History Enlightened - Volume one

Visions and prophecies

of the

Divine Feminine

a sourcebook of historical texts

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Selection, commentaries and bibliographical notes: copyright John Noyce 2006 Revised printing with index, August 2006 Copies can be ordered direct from the compiler: johnnoyce@hotmail.com Melbourne: Noyce Publishing, 2006 Print-on-demand through lulu.com, 2009 http://stores.lulu.com/sahajhist

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Contents

Part 1: Visions and Worship of the Divine Feminine

Devi Sukta

Sri Sukta

Lao Tzu: Tao te Ching

Wisdom of Ben Sira

The Orphic Hymn to Nature

Homeric Hymns: The Earth, Mother of All

Wisdom of Solomon

Trimorphic Protennoia

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Lucius Apuleius: Metamorphoses (c155CE)

Lotus Sutra

Devi Mahatmya

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Lakshmi Stuti

Mahalakshmi Stotram

Athanasius of Alexandria: Homily (4th century)

Aurelius Clemens Prudentius:

Liber Cathemerinon (4th century CE)

Boethius: De Consolatione Philosophiae (524CE)

Romanus Melodus: On Christmas

(6th century)

The Mother in the Islamic tradition

Sankaracharya: Eight stanzas to Bhavani (7th century?)

Ambrose Autpert: Assumption of the Virgin

(8th century)

Lakshmi Tantra (10th century?)

Devi Upanishad (12th century?)

Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias (1151)

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Elisabeth of Schonau: Liber visionem tertius (mid 12th century)

Alain de Lille: De Planctu Naturae (1172)

Thomas Aquinas: O most blessed and sweet

Virgin Mary (13th century)

Alfonso, El Sabio: Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th century)

Dante Alighieri: La Divina Commedia

(early 14th century)

Francesco Petrarch: Secretum (14th century)

Heinrich Suso: Horologium Sapientiae (1334)

Birgitta of Sweden: Revelations (14th century)

Christine de Pizan: Livre de la mutacion de Fortune (1403)

Angelo Poliziano: O Virgo prudentissima,

beata Mater (1492)

Devi Gita (15th century)

Guru Nanak: Guru Granth (16th century)

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Rabbi Joseph Caro: Maggid Masharim (16th century)

Jacob Boehme: The way to Christ (1622)

John Pordage: Sophia (mid 17th century)

Jane Lead: A garden of fountains (1670)

Ann Bathurst: Rhapsodical meditations

(late 17th century)

Johann Georg Gichtel: Letters (late 17th century)

Gottfried Arnold: The mystery of Sophia

(1700)

Apirami Antati (18th century)

Ramprasad Sen: O wisdom Goddess! (18th century)

Frederich Holderlin: To the Madonna

(early 19th century)

William Wordsworth: The Virgin (1821)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust (1832)

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Johann Jacob Wirz: Wisdom (1830s)

Rabbi Isaac Safrin: Megillat Setarim (mid 19th century)

Mataracamman Antati (1888)

Vladimir Soloviev: Trisvidaniya (1898)

Nicholas Roerich: Queen of Heaven (1910)

Kahlil Gibran: The Mother (1912)

T.S.Eliot: Ash Wednesday (1930)

Part 2: Prophecies

Rig Veda

Bhavisya Purana

Nadi Granth

Gospel of John

Gospel of the Essenes

Gospel of the Holy Twelve

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Gospel of Peace of John

The Aquarian Gospel

The Revelation of John

Prophecies of the Mahdi (7th century CE)

Joachim of Fiore: Expositio in Apocalypsim (1183)

Nichiren Daishonin (13th century)

Birgitta of Sweden: Revelations (14th century)

Frederich Holderlin: Hyperion (1797)

Novalis: Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1800)

Goodwyn Barmby: The Woman-power (1842)

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter

(1850)

Hans Christian Andersen: The New Century’s Goddess (1861)

Vladimir Soloviev: Let it be known

(late 19th century)

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Lady Caithness: The mystery of the ages (1887)

Anna Kingsford: Clothed with the sun (1889)

Count August Cieszkowski: Oicze Nasz

(late 19th century)

Tau Valentin II (Jules Doinel): Gnostic Catechism (1895)

Lionel Johnson: Vita Venturi Saeculi (1902)

Tau Synesius (Leonce Fabre Des Essarts):

Letter to a religious congress (1908)

Rabindranath Tagore: Bharat Tirtha

Hazrat Inayat Khan: I can see as clear as daylight (1910s)

Zinaida Gippius and Dmitrii Merezhkovskii:

The Third Testament (early 20th century)

Vassily Kandinsky and colleagues: Blaue Reiter Almanac (1911)

Katherine Tingley: The path of the mystic

(1922)

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Jessie L.Watson: The Age of the Spirit (1927)

C.S.Lewis: The Great Divorce (1945)

Daniil Andreev: Roza Mira (1958)

Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam):

Don’t you feel a change a coming (1971)

Robert Plant: Stairway to heaven (1971)

John Lennon: Imagine (1971)

Part 3: Prophecies and visions from the Indigenous traditions

The Kagaba people of Columbia

The Pawnee people of Oklahoma

White Buffalo Calf Woman

The Seven Fires of the Anishinabe

Eyes of Fire

Chief White Cloud of the Talatawi

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Tashunca-Uitco (Crazy Horse)

Black Elk

Yothu Yindi

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Part 1:

Visions and Worship

of the

Divine Feminine

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Devi Sukta This is hymn 125 of the tenth book of the Rigveda. I move with Rudras and with Vasus, I move With Adityas and all Gods by My side, And both Mitra and Varuna I support. I support Indra, Agni and the Asvins. I uphold Soma, the destroyer of the foe. I sustain Tvastri and Pushan and Bhaga. I reward with wealth the offerer of oblation and the devout worshipper pouring the Soma. I am Queen, the Gatherer-up of treasures, the Knower, the First among the Holy Ones. The Devas have established in many places, Me who lives on many planes, in many a form. The man who sees, who breathes, and who hears what is spoken through Me alone obtains his sustenance. There are those who dwell by My side but know not. Hear thou who hast hearing: I tell thee the sacred truth.

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Yes, I myself say this, - and these My words must needs be welcome to Devas and men - One whom I love I make mighty – make of him a Brahmana, a Rishi, a gifted man. For Rudra I stretch out the strings of His bow to slay the fierce enemies of the Realised Souls. And for the people, I engage in battle; and through the earth and the heaven I spread. And on the summit I bring forth the Father. My home is within waters, in the ocean, From where I extend to all existing worlds; and yonder heaven I touch with My forehead. And it is I who, like the wind, breathe forth Chaitanya and set all existing worlds in motion. Beyond heavens and beyond the earth am I, and all this have I become in My splendour!

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Sri Sukta�

This hymn to the Goddess in the forms of Sri and Lakshmi is appended to the Khila Sukta in the Rig Veda. verses 5-6 I resort to Lakshmi for shelter in this world, Who is beautiful like the moon, shining brightly, Who is blazing with renown, Who is adored even by the gods, Who is highly magnanimous, and grand like the lotus. May my misfortunes perish! I surrender myself to Thee, O Thou, who art resplendent like the Sun!

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Lao Tzu: Tao te Ching verse 25 (extract): There is one thing that is invariably complete. Before Heaven and Earth were, it is already there: so still, so lonely. Alone it stands and does not change. It turns in a circle and does not endanger itself. One may call it ‘the Mother of the World’. I do not know its name. I call it TAO. … verse 52 (extract): The world has a beginning: that is the Mother of the World. Whosoever finds the mother in order to know the sons; whosoever knows the sons and returns to the mother: he will not be in danger all his life long. …

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The Wisdom of Ben Sira (2nd century BCE) This text was originally written in Hebrew by Yeshua (Jesus) Ben Sira, and translated into Greek by his grandson. In section 24, Wisdom states 24:3-6 I came out of the mouth of the most High, and covered the earth as a cloud. I dwelt in high places, and my throne is in a cloudy pillar. I alone encompassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep. I had power over the waves of the sea, and over all the earth, and over every people and nation. 24:30-34 I also came out as a brook from a river, and as a conduit into a garden. I said, I will water my best garden. and will water abundantly my garden bed: and lo, my brook became a river, and my river became a sea. I will yet make doctrine to shine as the morning, and will send forth her light afar off. I will yet pour out doctrine as prophecy, and leave it to all ages for ever.

