NAMES ASSOCIATED WITH THE STORY OF GILGAMESH

MBM Lectures

January 1948

Gilgamesh     also spelled Izdbar and Gisdubar by various authorities.  The name of a king of Eridu (Erech) of the first dynasty (circa 3000 B.C.).

              Shamash (the Sun-god) is his father; Rimat-belit his mother.  Utnapishtim is his ancestor.  Allegorically he is the human self under the Natural Law.

Eabani     also spelled Enkidu.  Made of clay by Aruru at the command of the gods when the people protest Gilgamesh’s oppression of them.  Allegorically the higher self, who first lived on the mountains.

              “He knew neither kin nor country

              with the gazelles he ate grass

              he satisfied his thirst with the cattle”

              (mystical symbolism)

/

Rimat-belit   lady of Rimat.  The priestess mother of Gilgamesh.

             Allegorically the soul who served the gods.

Ea            the Lord of Wisdom; the Greater God,

              the splendid Logos who empowers his Messengers and Teachers.

Aruru         the goddess of conception, the formative mother-side of heavenly activities.  She who formed Eabani.

Tsaidu        the hunter sent by Gilgamesh to learn about Eabani.

              Allegorically the seeker, or questor aspects of the self.

Ukhut         hierodule (sacred slave) at the Temple of Ishtar.  Dedicated to the service of the Temple and living there.  (Outwardly known as Temple prostitutes – a mystery concept of ancient times.)  She who drew Eabani, the higher self, into earth by revealing the beauties and delights of the world, earth.

Eridu         the older name for the city of Erech, once at the mouth of the two rivers, and therefore on the gulf.  Silt accumulates at a rapid rate, thus Erech, the city of which Gilgamesh was king, is now far up the river.  Allegorically the physical world where the lower self exercises power.

Alu           the mighty bull created at the demand of Ishtar to do battle with Gilgamesh because he refused her advances.

Ishtar        the great goddess of spiritual power and wisdom; wearer of the jewels of justice, truth, beauty; et cetera.  She who is the source of spiritual (Buddhic; noetic) fecundity in earth.  In non-esoteric fields she is degraded to sense fecundity.

Khumbaba   the monster who dwelled in the “Forest of Cedars” whom Gilgamesh and Eabani slew.

Utnapishtim   ancestor of Gilgamesh.  The counterpart in Mesopotamia of Noah.  The builder of the boat “according to measurements,” of whom Gilgamesh seeks the secret of immortality.

Mt. Mashu     the mountain at the boundary of Sunset land, the marker at the division between two worlds.

Scorpion men  those.beings who have the power of ultimate testings, and therefore of transformation.  Isis, for example, was accompanied by seven Scorpions in her work of transformation.  Note that Scorpio is the only sign among the twelve which is replaced by a higher sign when transformation has taken place.  Then it is called the Eagle.

Adad-Ea       also Ur-Shanabi.  The Ferry-man.  At first he refuses to ferry Gilgamesh over the barrier, but at Gilgamesh’s determined insistence he consents and becomes his aid.

Sabitu        also Siduri.  The goddess who dwells at the edge of the great sea in a strong fortress.  She wears a veil and is seated on a throne.

The Tree of the gods   found by Gilgamesh on his search for Utnapishtim when he had travelled for twelve days through thick darkness without losing himself (sic!).  It bore precious stones as fruit.

The Plant of Eternal Life  Compare with the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.  It would assure living within another plane and is incompatible with life in earth.  Contrast this Plant with the Tree of the gods.

Thorn          the pains which puncture the lower human self and help to liberate it from the fixations in earth.

Serpent       the serpent who “steals” the Plant of Eternal Life from Gilgamesh while he is drinking.  The spiritual or noetic Power (Law) which withholds life on other planes until the span in earth has been accomplished.

Mammitum      the arranger of destinies.

