s scope and it is said to be the “Most Spiritual of all the languages”.

The writer David Ovason suggested that this Secret Language also known as Green Language can be translated into French to read as the “Langue Vert”. Now in French he suggested that as “Ouvert” means “Open” if you convert “Ouvert” to “Vert” then you get the opposite meaning which can be interpreted as “The Closed Language”. Thus we might conclude that this Secret Language is an overt way of offering something concealed and couched within innuendo or inference. The Occult Secrets are cleverly concealed within their own meaning. Nothing then in written Occult Sacred Texts and Magical Instruction Manuals should ever be taken solely at face value. The more malicious of the Occultists such as Aleister Crowley for example actually used the Twilight Language in a very misleading manner. Crowley firstly used filthy and lewd metaphores to scare away the weak and the prudish from Magical work, also he put in extremely dangerous pitfalls for the unwary on the basis the Adept would spot the Occult Danger whereas the Inept would get into very serious trouble quite quickly! However, Crowley saw these Dangerous Blinds and misuse of the Twilight Language as quite legitimate as ultimately in his view people got the form of Enlightenment that in his opinion they most deserved. That is the real importance of being aware of Occult Blinds and the Twilight Language – to use a legal term “Let the Buyer Beware”!

How then might this Twilight Language be structured? Well I myself for example use capitalisation where a CAPITAL LETTER would not usually be appropriate for I am giving a particular word enhanced EMPHASIS!!!  Anagrams can also be used such as AMORC which means The Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rose Cross which holds the secrets of Ancient Magical Orders going back to Hiram’s time in Ancient Egypt, the Ankh or Key to Life, the Rose and the Cross, the Rose with 32 petals representing the 32 Secret Paths of the Tree of Life – a Rosicrucian is “Born Again” or an Initiate. 32 Paths is a Qabalistic Blind for there are 22 Paths and 10 Spheres upon the Tree of Life. A word or phrase may also be Reversed for example “Am I to find God in a DOG?”. Logical words can be substituted for illogical words thus the odd sound of the written text would alert the reader that something secret was being said or implied. Anything out of context in an Occult Book is noteworthy and worth deeper consideration. Missing letters or extra letters in words are also significant for the esoteric writer is emphasising a point – they are giving Know-Ledge about Dis-Ease if you get MY ddrr-iifftt. The real meaning of Twilight Language can be extremely complex indeed. A very subtle trick was to use a word that either sounds like or mimics another word e.g. “Reading this article could bring you a real PAIN” meaning “Reading this article could bring you a real GAIN”. Old or outdated phraseology can also be Twilight Language for example “The modern Briton would read this article” would be immediately noticeable to an Adept’s Eagle Eye. Qualifying words can also be important for example “The Eagle Eyed Mage realised the significance of the Eye on the Tarot Fool’s leather satchel”. If the lower case where used where you would expect to see upper case lettering then again someone is perhaps emphasising a point. Unusual abbreviations might also be pointing the way to arcane knowledge.

Paul Dunne - http://occultlibrary.info

This article originally appeared in the Inner Light Journal, Vol. 23 No. 3, published by The Society of the Inner Light.