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Behold that I have not laboured for myself only, but for all them that seek wisdom.

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The Orphic Hymn to Nature This ancient Greek ode praises the Goddess as Mother Nature. O Nature, mother goddess of all, artificer mother, celestial, venerated, goddess of richness, sovereign, all subduer, untamed, steering, lighting all, almighty, nursing mother of all, undecaying, first born, legendary, enabling us, Born of the night, all wise, light bringing, powerful in restriant The track of your feet is whirling and silent motion O sacred one, cosmic Mother of the Gods, unending one, bringing all to completion, common to all, but belonging to yourself alone, self-fathered, yet without a father, beloved, gladsome, great, flowerlike, garlanded, beloved, accessible and wise, leader, accomplisher, life giving, all nourishing maiden, self-sufficient, justice, combining in yourself all the Graces presiding Goddess of earth, air and sea, bitter to the worthless, sweet to those who honour you, all wise, all giving guardian queen of all, Bringing food, freely endowing us with ripening plenty,

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Thou, father, mother of all, with us as nourisher and nurse, swift birth giver, blessed one, rich in seed, begetter of the seasons, Creator of all, shaper, source of all richness, sea goddess, everlasting, setting in motion, all wise, full of care, never failing, you whirl with quick force. All flowing, circular in motion, shape shifting, on your fair throne, you are honoured, alone you perfect your design, Loud thundering you sit above the rulers, Fearless, all subduer, you are destiny fiery goddess of fate You deathless, are everlasting life and know the future. You are the all and you alone create. But Goddess we pray you in good season lead us to peace, health and increase of prosperity.

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The Homeric Hymns XXX: The Earth, Mother of All I will sing of well-founded Earth, mother of all, eldest of all beings. She feeds all creatures that are in the world, all that go upon the goodly land, and all that are in the paths of the seas, and all that fly: all these are fed of her store. Through you, 0 queen, men are blessed in their children and blessed in their harvests, and to you it belongs to give means of life to mortal men and to take it away. Happy is the man whom you delight to honour! He has all things abundantly: his fruitful land is laden with corn, his pastures are covered with cattle, and his house is filled with good things. Such men rule orderly in their cities of fair women: great riches and wealth follow them: their sons exult with everfresh delight, and their daughters with flower laden hands play and skip merrily over the soft flowers of the field. Thus it is with those whom you honour 0 holy goddess, bountiful spirit. Hail, Mother of the gods, wife of starry Heaven; freely bestow upon me for this my song substance that cheers the heart! And now I will remember you and another song also.

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The Wisdom of Solomon (1st century CE) Written in Greek by an unnamed hellenized Jew of Alexandria in Egypt, possibly in the fourth decade of the 1st century CE. Chapter 6

Wisdom shines bright and never fades; she is easily discerned by those who love her, and by those who seek her she is found. She is quick to make herself known to those who desire knowledge of her; the man who rises early in search of her will not grow weary in the quest, for he will find her seated at his door. To set all one’s thoughts on her is prudence in its perfect shape, and to lie wakeful in her cause is the short way to peace of mind. For she herself ranges in search of those who are worthy of her; on their daily path she appears to them with kindly intent, and in their purposes meets them halfway. The true beginning of wisdom is the desire to learn, and a concern for learning means love towards her; the love of her means the keeping of her laws; to keep her laws is a warrant of immortality; and immortality brings a man nearer to God. Thus the desire of wisdom leads to kingly stature....

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....For in wisdom there is a spirit intelligent and holy, unique in its kind yet made up of many parts, subtle, free-loving, lucid, spotless, clear, invulnerable, loving what is good, eager, unhindered, beneficent, kindly towards men, steadfast, unerring, untouched by care, all-powerful, all-surveying, and permeating all intelligent, pure and delicate spirits. For wisdom moves more easily than motion itself, she pervades and permeates all things because she is so pure. Like a fine mist she rises from the power of God, a pure effluence from the glory of the Almighty; so nothing defiled can enter into her by stealth. She is the brightness that streams from everlasting light, the flawless mirror of the active power of God and the image of his goodness. She is but one, yet can do everything; herself unchanging, she makes all things new; age after age she enters into holy souls, and makes them God’s friends and prophets, for nothing is acceptable to God but the man who makes his home with wisdom. She is more radiant than the sun, and surpasses every constellation; compared with the light of day, she is found to excel; for day gives place to night, but against wisdom no evil can prevail. She spans the world in power from end to end, and orders all things benignly.

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Trimorphic Protennoia (2nd century CE) A Greek Gnostic text from the Nag Hammadi Library. (extracts) I am Protennoia, the thought that dwells in the Light. I am the movement that dwells in the All, She in whom the All takes its stand, the first born among those who came to be, She who exists before the All. Protennoia is called by three names, although She dwells alone, since She is perfect. I am invisible within the thought of the invisible One. I am revealed in the immeasurable, ineffable things. I am incomprehensible, dwelling in the incomprehensible. I move in every creature. … I am a single One (feminine) since I am undefiled. I am the Mother of the Voice, speaking in many ways, completing the All. It is in Me that knowledge dwells, the knowledge of things everlasting. It is I who speaks within every creature and I was known by the All. It is I who lift up the sound of the Voice to the ears of those who have known Me, that is the Sons of the Light. Now I have come the second time in the likeness of a female and have spoken with

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them. I shall tell them of the coming end of the Aeon and teach them of the the beginning of the Aeon to come, the one without change, the one in which our appearance will be changed. … So now, O Sons of the Thought, listen to Me, to the Speech of the Mother of your mercy, for you have become worthy of the mystery hidden from the beginning of the Aeons, so that you might receive it. And the consummation of this particular Aeon and of the evil life has approached and there dawns the beginning of the Aeon to come which has no change forever. I am androgynous. I am Mother and I am Father. It is through Me alone that the All stands firm. I am the Womb that gives shape to the All by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendour. I am the Aeon to come. I am the fulfillment of the All, that is Meirothea, the glory of the Mother. I cast Voiced Speech into the ears of those who know Me. I am inviting you into the exalted, perfect Light. Moreover as for this Light, when you enter it you will be glorified by those who give glory and those who enthrone you. You

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will accept robes from those who give robes and the Baptists will baptize you and you will become gloriously glorious, the way you first were when you were the Light. …

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The Thunder, Perfect Mind (2nd century CE) In this Gnostic text, in imagery that is variously that of the Greek Sophia and of the Jewish Shekhinah, the feminine aspect of the Divine proclaims: (extracts) I was sent forth from the power, and I have come to those who reflect upon me, and I have been found among those who seek after me. Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, and you hearers, hear me. You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves. and do not banish me from your sight. and do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing. Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard! Do not be ignorant of me. For I am the first and the last. I am the honoured one and the scorned one. … I am the wife and virgin. I am the [mother] and the daughter. …

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I am the silence that is incomprehensible and the idea whose remembrance is frequent. I am the voice whose sound is manifold and the word appearance is manifold. I am the utterance of my name. … I am strength and I am fear. I am war and peace. Give heed to me. I am the one who is disgraced and the great one. Give heed to my poverty and my wealth. Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth, and you will find me in those that are to come. and do not look upon me on the dung-heap nor go and leave me cast out …

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Lucius Apuleius (2nd century CE) Throughout the later Roman empire, the Goddess was worshipped by many names, but especially as Isis. The most eloquent description was by the Roman lawyer, orator and novelist, Lucius Apuleius. His most popular work, Metamorphoses (c.155CE), describes how the overly curious Lucius was transformed into an ass by a magician. The climax of the novel is Lucius’ restoration to human shape through the intervention of the Egyptian goddess, Isis. book 11, chapter 47 Here he describes how Isis visited him in a dream, saying: Behold Lucius I am come, your weeping and prayers have moved me to succor you. I am She that is the natural mother of all things, master and governor of the universe, chief of the powers divine, queen of all that dwell in heaven and in hell; at my will the planets of the sky and the winds of the sea are disposed. My divinity is adored throughout the world by many names, for the Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, the Mother of the Gods; the Athenians call me Athene; the Cyprians, Paphian Aphrodite; the Cretans, Diana; the Sicilians, Persepine; and the Eleusians call me their ancient Goddess Ceres, or Mother of the Corn. Some call me Juno, some Minerva,

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some Hera, others Bellona, others Hecate, others Rhamnusia. But the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians, which are excellent in all kinds of ancient knowledge, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed to worship me, do call me by my true name, Queen Isis.