 

 

Gilgamesh and Enkidu

(also titled Romance of Gilgamesh)

series of two lectures by MBM

May, 1938

and a few notes on a Symposium

following the series.

 

Series of excavations at Nineveh in the middle of the 19th century.  Ashurbanipal did for that part of the country what Alexadner did for northern Africa.  Built up a library and collected the great pieces of literature of previous ages.  Temple of Nebo on the grounds, and in it also a library.

The saga on twelve tablets.  Symbolical relation to the twelve labors of Hercules – the progression of the soul through the twelve stages.  Included is the story of the Flood.  The Noah story derives from a much earlier story in Mesopotamia.

Adam-Kadmon.  Castor and Pollux, the Twins, or the-two aspects of the self.  The two elements entwined in the life of a king of Eridu, Erech.  He was king of that country.  The knowledge of spiritual realities which this ancient people possessed.  As significant, and more vibrant, than many stories today.

Translations (Izdubhar; also Gabhor ?)  Translating an ancient language not easy.  Over the figure of the king was superimposed the Wisdom-teaching of that time.  As has been done with other great leaders throughout the history of (the ?) time.  Gradually added.  Like strata.

Born of a priestess of the Temple.  Father, the sun-god.  Familiar in all the great races.  As with Jesus. Behind the consciousness of one who has reached a certain stage, like our hero, is the awareness of the Great Source.  Spark struck off from the anvil of Ptah, the Creator god.  Allegorical opposites (?)  The father had to make away with Gilgamesh.  Gilgamesh is thrown down from a tower, an eagle catches him.  The king bird.  A mature soul, he is being nourished by those things that belong to the higher.

Gilgamesh at first a tyrant, oppressing the people.  Call on one of the gods, Aruru.  The gods consider carefully, and instruct Aruru to make another being, Enkidu.  Made out of mystical clay.  Eabani.  This being is set upon a tall mountain.  Lives with the gazelles.  Gazelles are symbols of the higher nature, as is the mountain; that which has not become tarnished by the lower worlds.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu are twins.  Gilgamesh, the material self, – the self that comes first, which builds up in the physical world with things; is absorbed in the things of the world, the business of the material life.  That brings about distress, always.  The same distress that our world is in now.

Enkidu is the higher self, if drawn down toward earth.  Cain and Abel.  Not two men.  Cain = Gilgamesh, the material self.  And for a long time that which Abel represents is in the background.  Because the material man goes through his evolution first; and it is only when you have learned some of the lessons of the material plane, – that they are not wholly satisfactory, that the sign comes for the other side of life to come closer to you, or you to it.

The Abel-Seth line is in the background till the Jesus motif.  Because the spiritual man comes much later: “The first shall be last”, the material man.  And that which came later, namely Enkidu, is later, and shall be first.  The fruit of the tree comes late.  It becomes first in your valuation. .  . . The selves that send up a cry for release from the absorption and stagnation in the material world.

Tsaidu, the hunter.

Gilgamesh wants to know who this is on the mountain, and wants to draw him down.  Gilgamesh has had intimations.  Have you never had intimations of your higher nature?  Have you sent out your Tsaidu?  He sees this mountain.  Enkidu slips away to the mystical being on the mountain.

Ukhut, a beautiful woman, to be sent with the horn to get Enkidu down.  A prostitute from the temple.  When they come near to where there are signs of Enkidu they hide behind bushes.  When Enkidu drinks with the animals, who represent unsullied nature at that stage, on the mountain, – not in the valley.  Ukhut exposes herself to Enkidu.  He sees her beauty and spends six days and seven nights with her.

Who is Ukhut?  Of course, the word prostitute, in sacred literature, means something very far removed from the common idea of the word.  She is to begin to draw the soul, spirit, down toward earth.  Her task is to show the beauties of the lower worlds.  In Genesis it is made a sin — the Fall — which has frightened so many people, and kept people under the taboo of sin.  Really the picture is the other way.  It is the wonders of the possible development, the beauty which man, as mind, can develop in earth.  These she shows to Enkidu.  The mountain top is the Garden of Eden.  A station in the path of the descent, or of involution.  She says: this is not the end of things.  There is much more to be learned, – wonders and experiences which you could never learn up there.