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Lotus Sutra These verses, in praise of the Goddess as Kuan Yin, are chanted in Chinese (translated from a now lost Sanskrit original) during special festivals in Mahayana Buddhist temples in China and Japan.

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(extracts) World-Honoured Lord and Perfect One [The Buddha], I pray thee now declare Wherefore this holy Bodhisat Is known as Kuan Shih Yin? To this the Perfect One replied By uttering this song: The echoes of Her holy deeds Resound throughout the world. So vast and deep the vows she made When, after countless aeons Of serving the Perfect Ones, She voiced Her pure desire (To liberate afflicted beings). Now harken to what came of it – To hear Her name or see Her form, Or fervently recite Her name Delivers beings from every woe. Were you with murderous intent Thrust within a fiery furnace, One thought of Kuan Yin’s saving power Would turn those flames to water! … True Kuan Yin! Pure Kuan Yin! Immeasurably wise Kuan Yin! Merciful and filled with pity,

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Ever longed-for and revered! … The mysterious sound of Kuan Yin’s name Is holy like the ocean’s thunder – No other like it in the world! And therefore should we speak it often. Call upon it, never doubting, Kuan Shih Yin – sound pure and holy; To those who stand in mortal fear A never-wavering support. To the perfection of Her merits, To the compassion in Her glance, To the infinitude of Her blessings, Worshipping, we bow our heads!

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Devi Mahatmya (4th century CE?) Part of the larger Markandeya Purana, in this Sanskrit text the Devi is extolled as the all-powerful protector of the universe. chapter 11, verses 2-3 The Devas said: ‘O Devi, you who remove the sufferings of those who take refuge in thee, be gracious! Be gracious, O Mother of the whole world; Be gracious, O Mother of the universe; Protect the universe! You are, O Devi, the ruler of all that is movable and immovable!’

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Lakshmi Stuti This eulogy of Goddess Lakshmi is from the Vishnu Purana, 7.9.116-138 Indra said, "I offer my obeisances unto the lotus-born mother of all beings, unto Sri [the Goddess of fortune], having full-blown lotus-like eyes, and reposing in the bosom of Vishnu." "I offer my obeisances unto the Goddess who is the abode of lotuses, who holds the lotus, whose eyes resemble the petals of a lotus, whose face is a lotus, and who is dear to the Lord who has a lotus navel." "You are siddhi, nectar, Svaha and Svadha, O purifier of the worlds. You are twilight, night, effulgence, opulence, intelligence, faith and Sarasvati." "You are the knowledge of sacrifice, the worship of the universal form, and occult learning, O beauteous one. You are the knowledge of Brahman, O goddess, and the bestower of the fruit of liberation."

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"You are the science of dialectics, the three Vedas, Varta, the knowledge of chastisement. O goddess, this universe is filled with your gentle and terrifying forms." "O goddess, who except you can dwell in the person of that God of gods, who consists of all forbearance, the bearer of the mace, who is contemplated by the yogis?" "O goddess, the three worlds, having been abandoned by you, were on the verge of destruction--because of you, they have again recovered their position." "O exalted one, men are endowed with wives, sons, houses, friends, grain and wealth due to your constant glance." "O goddess, freedom from bodily ailments, riches, destruction of enemies, and happiness are not difficult to attain for persons who view your glances." "You are the mother of all creatures, as that God of gods, Hari, is their father. And this universe, consisting of moving and nonmoving entities, is presently permeated by you, as well as Vishnu."

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"O purifier of all, if you forsake us, neither our treasures, nor our cows, nor our houses, nor our possessions, nor our bodies, nor our wives, are secure." "O you whose abode is the chest of Vishnu, if you forsake me, neither sons, nor friends, nor animals, nor ornaments can be mine." "O spotless one, men who are forsaken by you are also forsaken by goodness, truth, purity, good character and other virtues." "And those who are glanced upon by you, although devoid of any good qualities, are infatuated by all good qualities, such as good character, lineage, wealth, etc." "O goddess, he who is glanced upon by you, is praiseworthy, accomplished, fortunate, intelligent, high-born, heroic and possessed of power." "O nurse of the universe, O beloved of Vishnu, all virtues, character, etc., immediately abandon him from whom you turn away." "Even the tongue of Brahma is incapable of describing your qualities. O lotus-eyed one, be

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auspicious unto me. Please do not abandon me." Sri [the Goddess of Fortune] said: "I shall never turn my face from one who praises me every morning and evening with this hymn."

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Mahalakshmi Stotrum Part of the Padma Purana. O Mahamaya, abode of fortune,who art worshipped by the Devas, I saluteThee; O Mahalakshmi, wielder of conch, disc and mace, obeisance to Thee. My salutations toThee,who rides the Garuda and art a terror to Asura Kola; O Devi Mahalakshmi, remover of all miseries, my obeisance to Thee. O Devi Mahalakshmi,who knowest all, giver of all boons,a terror to all the wicked, remover of all sorrow, obeisance to Thee. O Devi, giver of intelligence and success and of worldly enjoyment and liberation, Thou hast always the mystic symbols as Thy form, O Mahalakshmi, obeisance to Thee. O Devi, Maheshwari, without beginning or an end, O Primeval Energy, born of Yoga, O Mahalakshmi, obeisance to Thee. O Mahalakshmi,who art both gross and subtle, most terrible, great power, great prosperity and great remover of all sins, obeisance to Thee. O Devi, seated on the lotus, who art the Supreme Brahman, the great Lord and Mother of the universe, O Mahalakshmi, obeisance to Thee.

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O Devi, robed in white garments and decked with various kinds of ornaments, Thou art the mother of the universe and its support, O Mahalakshmi, obeisance to Thee. This hymn to the great Goddess of Wealth, if read with devotion, will bestow all success, will grant all worldly position. If always read once a day, great sins will be destroyed. If always read twice a day, wealth and prosperity will ensure. If always read three times a day, the great enemy(ego) will be destroyed. Mahalakshmi will be ever pleased with that auspicious one.

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Athanasius of Alexandria(295-373) (Athanasius of Egypt) An early Christian bishop of Alexandria, the great coastal city of learning of Egypt. Athanasius was active in the theological disputes of the period. Homily of the Papyrus of Turin 71:216 O noble Virgin, truly you are greater than any other greatness. For who is your equal in greatness, O dwelling place of God the Word? To whom among all creatures shall I compare you, O Virgin? You are greater than them all O Covenant, clothed with purity instead of gold! You are the Ark in which is found the golden vessel containing the true manna, that is, the flesh in which divinity resides.

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Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-413CE) In hymn XI of the Liber Cathemerinon, this Roman Christian writer, resident in what is now northern Spain, tells us that the Virgin Mary is the mother of a new age of golden life: Know thou, O Virgin, noble-blest, That through the timeless tunneled glooms The blinding beauty of thy soul With childhood splendour flames and blooms? What joys are fountained for the world Within thy womb’s well, deep and white, Whence streams a new-created age And golden light.

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Boethius (480-524CE) As he faced his impending death by torture on the orders of a barbarian Roman emperor, Boethius, the leading Roman philosopher of his time, in his prison cell had a vision of the Divine Feminine as Lady Philosophiae. In the long dialogue that followed, he was given the inner strength he needed to face the apparent injustice of his fate. De Consolatione Philosophiae (524CE) (extract) While I was quietly thinking these thoughts over to myself and giving vent to my sorrow with the help of my pen, I became aware of a woman standing over me. She was of awe-inspiring appearance, her eyes burning and keen beyond the usual power of men. She was so full of years that I could hardly think of her as of my own generation, and yet she possessed a vivid colour and undiminished vigour. It was difficult to be sure of her height, for sometimes she was of average human size, while at other times she seemed to touch the very sky with the top of her head, and when she lifted herself even higher, she pierced it and was lost to human sight. Her clothes were made of imperishable material,

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of the finest thread woven with the most delicate skill (Later she told me she had made them with her own hands). Their colour, however, was obscured by a kind of film as of long neglect, like statues covered in dust. On the bottom hem could be read the embroidered Greek letter Pi, and on the top hem the Greek letter Theta. Between the two a ladder of steps rose from the lower to the higher letter. Her dress had been torn by the hands of marauders who had each carried off such pieces as he could get. There were some books in her right hand, and in her left hand a sceptre.

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Romanus Melodus (c.490-c.556) (Romanos The Singer) On Christmas 2,10-11 The Blessed Virgin Mary replies: Cease your laments; I will make myself your advocate in my Son's presence. Meanwhile, no more sadness, because I have brought joy to the world. For it is to destroy the kingdom of sorrow that I have come into the world: I full of grace ... Then curb your tears; accept me as your mediatrix in the presence of him who was born from me, because the author of joy is the God generated before all ages. Remain calm; be troubled no longer: I come from him, full of grace.

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The Mother in the Islamic tradition Paradise is at the feet of the Mother. (Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed) Allah, The Most High, is pleased when Fatimah is pleased. He is angered, whenever Fatimah is angered! (Hadith of the Prophet Mohammed) On the face of the earth there is no one more beautiful than You. Wherever I go I wear Your image in my heart. Whenever I fall in a despondent mood I remember your image And my spirit rises thousand fold. Your advent is the blossom time of the universe. O Mother you have showered Your choicest blessings upon me. Also remember me on the Day of Judgement. I don’t know if I will go to heaven or hell, But wherever I go, please always abide in me. (Unknown Sufi)

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On Resurrection Day, the sun and moon are released from service: and the eye beholds the Source of their radiance, then it discerns the permanent possession from the loan, and this passing caravan from the abiding home. If for a while a wet nurse is needed, Mother, return us to your breast. I don’t want a nurse; my Mother is more fair. I am like Moses whose nurse and Mother were the same. (Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273), Masnavi)

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Sankaracharya (7th century) This great yogi and devotee praised the Goddess in many ways. Here he praises Her as Bhavani. Eight stanzas to Bhavani No father have I, nor mother, no comrade, No son, no daughter, no wife, and no grandchild, No servant or master, no wisdom, no calling: In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani! Immersed as I am in the limitless ocean Of worldy existence, I tremble to suffer. Alas! I am lustful and foolish and greedy, And ever enchained by the fetters of evil: In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani! To giving of alms and to meditation, Yo scriptures and hymns and mantras, a stranger, I know not of worship, possess no dispassion: In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani!

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O Mother! Of pilgrimage or of merit, Of mental control or the soul’s liberation, Of rigorous vows or devotion, I know not: In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani! Addicted to sinning and worthless companions, A slave to ill thoughts and to doers of evil, Degraded am I, unrighteous, abandoned, Attached to ill objects, adept in ill-speaking: In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani! I know neither Brahma nor Vishnu nor Shiva. Nor Indra, sun, moon, or similar being – Not one of the numberless gods, O Redeemer! In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani! In strife or in sadness, abroad or in danger, In water, in fire, in the wilds, on the mountains, Surrounded by foes, my Saviour! Protect me: In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani! Defenceless am I – ill, again, and helpless, Enfeebled, exhausted, and dumbly despairing, Afflicted with sorrow, and utterly ruined:

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In Thee is my only haven of refuge, In Thee, my help and my strength, O Bhavani!

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Ambrose Autpert (8th century) French-born Benedictine monk who lived in a monastery in southern Italy. Assumption of the Virgin Let us entrust ourselves with all our soul's affection to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin: let us all, with all our strength, beg her patronage, that, at the moment when on earth we surround her with our suppliant homage, she herself may deign in heaven to commend us with fervent prayer. For without any doubt she who merited to bring ransom for those who needed deliverance, can more than all the saints benefit by her favor those who have received deliverance.

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Lakshmi Tantra (10th century) In this Pancharatra text, composed in India between the 9th and 10th centuries, the Goddess Lakshmi says (50.65-67) Inherent in the Principle of Existence, whether manifested or unmanifested, I am at all times the inciter, the potential in all things. I manifest Myself as the Creation, I occupy myself with activity when Creation begins functioning, and I ultimately dissolve Myself at the time of destruction. I alone send the Creation forth and again destroy it. I absolve the sins of the good. As Mother Earth to all beings, I pardon them all their sins. I am the Giver of Everything. I am the thinking process itself and I am contained in Everything.

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Devi Upanishad (12th century?) One of the later Upanishads, being part of the Arthavana veda. extract: verses 1-7

All the gods waited upon the Goddess (and asked): ‘Great Goddess, who art Thou ?’ She replied: I am essentially Brahman. From Me (has proceeded) the world comprising Prakriti and Purusha, the void and the Plenum. I am (all forms of) bliss and non-bliss. Knowledge and ignorance are Myself. Brahman and non-Brahman are to be known – says the scripture of the Atharvans. I am the five elements as also what is different from them. I am the entire world. I am the Veda as well as what is different from it. I am the unborn; I am the born. Below and above and around am I. I move with Rudras and Vasus, with Adityas and Visvedevas. Mitra and Varuna, Indra and Agni, I support, and the two Asvins. I uphold Soma, Tvastir, Pusan and Bhaga, The wide-stepping Vishnu, Brahma, Prajapati.

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To the zealous sacrificer offering oblation And pressing the Soma-juice do I grant wealth; I am the state, the Bringer of Wealth; Above it all, place I its protector. Whoso knows my essence in the water of the inner sea, Attains he the Goddess’s abode.

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Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

This German nun received visions of the Divine Feminine from her earliest childhood through to her last days. These visions formed the basis for a series of extraordinary books which provided her with a platform for commentary on the actions of her contemporaries both ecclesiastical and temporal. The first of the three volumes recording her visions is Scivias (Know the Way),1 written between 1141 and 1151, after the Holy Spirit had descended on Hildegard and enlightened her whole being, as so powerfully described in the opening Declaration. Scivias contains a number of visions of the Divine Feminine, including as the Mother of the Soul (I:4), as the Synagogue, with parallels to the Shekhinah (I:5), as the Church (II:3,5), and as Christ’s Mother (II:6).

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The second volume is the Liber Vitae Meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of Life)2, written between 1158 and 1163, which contains visions relating to the weakness of the human condition. The third of this trilogy is the Liber Divinorum Operum simplicis Hominis (The Book of the Divine Works of a Simple Person),3 written between 1163 and 1173. Also known as De operatione Dei, this volume is a synthesis of Hildegard’s theological beliefs, structured around ten visions, and contains her knowledge of the elements of the universe, and the physiology of the human body. There are also many letters4 written to her contemporaries giving advice, some of which contain descriptions of visions. Scivias (1151) Book One, Vision Four: the Goddess as Mother of the Soul … And I saw the image of a woman who had a perfect human form in her womb. And behold! By the secret design of the Supernal Creator that form moved with vital motion, so that a fiery globe that had no human lineaments possessed the heart of that form and touched its brain and spread itself through all its members.