Enkidu sees the wonders of that world.  Is drawn down to earth, – because it is a process, not an act.  And as this higher self is being drawn down it remembers, for a brief spell, the Eden stage it is leaving behind.  But as he seeks to go back among the gazelles they flee him.  Because he has already wrapped about him some of those conditions which belong to the lower world.  You can’t go back.  You must go down, through, and up.  You can’t return except by development.  The animals represent the stage before man, mind, is put on.

Ukhut sits down under a tree with Enkidu and tells him of Gilgamesh, this great king, who lives in Eridu, and flames the desire in Enkidu to go down.  Enkidu wants to know him.  Gilgamesh in the lower world saying the same thing.  The affection between the lower man and the higher man is becoming operative.  They are being drawn together.

Enkidu is finally led to the great city of Eridu, which welcomes him.  Enkidu and Gilgamesh become great friends.  They are drawn to each other strangely.  There is something that escapes the word of mouth to describe.  Some invisible force is drawing them together.  He admires the things of the city: your lower life has done things the higher self acknowledges that — sees that, – is drawn toward you, but it also must be reciprocal.  That which has become king of earth then yearns toward the higher.  The twin.  Or the two aspects on the two sides of the door.

A logical picture.  Some great dragon is to be conquered.  Because these two are one, though called by two names.  The dragon who lives in the Forest of Cedars — sacred trees, – tall.  Khumbaba is the dragon.

The two aspects decide that they must conquer this dragon.  You who are studying esoteric processes know that that is part of the evolution, or the Ascent.  Everyone must do them.  You must see it, in part or in toto, as this great battle.

Some of the gods warn them from it.  Nevertheless, our heroes, in spite of being warned, are setting out to kill this creature.  In spite of difficulties, in spite of hardships, the self must conquer, however great are the obstacles.

So our heroes set off.  After much struggle, In which there are experiences with dreams, in which they have visions of their next steps, they finally slay this being.  Now Ishtar begins to observe Gilgamesh.  (She has ?) watched the gradual absorption into Gilgamesh of Enkidu.  That is the process by which we should all move forward.  The eternal tale of the transformation of the lower man at the time when he becomes ready, consciously, to undertake his development.

Who is Ishtar?  It is a serious error to despise these gods.  Pagan.  Some things are called by different names: Allah-Jehovah; Ishtar-Holy Spirit.  In Mesopotamia five thousand years ago Ishtar meant Wisdom in action.  And that Wisdom in action was revered.

Now a paradox!  Gilgamesh has done well; has become a hero; has assimilated the higher nature.  Before that he was the crude, material man, who sought to dominate with material things.  Therefore, the higher life, Buddhi, the spiritual plane, the noetic plane, is beginning to take notice.  Those in the kindergarten are taken care of by those just above.  Now come the ministrations of Ishtar.  Now Ishtar is seeking to win Gilgamesh as rapidly as possible to spiritual stature.

Like Ukhut in the earlier stage, though it takes thousands of years, Ishtar too is revealing her charms, her beauty.  Not sensual.  She wants Gilgamesh for her lover.  But Gilgamesh, still a bit raw and ignorant, is reluctant.  He says: You have loved them for a season, and tossed them aside.  You have let them die, or suffer.  “Those whom the Lord loveth he chaseneth” (Job).  Krishna and his pipe.  Gilgamesh had mystical relations with her, and dropped her.  Can you read the allegory?  And remember, that all great teachings are on three levels.  The allegory comes first.  Gilgamesh, like humans, didn’t understand.  He dreaded the pain that would come by attempting to live the life with Ishtar.  Jesus found that out.  He answered the call of the Holy Spirit, and look at the price he paid.  No one who listens to that voice will be otherwise than mutilated.  But if they are considering that the measure of things . . . in this dimension they will not have understood Ishtar.  Ishtar would scorn.