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Book One, Vision Five: … I saw the image of a woman, pale from her head to her navel and black from her navel to her feet; her feet were red, and around her feet was a cloud of purest whiteness. She had no eyes, and had put her hands in her armpits; she stood next to the altar that is before the eyes of God, but she did not touch it. And in her heart stood Abraham, and in her breast Moses, and in her womb the rest of the prophets, each displaying his symbols and admiring the the beauty of the Church. She was a great size, like the tower of a city, and had on her head a circlet like the dawn. Book Two, Vision Three: the Goddess as the Mother of the twice-born … I saw the image of a woman as large as a great church, with a wonderful crown on her head and arms from which a splendour hung like sleeves, shining from Heaven to earth. Her womb was pierced like a net with many openings, with a huge multitude of people running in and out. She had no legs or feet, but stood balanced on her womb in front of the altar that stands before the eyes of God, embracing it with her outstretched hands and

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gazing sharply with her eyes throughout all of Heaven. I could not make out her attire, except that she was arrayed in great splendour and gleamed with lucid serenity, and on her breasts shone a red glow like the dawn; and I heard a sound of all kinds of music singing about her, “Like the dawn, greatly sparkling.” And that image spreads out its splendour like a garment, saying, “I must conceive and give birth!” And at once, like lightning, there hastened to her a multitude of angels making steps and seats within her for people, by whom the image was to be perfected. Then I saw black children moving in the air near the ground like fishes in water, and they entered the womb of the image through the openings that pierced it. But she groaned, drawing them upward to her head, and they went out by her mouth, while she remained untouched. And behold, that serene light with the figure of a man in it, blazing with a glowing fire, which I had seen in my previous vision, again appeared to me, and stripped the black skin off each of them, and threw it away; and it clothed each of them in a pure white garment and opened to them the serene light, saying to them one by one: “ Cast off the old injustice, and put on the new sanctity. For the gate of your inheritance is unlocked for you. …

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Book Two, Vision Five … I saw a splendour white as snow and translucent as crystal had shone around the image of that woman from the top of her head to her throat. And from her throat, glowing like the dawn from her throat to her breasts and shining from her breasts to her navel mixed with purple and blue. And where it glowed like the dawn, its brightness shone forth as high as the secret places of Heaven; and in this brightness appeared a most beautiful image of a maiden, with bare head and black hair, wearing a red tunic, which flowed down about her feet. And I heard the voice from Heaven saying, “This the blossom of the celestial Zion, the mother and flower of roses and lilies of the valley. O blossom, when in your time you are strengthened, you shall bring forth a most renowned prosperity.”

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Another vision:

And I saw one like a lovely maiden, her face gleaming with such radiant splendor that I could not perfectly behold her. Whiter than snow was her mantle and more shining than the stars, and her shoes were of the finest gold. In her right hand she held the sun and moon and tenderly embraced them. And on her breast was an ivory tablet in which there appeared the form of a man, the color of sapphire; and all creation called this maiden Lady. Now she spoke to the form that appeared in her bosom, saying, "With you is the beginning of the day of your virtue, in the splendour of the holy ones; I bore you from the womb before the morning star."

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Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominus (1173) I [Caritas] am the supreme and fiery force who kindled every living spark, and I breathed forth no deadly thing - yet I permit them to be. As I circled the whirling sphere with my upper wings (that is, with wisdom), rightly I ordained it. And I am the fiery life of the essence of God: I flame above the beauty of the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And, with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. For the air is alive in the verdure and the flowers; the waters flow as if they lived; the sun too lives in its light; and when the moon wanes it is rekindled in the light of the sun, as if it lived anew. Even the stars glisten in their light as if alive.

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Symphonia armonie celestrium revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelation) 15. Spiritus sanctus vivificans vita Holy Spirit, quickening life, Moving all things, the root in all creation, Who washes all things of impurity, Removing sins and soothing wounds Who is shining light and laudable life, Wakening and reawakening things.

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Towards the end of her life, Hildegard had a vision of the Goddess which has parallels with the earlier vision of Boethius in his De Consolatione Philosophiae: Lying long in my bed of sickness, in the 1170th year of the Lord’s incarnation, I saw – awake in body and spirit – a most beautiful image of womanly form, most peerless in gentleness, most dear in her delights. Her beauty was so great that the human mind could not fathom it, and her height reached from earth as far as heaven. Her face shone with the greatest radiance, and her eye gazed heavenward. She was dressed in the purest white silk, and enfolded by a cloak studded with precious gems – emerald, sapphire and pearls; her sandals were of onyx. Yet her face was covered in dust, her dress was torn on the right side, her cloak had lost its elegant beauty and her sandals were muddied. And she cried out … ‘The foxes have their lairs, and the birds of the sky their nests, but I have no helper or console, no staff on which to lean or be supported by.’

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Elisabeth of Schonau (1128-1164) This German nun had many visionary experiences, including the following: While we were celebrating the vigil of the birth of our Lord, around the hour of the divine service, I came into a trance and I saw, as it were, a sun of marvelous brightness in the sky. In the middle of the sun was the likeness of a virgin who appearance was particularly beautiful and desirable to see. She was sitting with her hair spread over her shoulders, a crown of the most resplendent gold on her head, and a golden cup in her right hand. A splendour of great brightness came forth from the sun, by which she was surrounded on all sides, and from her it seemed to fill first the place of our dwelling, and then after a while spread out little by little to fill the whole world. … Elisabeth received two explanations for this vision. A ‘holy angel of the Lord’ told her: The virgin you see is the sacred humanity of the Lord Jesus. The sun in which the virgin is sitting is the divinity that possesses and illuminates the whole humanity of the Saviour.

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At the prompting of her (male) advisers, Elisabeth asked in a subsequent vision why this ‘humanity of the Lord Saviour’ had been shown to her in the form of a virgin and not in a masculine form. John the Evangelist responded by saying: The Lord willed it to be done in this way so that the vision could so much more easily be adapted to also signify His blessed mother.

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Alain de Lille (c.1117-c.1202) (also known as Alanus de Insulis) Famous during his lifetime as a preacher, scholar and philosopher, this Flemish theologian is best remembered for his two epic allegorical poems. De Planctu Naturae is modelled on Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, dealing with the conflict between sense and reason. The Anticlaudianus is indebted to Bernard Silvestris’ Cosmographia; it depicts Wisdom’s journey. De Planctu Naturae (1172) (extract) While I with sorrowful lament was repeating these elegies over and over again, a woman glided down from the inner palace of the impassable heavens, and appeared, hastening her approach to me. Her hair, which shone not with borrowed light but with its own, and which displayed the likeness of rays, not by semblance, but by native clearness surpassing nature, showed on a starry body the head of a virgin. Twin tresses flowing loosely, neither forsook the parts above nor yet disdained to smile upon the ground with a kiss. The line of a slender necklace, crossing itself obliquely, divided the strife of her hair; nor was this ever

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a blemish in her appearance, but rather commanded its beauty. And a golden comb smoothed into the dance of due orderliness the gold of her hair and wondered to have found a countenance agreeing, for the gold of fancy imposed upon the vision the false conclusion of harmonious color. But in truth her forehead, wide and full and even, was of the milkwhite lily in color, and seemed to vie with the lily. Her eyebrows, starry in golden brightness, had neither grown unduly into a forest of hairs, nor fallen into unmeet scantiness, but between both held a mean. The clear calm of the eyes, which attracted with friendly light, offered the freshness of twin stars. Her nose, fragrant with lovely odor, and neither out of measure low nor unduly prominent, had a certain distinction. The nard of her breath gave the nose banquets of delicate perfume. Her lips, gently .rounded, invited the tyros of Venus to kisses. Her teeth, by some harmony of color, had the appearance of ivory. The glowing fire of her cheeks, kindled with the light of roses, with soft flame cheered her face; and this in turn chastened the pleasing warmth with cool whiteness-like rose-color on fine linen. Her smooth chin, fairer than crystalline light, wore a silvery brightness. Her neck, while not unduly long, was molded gracefully, and did not allow the

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nape to be close to the shoulders. The apples of her breasts promised the ripeness of glorious youth. Her arms, beautifully formed for the delight of the beholder, seemed to ask for embraces. The finely drawn curve of her waist, which had the mark of due moderation, brought her whole presence to the height of perfection. And faith spoke other parts, which a more secret habitation held aside, to be even better. For in her body lay unapparent a more beautiful form, of whose joys the countenance offered a foretaste: yet, as this very form made known, the key of Dione had never opened the lock of its chastity. And although the joy of her loveliness was so great, yet she tried to blot out the smile of her beauty with precious tears. For a stealthy dew, sprung from the welling of her eyes, proclaimed the flow of inwards grief, and her very face, cast to earth with chaste modesty, told of some injury done to the virgin herself. The sparkling crown of a regal diadem, shining with dances of gems, brightened high on her head. No base alloy of gold, derogate from high worth, and deceptive to the eye with false light, supplied its substance but the pure nobility of gold itself.

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Anticlaudianus de Antirufino (1184) O Queen of the heights, goddess of heaven, daughter of the Artist supreme – for your divine face teaches that you are no mortal, nor do you lament our race’s taint – your countenance proves you a goddess, your sceptre proclaims you queen, and your glory shows you are born of God: To you the abode of the gods lies open, and the way of heaven, The bounds of Olympus, the world beyond our world, the realm of the Thunderer – and the throne of God and the fate beyond …

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Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) A famous Christian theologian whose writings have remained immensely popular from the time they were first composed. (extract) 0 most blessed and sweet Virgin Mary,

Mother of God, filled with all tenderness, Daughter of the most high King, Lady of the Angels, Mother of all the faithful,

On this day and all the days of my life, I entrust to your merciful heart my body and my soul, all my acts, thoughts, choices, desires, words, deeds, my entire life and death,

So that, with your assistance, all may be ordered to the good according to the will of your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. ...

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Alfonso, El Sabio (1221-1284) (King Alfonso X, the Learned, of Castile) Written in Galician-Portuguese (a precursor of modern Spanish), the Cantigas are songs in praise of the Virgin Mary, set to music by King Alfonso and his musicians at the Castilian court in Toledo and later Seville. Cantiga 340 (extracts) In praise of Holy Mary Virgin, glorious Mother Of God, daughter and wife, Holy, noble and precious Who would know how to praise you? Who could do so? (refrain) We would not see the face of God, Which is day and light, Because of our nature Without you, who was His dawn. For you are the dawn of all dawns Who allows the sinners To see their errors And to know their folly which diverts Man from the promised good … Because you are the dawn.

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Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) An Italian writer regarded as one of the major figures in European literature. La Divina Commedia Paradiso, Canto 33, verses 66-88 O Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, Created beings all in lowliness Surpassing, as in height above them all. Term by the eternal counsel preordained, Ennobler of thy nature, so advanced in thee, That its great Maker did not scorn To make Himself his own creation. For in thy womb rekindling shone the love reveal’d Whose genial influence makes now This flower to germinate in eternal peace: Here thou to us, in charity and love, Art, as the noon-day torch; and art, beneath, To mortal men, of hope a living spring So mighty thou art, Lady, and so great, That he, who grace desireth, And comes not to thee for aidance, Fain would have desire Fly without wings. Nor only him who asks, thy bounty succours; but doth freely oft Forerun the asking. Whatso’er may be

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Of excellence in creature, pity, mild, Relenting mercy, large munificence Are all combined in thee. Here kneeleth one Who of all spirits hath reviewed the state, From the world’s lowest gap unto this height. Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace For virtue yet more high, to lift his ken Towards the bliss supreme. O eternal beam! Of what Thou then appeared’st; Give my tongue power, but to leave one sparkle of Thy glory, Unto the race to come, that shall not lose Thy triumph wholly, if Thou waken aught of memory in me, and endure to hear The record sound in this unequal strain. Such keenness from the living ray I met, That, if mine eyes had turn’d away, me thinks I had been lost; but so emboldened on I pass’d, as I remember, till my view Hover’d the brink of dread infinitude.

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Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) This Italian poet, philosopher and biographer, is a major figure in humanist philosophy and the early Italian Renaissance. Secretum (Petrarch’s Secret) Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure. When I was ruminating lately on this matter, not in any dream as one in sickness and slumber, but wide awake and with all my wits about me, I was greatly astonished to behold a very beautiful Lady, shining with an indescribable light about her. She seemed as one whose beauty is not known, as it might be, to mankind I could not tell how she came there, but from her raiment and appearance I judged her a fair virgin, and her eyes, like the sun, seemed to send forth rays of such light that they made me lower my own before her, so that I was afraid to look up. When she saw this she said, Fear not; and let not the strangeness of my presence affright you in any wise. I saw your steps had-gone astray; and I had compassion on you and have come down from above to bring you timely succor. Hither- to your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes,

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far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so mush delight you, what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal! When I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me, with trembling voice I made reply in Virgil's words-- "What name to call thee by, O virgin fair, I know not, for thy looks are not of earth And more than mortal seems thy countenances" I am that Lady, she answered, whom you have depicted in your poem Africa with rare art and skill, and for whom, like another Amphion of Thebes, you have with poetic hands built a fair and glorious Palace in the far West on Atlas's lofty peak. Be not afraid, then, to listen and to look upon the face of her who, as your finely-wrought allegory proves, has been well known to you from of old. Scarcely had she uttered these words when, as I pondered all these things in my mind, it occurred to me this could be none other than Truth herself who thus spoke. I remembered how I had described her abode on the heights of Atlas; yet was I ignorant from what region she had come, save only that I felt assured she could have come from none other place than Heaven. Therefore I turned my gaze towards her, eagerly desiring to look upon her face;

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but lo, the eye of man is unable to gaze on that ethereal Form, wherefore again was I forced to turn them towards the ground. when she took note of this, after a short silence, she spoke once more; and, questioning me many times, she led me to engage with her in long discourse. From this converse I was sensible of gaining a twofold benefit, for I won knowledge, and the very act of talking with her gave me confidence. I found myself by degrees becoming able to look upon the face which at first dismayed me by its splendor, and as soon as I was able to bear it without dread, and gaze fixedly on her wondrous beauty…

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Vegina bella, che di sol vestita [Ode to the Virgin] (first stanza) Fair Virgin, clothed with the Sun! Bright shining one, Star-crowned: Who such sweet ultimate favour found From all eternity with the great Primal Sun That from the height He stooped in thee to hide the light of His Divinity: Now shall my love upraise New measures in thy praise, Though to begin without thy aid were vain And without His, who, joined with thee in love, shall ever reign. Thee I invoke who never turned deaf ear When ardent faith called to thee without fear. Virgin, if our poor misery, Our trafficking with pain, In thy deep heart stir pity, Incline to me again; Once more on thy sure succour now I lean, Though of base clay am I And thou be Heaven’s Queen.

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Heinrich Suso (1295-1366) (Henry Suso or Seuse) This German Christian monk of the Dominican Order had many mystical experiences during which Eternal Wisdom appeared to him in a feminine form. Horologium Sapientiae (Clock of Wisdom) (1334) I.6: ‘What the Divine Bride, Eternal Wisdom, is like, and the Quality of Her Love’ Here Suso is a young man strolling through a meadow full of flowers on a spring morning, but the ‘human flowers’ wither before his eyes, leaving him stunned. As he meditates on the brevity of the world’s bliss, he receives another vision: Suddenly, from the region of the highest and loftiest peaks, there appeared a stunning flower of the field, delightful to see, and it seemed incomparably more beautiful than all the flowers I had seen before. As I hastened to gaze on it, behold! Suddenly it changed and appeared no more. But one like the goddess [dea] of all beauty stood before me, blushing like a rose and gleeming with snowy brightness; and she shone more brightly than the sun and uttered words of beauty. This lady

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presented in herself the sum of all that could be desired, and with the sweetest fragrance, diffused far and wide in all directions like the scent of the panther, she drew all people to her love, and said in the most dulcet voice, “Come unto me, all you who desire me, and take your fill of my produce. I am the mother of fair love and of fear, of knowledge and of holy hope.” [Ecclus. 24.26,24] This lady identifies herself as Eternal Wisdom, using the words of Solomon from Proverbs and the Song of Songs, and exclaims See how skillful I am in love, how eager I am to enjoy the embraces and deep kisses of a pure soul, how supremely delightful! O sweet and most precious kiss, bestowed with love by honey-flowing lips! O how blessed the soul to whom this is granted even once in a lifetime! And if for such a kiss one should happen to die, it would be no grave loss.

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Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373) (Bridget of Sweden) This Swedish queen had many visions of Mary. In one vision Mary declares to Birgitta: Revelations, IV:138 I am God’s mother1, for so it pleased him. I am even the Mother of all, who are in celestial joy. … I am also the Mother of all, who are in purgatory, for all punishments, that have to be undergone for the cleansing of their sins, are mitigated in some way or another at some hour because of my prayers. … I am also the mother of all justice that is in the world, which justice my son cherished with the most complete attachment. And, as a maternal hand is always prepared to come to the defense of the heart of her son against danger, if someone is trying to hurt him, so I am always prepared to defend the just that are in the world and to free them of all spiritual danger. I am called by all Mother of Mercy, truly daughter, the mercy of my son made me merciful, and seeing his mercy made me compassionate.