Ishtar is filled with wrath, says the allegory.  No god is wrathy.  But the price of any step you take is to be paid.  The law of cause and effect.  And to have drawn attention of the higher by merit, and then to let it slip by, is akin to what, in the Christian tradition, is the unpardonable sin.  The price Gilgamesh will pay is heavy.  This story is the secret version of Everyman, – because everyone is not ready, – but all those who are.ready, the awakened (to) their higher nature, – who have become fairly well masters of things in this dimension, – who conquer the personality and have built the individuality, strong and sturdy, and have their hands on the halter of things of this world.

The gods consider: What shall we do to avenge Ishtar?  Ishtar herself says: Create a great bull, and shall it combat with this rash upstart.  Gilgamesh, who started up and didn’t continue.  The gods are loath.  Because, if they make this bull and send him down to earth there will be a seven years famine.  That is code.  But finally this mighty bull is made and is sent down to earth.  He seeks to do combat with our dual being, Gilgamesh-Enkidu.

And now we find that Enkidu is a little bit more absorbed into Gilgamesh.  Because, losing his higher nature, his sensitivities, when he was on these higher planes, he had it as a seedling up there.  He sees the bull through the eyes of Gilgamesh.  The two heroes are now met by the bull.  They attempt to do battle.  In the beginning they do not succeed.  There is much distress.  In the dream they are told that they will kill this bull.  Having had the dream, they are greatly heartened.

Presently, with great struggle, they kill the bull.  Now is Ishtar indeed wrathy.  It means that those higher planes, the Holy Spirit, is seeing the power in this lower being, and is again striving to lift it up.  Because, when spirit does battle with man in earth, it is a terrific battle.  And so, when the great bull is slain, Ishtar rebels.

But now Enkidu, seeing this battle, mocks Ishtar, and throws the entrails from the bull around her shrine.  Symbolizes Behemoth in the Old Testament.  That is the bull — the gigantic creature of the earth – the sum total of the powers that belong to earth.  In the Mithraic religion the bull also plays an important part.  Derived from the ancient Persian teaching.  It is the symbol of all the life in the earth.  And he who conquers that animal has conquered earth.  So this animal is the overtone of the dragon killed in the Forest of Cedars.  To prove our hero.  But he is not fully wise.  He does not grasp what it is all about.  And the higher self, which has been drawn into the lower, has lost its sensitivity to the higher.

So Ishtar again rebels.  There is a considerable scene between Gilgamesh-Enkidu and Ishtar on the other hand.  Because Enkidu has mocked Ishtar he is smitten with a severe sickness.  Has closed off his higher seeing, – his sensitivities.  That is the sickness of the soul.  So Enkidu dies of this strange sickness.  It has come about because he is like Cain in the Old Testament.  So this higher self is again slain, and Gilgamesh is left bereft of this higher self.

Is Gilgamesh actually bereft of Enkidu?  No.  It is a mystical process that has gone on — a process which means that this one type of life has been absorbed in the other.  The other self now is drawn into earth and, with the material self, will continue the involution and then the evolution.  So this consciousness of Gilgamesh is not yet capable of carrying within it the knowledge that that is so.  So the second half of the story continues with the search of Gilgamesh for the beloved friend, Enkidu.  These two have developed a rare love for each other.

Enkidu, who came last, should somehow come into the picture again, and dominate.  And the Gilgamesh, who came first, shall be last.

Gilgamesh is a man of fire.  Every hero must be fire.  That is the way he starts out.  Predecessor of Hercules and the twelve labors; Aries.  And which closes it up when the twelve labors are done — the completion.  The snake with its tail in its mouth.  May take millions of years.

Eabani  (Enkidu)  Ea is the Logos, – that great reservoir of Wisdom, in the masculine aspect, from which all else is derived.  So Eabani is that Will in operation; and Eabani is a little ray of that as it comes down, when you are developed that far, into each one of us.  Without the seeker and the searcher in you, Tsaidu, Gilgamesh and Enkidu could never come together.

Ukhut, the prostitute, is to be read in mystical language; the one who shows forth beauty, – who draws down the higher self to the aid of the lower self.  The lower self needs the higher self, needs that which draws it down, by reason, by beauty.

Aruru: the goddess; the residue of Wisdom-lore on the higher levels.  Ishtar is nearer to earth, closer to man — Holy Spirit.

The priestess, the mother of Gilgamesh.  Belit.  Khumbaba, who dwells in the Forest of Cedars.  Al-lu, name of the bull.

 

 

The Romance of Gilgamesh

Lecture II

May 13, 1938

 

Gilgamesh, the model of the dual man.  Overdoes the life of earth.  Counterpart, Enkidu, the form on a mountain top.  The descent of the higher aspect, which gradually draws down into earth as the lower self has left its sphere of dominance.

Wrath of the gods: the price you pay for mocking the higher.

The godly (?) creature: not a physical bull.  In his horns is oil.  After Gilgamesh has killed the bull he offers the oil to the sun god; the powers of those horns being offered up to the sun god — nous, the god, as average man knows God.  Gilgamesh, overcoming the dragon wins the power in it but does not offer it up to the sun god.  Gilgamesh gives it to Shamash.  This is a sign of the increasing prowess and ability of our hero, Gilgamesh.

But Enkidu becomes ill, and presently dies.  It is because the bull has been slain, and the powers of the bull partially absorbed into Gilgamesh that the aspects of the higher life, which Enkidu symbolized, have passed their phase.  It is over.  As the older leaders are superseded when Jesus comes.

But Gilgamesh has been used to the association with his beloved friend, Enkidu.  Gilgamesh only knew the higher through the forms of Enkidu, and missed the proximity. Vows he will find Enkidu.

Gilgamesh bethinks him of Utnapishtim.  Because Utnapishtim was a great king — so great that out of a whole people he was saved; the Babylonian Noah.  Starts to find his way to immortality, not to disappear like Enkidu.  The Journey of advanced seekers.  Knows he must travel through a wasteland.  Many strange and terrible episodes.

Sin, the Moon god, aids him in the first stages of his journey (soul, the octave nearer earth than spirit-nous.  Mind filling the soul full; when the soul is full, or complete, moving up to the next octave, nous.)  It is logical, then, that the moon god helps Gilgamesh.  The first progress is via the soul.  Later the soul is assimilated into nous.  The church assimilated into Christ, Buddhi.

Gilgamesh is now setting forth.  Has passed through the gorges, the last that belongs to the lower regions, with the help of Sin, or the collective soul.  He comes to a great mountain, Mashu.  At the pass between the peaks of the twin mountains – heaven and earth, of soul and of spirit.  Arrives at the gate before this mountain.  Symbolizes the great heights to which he, or any pilgrim, must climb.

Here he meets some strange beings: Scorpion Men (code name.)  Reference to the seven great scorpions who always accompanied Isis.  Scorpio is the only sign of the twelve which is occasionally, and rightly, represented by its super-sign, the eagle.  Scorpio is the sign of transformation, – death and rebirth.  In spiritual stature alone there is no death.  (The Scorpion men)are splendid and shining.  They are great.  Their majesty is so great that very few can bear the sight of them.

They are, of course, barriers.  The great, the glorious, is far more a barrier to men than difficulties, as we ordinarily conceive them.  Because these other tests are measures of our capacity to endure, or to transform upward.  So is it necessary to transmute.  And that is what Gilgamesh is doing.