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1The phrase ‘Mother of God’ was often used in medieval Christianity when refering to Mary as the mother of Jesus Christ. The phrase had became part of formal Church dogma at the Council of Chalcedon in 451CE.

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Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) An intellectual and writer associated with the French royal court who achieved an independent life through her writings. Livre de la mutacion de Fortune�(1403)(The Book of the Transformation of Fortune) My mother who was great and grand and more valorous than Penthesilea (God had made her well!) surpassed my father in knowledge, power, and value, despire the fact that he had learned so much. She was a crowned queen from the moment that she was born. Everyone knows of her power and strength. It is clear that she is never idle, and, without being overbearing, she is always occupied with many, diverse tasks: her impressive works are found everywhere; every day she creates many beautiful ones. Whoever wanted to count all that she has done and continues to do would never finish. She is old without being aged, and her life cannot end before Judgement Day. God gave her the task of maintaining and increasing the world as He had made it, in order to sustain human life: she is called Lady Nature. She is the mother of every person: God thus calls us all brothers and sisters.

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Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) Stanzas from a Latin hymn written by this Florentine humanist, Angelo Poliziano, and set to music as a motet by his contemporary, Josquin Desprez (c.1455-1521). O Virgo prudentissima, beata Mater (1492) O most wise Virgin, whom Gabriel, sent from heaven

as the messenger of the highest King, attests to be full of grace. Thee the Creator of all calleth his bride, thee the Son of God his mother, thee the Blessed Spirit his dwelling place. Thou art the star of the sea, who amidst the rocks, amidst the dark whirlwinds, showest us the haven of safety. Through thee from the loathsome prison

our ancient forefathers depart; through thee the thresholds of the starry palace

are opened to us.

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Hear, O Virgin that borest child, and the only mother intact, hear, we beseech thee, O Mary, thine humble servants as we pray. Blessed mother and unwed maid... Drive away the darkness of our minds, break up the ice of our hearts. Glorious queen of the world... keep us safe that seek refuge

under thy protection. Intercede for us with the Lord. Alleluia.

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Devi Gita (15th century) The Devi Gita (Song of the Goddess) was composed probably in the fifteenth century C.E., in partial imitation of the famous Bhagavad Gita (Song of the Lord), composed some fifteen centuries earlier. 1.15-19: the gods seek counsel with Vishnu, who indicates the solution to their predicament: Vishnu spoke: Why are you all so worried, for the Auspicious Goddess is a wish-fulfilling tree. Dwelling in the Jewelled Island as Ruler of the Universe, she is ever attentive. She neglects us now only because of our misbehaviour. Such chastisement by the World-Mother is simply for our own instruction. As a mother feels no lack of compassion whether indulging or chastening her child, Just so the World-Mother feels when overseeing our virtues and vices. A son transgresses the limits of proper conduct at every step. Who in the world forgives him except his mother? Therefore go for refuge to the Supreme Mother without delay, with sincere hearts. She will accomplish what you want.

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Guru Nanak (1469-1539) Nanak lived in the Punjab, northern India. He is regarded as the founding guru of what has become the Sikh religion, whose holy book is the Guru Granth Sahib. Obeisance, obeisance to Him, the Primal, the Immaculate, without beginning, without end, constant through all ages. The One Mother existed Alone in some mysterious way and She created the Three deities. One was the Creator, one the Sustainer and one the Destroyer. The world moves as He ordains and as He pleases. He see all, but no one sees Him; this is a great wonder. Japuji 30 Air is the Guru, water the Father, The great earth, the Mother of all. Day and night are the female and male nurses, With the entire creation playing in their lap. Japuji sloka (epilogue)

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Of woman are we born, of woman conceived, To woman engaged, to woman married. Woman we befriend, by woman do civilizations continue. When a woman dies, a woman is sought for. It is through woman that order is maintained. Then why call her inferior from whom all great ones are born? Woman is born of woman; None is born but of woman. The One, who is Eternal, alone is unborn. Says Nanak, that tongue alone is blessed that utters the praise of the One. Such alone will be acceptable at the Court of the True One. Guru Granth 473

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Rabbi Joseph Caro (1488-1575) (Joseph Karo) Expelled from Spain, the Caro family settled in Safed in Palestine. Both a respected Talmudic authority and a Kabbalist (Jewish mystic), Joseph Caro received visionary messages from a Maggid (heavenly messenger) which he recorded in his Maggid Mesharim which still awaits English translation. In Jewish Kabbalah, the Shekhinah is the feminine aspect of the Divine presence, the tenth of the ten Sefirot, or aspects of the Divine. For the circle of Jewish mystics in 16th century Safed in Palestine, the Shekhinah spoke through Rabbi Caro: I am the Mother I am the redeeming angel I am the emissary of the Holy One, blessed be He I watch over you steadily The Shekhinah talks to you Go to a pure place, thinking constantly of Torah without letting your thoughts wander for a second Unify your heart constantly thinking of nothing except me, as I appear in my Torah and ritual This is the mystery of unity For the soul that attaches itself literally becomes a ‘Camp of the Shekhinah’

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On another occasion the Safed mystics had been studying two tracts from the Mishnah, a 2nd century (CE) compilation of Jewish law, when the maggid (messenger) said (through Caro): Friends, choicest of the choice, peace to you, beloved companions. Happy are you and happy those who bore you. Happy are you in this world and happy in the next that you resolve to adorn me on this night. For these many years had my head fallen with none to comfort me. I was cast down to the ground to embrace the dunghills but now you have restored the crown to its former place … Behold I am the Mishnah, the mother who chastises her children and I have come to converse with you.

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Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) This German mystic developed a complex theology of Divine Wisdom as Sophia, and his writings influenced mystics in later centuries in Germany, France, England, and Russia. The way to Christ (1622) I/51 [Sophia says] Be comforted … I shall be with you in all the days to the end of the world … We shall bring about in this world what God has foreordained for us; We shall serve Him in His temple which we ourselves are. Amen.

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John Pordage (1607-1681) This English mystic and spiritual alchemist was influenced by the writings of the German mystic, Jacob Boehme. Only a small part of Pordage’s voluminous writings were published in English; what has survived of the rest exists published in German translation, attributed to Johannes Pordaschens, published later in Amsterdam and Berlin. Sophia � p174 As I now turned my eye to my new earth, and thought to see how the work of renewal progressed, Sophia quickly passed before me, and revealed herself to me with these words: I have come with my cleansing and purifying fire into my earth, to cleanse your earth of all uncleanliness, dross and tin. Chapter 22: 10 July [1675] This day Wisdom visited me and said: I have brought you to my other gate of renewal and restoration where all things are made new. Such is my lovely and graceful gate; it is the day of my lily; there my lily on the peak of the mountain should sprout forth and rise, after the prophesies of former days, and ancient prophets, to which I would have you investigate and seek after. I want to show

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to you the new creation, the new world in you yourself, the microcosm, or the little world, the new globum or world-sphere in you yourself that exists out of heaven and earth: because the ancients are lost and gone, and their state should no more be found. Know therefore that I could destroy the old world in an instant and erect a new world and new heaven and earth in you; but after your wish I must change it in degrees and accomplish it bit by bit in order that you may become a wise philosopher and may see, know, and learn the art and ways of how I raise up a new creation in you, and that you on this my day may come to understand the aphorisms of the ancient patriarchs and the explanation of the words of the name, namely the teaching of Christ and the Apostle in the holy scripture, which until the appearance of my morning-star have been swallowed up, as in the sealed books. In the beginning God the Father first created heaven, and later the earth. But I will in my work of creation in you begin first with your new earth, and then continue to your new heaven, and further to the new Adam. …

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Jane Lead (1623-1704) Influenced by the writings of Jacob Boehme and John Pordage, with whom she founded the Philadelphia Society, this English mystic had a number of visions of Eternal Wisdom as Sophia. A garden of fountains (1670) In the first vision, Sophia said to her: Behold I am God’s Eternal Virgin-Wisdom, whom thou hast been enquiring after; I am to unseal the Treasures of God’s deep Wisdom unto thee, and will be as Rebecca was unto Jacob, a true Natural Mother; for out of my Womb thou shalt be brought forth after the manner of a Spirit, Conceived and Born again: this thou shalt know by a New Motion of Life, stirring and giving a restlessness, till Wisdom be born within the inward parts of thy Soul. Now consider of my Saying till I return to thee again. Three days later, Sophia appeared again, radiant and wearing a crown, saying: Behold me as thy Mother, and know thou art to enter into Covenant, to obey the New

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Creation-Laws, that shall be revealed unto thee. In the words of Jane Lead: Then did she hold out a Golden Book with three Seals upon it, saying, Herein lieth hidden the deep Wonders of Jehovah’s Wisdom, which hath been sealed up, that none could, or ever shall break up, but such as of her Virgin-Offspring shall appear to be; who will her Laws receive, and keep, as they shall spring daily in the New Heart and Mind. In her diary Lady Jane later wrote: Sophia appeared to me in the figure of a woman with a friendly and dignified demeanor, Her countenance radiated like the sun and She was dressed in a garment of translucent gold.