Gilgamesh is observed by the Scorpion Men to be two-thirds god and one-third man.  An indication of his stature.  His lineage is the sun-god.  Same as yours.  But it is not yet become active.  Your soul lineage is active.

So the Scorpion Men warn Gilgamesh of the great dangers ahead.  But they do not block him.  Because he is already to that degree transformed.  They tell him he will go for six days and seven nights through a thick darkness.  That is a test.  It means difficulty.  Six periods of time, plus one.  We grow long and far before we grow hero flesh.

Gilgamesh goes through the test.  When it is over a new day dawns.  A figure of speech: a new period of light and wellbeing.  Because he has taken his tests and emerged in a freedom from all those things that belong to the lower stages of life.  That is a new day.  Our story marks the steps of ascent.  The Christian tradition has virtually none of them.  Because Jesus was teaching the outward lessons.

It is strangely beautiful.  It is moving him.  He sees the tree of the gods.  A shining tree.  Its fruits are jewels.  The gods are those who, via this evolution, or another, have already attained great stature.  They have come on to these heights long before.  They have already won that stature.  The land where the power they have won are their jewels.  The tree, the symbol of development; powers, abilities, qualities, stature.

Gilgamesh must go on still further.  He leaves the plane of life in which the godly ones live and moves farther on his journey to seek Utnapishtim.  Another strange encounter.  His garments are made torn.  A figure of speech.  As he draws near to a certain place he sees a great castle on the edge of the sea.  Here lives a goddess.  None but godly ones should come to this land.  Here comes one, travel-stained and weary, – torn and filled with all that dismay that accumulates over long and testing journey.  She locks the door.  His way is barred.

Who is the Lady?  Remember Khidr, where the Sea of the East and the Sea of the West met.  The strange being whom Moses sought.  She is a guardian there, and at the same time a great Teacher — a reality, not a figment of the imagination.  We are past anything that belongs to the imaginative faculty.  These are objective realities on other planes.

Will she yield to the importuning of Gilgamesh?  She too looks at him and sees he is already partly god.  The goddess grants him passage.  Tells him he must now seek a ferryman, to cross over this great sea.

The Ferryman and his boat.  Like the goddess, he will have nought of him.  Gilgamesh picks up a hatchet and begins to slash into the Ferryman’s boat.  That too, a coded (?) test.  Presently the Ferryman agrees to ferry him.  But there must first be something done, that is: to bring a new rudder.  What is a rudder?  Something by which you steer.  You see, our story, in subtle ways, is trying to tell us that we are venturing on still higher planes; and that, to move into those higher planes, we must have new ways of going.  There are peculiarities to all planes, or regions, of life.  For each you must learn the ways and means.  Some with the powers of mind and soul; so it can’t be told.

Having made it (the rudder) he brings it back to the Ferryman.  And they start out on this journey.  Across the sea.  And on and on they travel.

As they travel, Gilgamesh becomes ill.  A strange sickness consumes him.  (Reference to some thing of this kind at Mt. Everest.)  The altitude.  Our traveler is in a very high plane.  The atmosphere is getting more and more rare.  He cannot breathe in it, though it has nothing to do with physical lungs.  He is not there in the body of physical flesh.  He is not yet attuned to this stage.  He is now lying in the bottom of the boat, exhausted.

Presently there is visible, a shore.  On that shore stands one who sees the coming boat, Utnapishtim.  The ancestor awaiting him.  There is something far more powerful than telepathy.  That is only the next means of communication.  Utnapishtim knew what was transpiring.  Gilgamesh, prone in the bottom of the boat, greets his Ascestor.

He asks the secret of immortality.  Utnapishtim tells our eager, yet prone hero, that he cannot tell him what he has come so far to seek – that it is not yet for him.

In a later edition of the story, in another library, – another kind of eleventh tablet, Utnapishtim tells the story of the Flood.  Why is the allegory of the Flood inserted?  First of all, there was a great flood.  There were great beings in different countries who were salvaged by beings out of the flesh, – belong to the re-peopling of the land.  Utnapishtim was chosen in that region.  The same story is told in forty or fifty different lands.

On top of the historical fact was projected a teaching out of Wisdom-lore.  Because Gilgamesh’s life permitted it.  The same thing with Jesus.  The Fourth Gospel.  In the allegory, the first coding of the Wisdom-lore, the secret teaching, you will find that the Ark story — the ark built according to dimensions given by some god or being out of the flesh, is the story of the ways of man’s Ascent through the first stages.

Now we see why the story is singularly germane, – why it is inserted here.  Something Utnapishtim tells him Gilgamesh has not yet learned.  The story is wisely inserted here.

Gilgamesh does not like that.  Why tell me that story?  We don’t want to be in degree (?) to them.  We want it quickly.  There are times to want slowly.  The hero who is the three-thirds god will have learned that, with exquisite adjustment at all places.  He will know what to do.  Gilgamesh is out of patience with the story, – does not get the point of it.

Utnapishtim says: I can’t give you the secret of immortality.  He is moved by the predicament of Gilgamesh.  So is the syzygy, the counterpart.  Utnapishtim says to the syzygy: “Make a magic potion.  It shall have seven secret ingredients.”  Sacred ingredients.  He turns to Gilgamesh and says: “I shall give you this magic potion, and you shall sleep for a period of time.  And when you awaken you will be strong.  Like taking the mountain climber to a lower climate.  Something not yet perfected (Gilgamesh) because the seven, the other third, is still to be accomplished.

Gilgamesh falls into a deep sleep.  How long?  Why do you think he should have slept that period?

Gilgamesh is refreshed.  Now again Utnapishtim and Gilgamesh talk.  Gilgamesh, in spite of this sleep, has not forgotten his objective, and immediately asks again: “Utnapishtim, tell me where can I find the secret to immortality.”  Utnapishtim says he will tell him, but that there is a hard journey ahead.  And he gives him the key to it.

So Gilgamesh and the ferryman, who has now become his good friend, set forth on another lap of this long, and strange, and wonderful journey.  Presently they come to a place where is growing a curious tree.  Gilgamesh at once knows that it is the Tree of Life. One of the trees in the Garden of Eden story.  Gilgamesh goes forward to pluck a branch from this tree.  It has long and sharp thorns.  Gilgamesh is badly wounded.  Has nevertheless plucked it.  Thanksgiving.  He takes it in his arm and goes forth.  He begins the return journey.

The two trees in the Garden of Eden story.  They are not trees at all.  But had souls chosen not to come down into earth they would have avoided many difficulties, strains and tragedies, but they would not have developed minds.  If we had eaten of that Tree of Life we would have known without knowing that we know.  Would not have valued, – would have had an entirely different state of being.  By the same token, if you break off a branch of this tree before you are ready for it, something is going to occur.  We are going to be badly wounded.  Now you may appreciate why, with singular correctness, holly is associated with Christmas.  Period.of re-birth.  Stinging.

Another part of the picture concerns the mistletoe, – the Golden Bough, symbol of the Tree of Immortality.  The Druids.  Permits the one who possesses it — it is not a bough – to enter into all regions, – pass in and out again.  Sesame.  That tree is a golden tree.  Not golden, but the color of the higher heavens, – dark blue, – lapis lazuli.  The treetop is lapis lazuli, – the higher mind, the mind completed, because it is completed in its earthly development, and can now function in the higher planes.  Should he have the branch and keep it?  Now they travel back.

Who is the Ferryman?  That power of progress in yourself at a higher stage.  Desire and will carried into action.  Not only desire and will; you must have the ability to wisely steer your course, the rudder.  Majestic folk, who know a million things, through experience, that earth does not know exist.

They travel twenty days.  Pause to offer up oblation to the gods; then continue their journey.  Now journey thirty days.  On land.  Gilgamesh sees a spring of fresh water in the distance.  You can’t see it unless you have at least fourth dimensional vision. Gilgamesh is still in very high planes.  He sees this spring, and hastens to it, because he would drink, and bathe, refresh himself.  So he goes to the spring to drink.  He has, presumably, laid down that branch of the Tree of Immortality.

While he is having a drink and washing, a serpent smells the sweet perfume of this branch, moves toward it, takes it into his mouth and carries it away.  And now Gilgamesh comes back to where he had laid down the branch, and it is gone.  All the trials and tests seem to have been for nothing.  He weeps.

The serpent is the symbol for the forces of life, therefore the symbol here for a force of how power and wisdom is withdrawing from Gilgamesh what he has, as yet, no right to possess.  That sweet odor, – that quality, is not yet for Gilgamesh.  So the sensitivities of great forces, of mighty entities watching over the evolution of souls, protect souls from their own rashness, even as Gilgamesh was protected.

Now the return journey to his city of Eridu, Erech.  There he begins re-building the walls that surround the city.  The story virtually closes with that.  He builds with the help of the Ferryman.  All the time his friend Ishtar… There is no such thing as the wrath of the gods.  But there is the price of invoking the higher laws, if you dare to invoke them.  They are incomparably more potent than ours of earth.  These others far more so.  If therefore you invoke them, or attempt to reach into those higher stages, and do not qualify, you have engaged them; they are working upon you, and that is the wrath of the gods.

What is the building of the city walls?  How to immunize yourself; how to build around the household of the selves — the many selves in you, the strong wall which enables you to endure, will understand the allegory with which our story is connected.  It is the perfect, or logical, end.  For our hero is not yet three parts god.  He is only two parts god.  He must come back.  As all great traditions will tell you, here or there, somewheres, to complete that.  Because the making of the godly man is a tremendous task.  Requires much.  Therefore those steps of purifying the lower self, to return again to the assault (?) as our hero will, is right.

There is evidence, in the sequential way these steps are unfolded, that the secret tradition was known in those days, and was presented to the world, outwardly, in allegory.  That is the first way of presenting the secret teachings.  You can’t possibly move to the other until you have learned that thoroughly.  Then you move on to the next.

Fragments from answers to questions

He remembers, and so gets another chance.  Goes on to another stage.  Utnapishtim tells him where he can find the branch.  Pricks it. Thorn.

The return journey. Serpent smells the fragrance and takes it away.  The traveler not lost.  Strengthens the walls around the city.

Tablets in cuneiform writing.  Legend in Rawlinson, Smith, Sayce.

King of Eridu.  Erech.

Khumbaba.

Forest of Cedars; set up by the gods.  Guards, but pays no attention till you have gained.stature.  Never to spiritual, only to psychic.  Sees the suffering of former lovers.

Gesture toward the Larger.  Repudiated.  Dragons.

Bull, Allu.  To destroy Gilgamesh.  All the powers of the earth element.  The power of creativeness.  Fecundity.  Seven years famine; all the powers of vitality, which the bull symbolizes, are withdrawn into the bull instead of spread.  Testings bring difficulties, until certain finalities are reached.  To succeed is to invite greater strain.

bringing the higher self, with his strengths, potentials, to the earthy self, so that you can make the alchemical change; transform the lower self by virtue of the new potential.

Enkidu dies.

Mashu, the great mountain of earth.  The mother of higher things.

Great stature.

Scorpion men: splendid beings.  The eyes of mortals can’t bear them.

Twelve days of darkness: the cycle that belongs to man.  New day: new stage.  Tree of the gods; top, lapis lazuli.  Goddess at the edge of the sea.  Ferryman.  Rudder.

Sleep six days and seven nights; the night to any state in which you are manifesting is as the day to its higher aspect.  In your sleep you can reach infinitely further than you can in your waking state.  That is why your sleep is more contributive.  The balance is in favor of sleep; waking must be there too.