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Ann Bathurst (c.1638-c.1704) This English mystic was an associate of John Pordage and Jane Lead, and influenced by the ideas of Jacob Boehme. Her manuscript diary records her many visions. Rhapsodical meditations and visions This morning I found such a sweet overshadowing from sweet Sophia, the Virgin Spouse of the Soul, as if she were come to cohabite with me.

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Johann Georg Gichtel (1638-1710) This German-born theosopher lived, wrote and taught in Amsterdam, where he founded the Engelsbruder (Angelic Brethren). Gichtel was responsible for collecting Boehme’s writings into a fourteen volume edition. His own writings, mostly letters, are preserved in the 4,000 pages (in seven volumes) of Theosophia Practica, and record the regular appearances of Sophia throughout his life. (extracts from his letters) 3 November 1696 So the heavenly Sophia plays with all her wooers, and tries them, whether they are serious, for where there is no honest earnestness, the marriage is long delayed, which is well to be noticed. 3 September 1697 Our heavenly Virgin is so enamoured of our limbus, that no man can believe it; but our fickle mind and inconstant will and heart prevent her influence.And if you are minded to woo her, as indeed I perceive the tinder to be kindled within you, earnestly seize in prayer, praying for a steadfast mind and will, and for the teaching and guidance of the Holy Spirit, because wonderful incidents open themselves, surpassing all reason; never

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shrink back, though body and soul languish, but let God’s word be your comfort and inheritance. 1 June 1700 What should I, poor worm, have done these thirty-six years without Sophia, if God had not opened to me this mother of his divine powers?

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The Wonderful and Holy Life of the Chosen Champion and Blessed Man of God Johann Georg Gichtel The heavenly mother of wisdom revealed herself anew in 1709, December 13, in the same form in the holy ternary; and just forty days before she called home the blessed soldier [Gichtel] she smiled very brightly upon the yet living theosopher U [Johann Wolfgang Ueberfeld, who edited Gichtel’s writings], pointing with her finger to the divine light pearl, that in the faithful and deep process in Christ of the true brethren, had become so transparent, and grown to such a degree of strength, that so small a spark had become so great a light, resembling Adam. At one and the same moment the heavenly virgin appeared also to Gichtel’s spirit in the greatest brightness with the divine jewel in the mind. …

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Gottfried Arnold (1667-1714) Arnold was a German theology professor with a wide range of influences, including the theosophical writings of Jacob Boehme and John Pordage. The following poem was inspired by motifs from ‘Song of Songs’ From Das Geheimnis der Goettlichen Sophia (The mystery of Sophia)(1700) Let reason laugh So very much at my simplicity: Even more will I sing About the object of my love. O Sophia, my strength … O She is my heroine, And everything that I need. And without Her know I Myself to be unprepared for battle … Be thou mine, thou heroine, thou,God’s pure life. Let me be suspended unharmed in peace that is assured. Hold me tightly to You Protect me with your cloak! And when the enemy’s power mounts, So fight and be victorious in me!

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Apirami Antati (18th century) (Abirami Anthathi or Andhaathi) This Tamil hymn from South India consists of one hundred verses in honour of Apirami (lit: ‘the lovely one), consort of Lord Shiva. Composed by Subrahmanya, known as Apirami Bhattar (Apirami’s brahmin poet), a devotee in the Amrtaghatesvara temple at Tirukkataiyur. extracts: verses 2-3,6,48, conclusion My help, the divinity I worship, my own Mother, the sacred word’s branch, shoot, spreading root, in Your hands, a fresh-flower cub, cane bow, tender net, goad: O beautiful lady of thee three cities, You’re all I know. I know the secret no one knows, and knowing it I clasp Your holy feet, O holy one; afraid, I’ve kept apart from people who don’t know the greatness of those who love You – blocked by their own erring hearts, they tumble into hell. … On my head rest Your shining lotus feet on my mind, Your holy mantra, O lady deep red in hue; joined with Your meditating devotees,

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over and over again I proclaim the way of Your supreme tradition. … Close to the topknot [Sahasrara chakra] where the bright crescent moon rests, on the mountain, there She is, a fresh fragrant sprout: if they place Her in their hearts even for a moment, they put aside grief – and after that can they ever again get a body, bowels, fat, blood all mixed together? … Mother, our tender Apirami – She brings forth the whole world; the colour of a pomegranate flower – She protects the whole world all at once; in Her lovely hands are the net, goad, cane bow, and She has three eyes: no evil will happen to those who worship Her.

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Ramprasad Sen (1718-1775) Ramprasad was a devotee of the Goddess as Kali, who lived in Bengal in eastern India, and his Bengali poems reflect that devotion. O wisdom goddess! your essence alone is present within every life, every event. Your living power flows freely as this universe. you are expressed fully, even by the smallest movement. wherever i go, and wherever i look, i perceive only you, my blissful mother, radiating as pure comic play, earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness, are simply your projected forms. there is nothing else. ---- You’ll find Mother In any house. Do I dare say it in public? She is Bhairavi with Shiva, Durga with Her children,

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Sita with Lakshmana. She’s mother, daughter, wife, sister – Every woman close to you. What more can Ramprasad say? You work the rest out from these hints.

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Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) A writer regarded as part of the German Romantic tradition. An die Madonna (To the Madonna) For your sake, And your son’s, O Madonna I have suffered much Since I first heard of him In my tender youth; For the seer is not alone But stands under a fate Common those who serve. … (verse 8) and in the holy night Should someone consider the future and feel care For the carefree sleep Of children, fresh as flowers, You come smiling, asking what he has To fear where you are queen.

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William Wordsworth (1770-1850) Even though a Protestant Christian, Wordsworth penned this tribute to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Virgin � Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost With the least shade of thought to sin allied; Woman! above all women glorified, Our tainted nature's solitary boast; Purer than foam on central ocean tost; Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast; Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween, Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend, As to a visible Power, in which did blend All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee Of mother's love with maiden purity, Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) One of the great writers in the German language. Faust (1832) Part II, act 5 Here is free prospect wide, The soul up-bearing. There women-figures glide, Heavenwards faring. With them the Heavenly Queen, Majesty tender, In wreath of stars is seen, Clear in her splendour. Pavilioned in the heaven’s blue, Queen on high of all the world, For the holy sight I sue, Of the mysteries unfurled. Sanction what in man may move Feelings tender and austere, And with glow of tender love Lifts him to thy presence near. Souls unconquerable rise If, sublime, thou will it; Sinks that storm in peaceful wise

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If thy pity stills it. Virgin, pure in heavenly sheen, Mother, throned supernal, Highest birth, our chosen Queen, Godhead’s peer eternal. Now near her splendour Floats a light cloud, Penitents tender In gentle crowd, Tasting heaven’s ether, At her feet kneeling, For grace appealing. To thee, enthroned in holy awe, Power is not denied, That the lightly erring draw, Trusting, to thy side. Hard to save whom lust be spake, Weak, before his fire; Who in single strength can break Chains of dark desire? So the foot will swiftly slip, On the slant way gliding, Heart the fool of eye and lip, In soft words confiding. O contrite hearts, seek with your eyes The visage of salvation; Blissful in that gaze, arise,

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Through glad regeneration. Now may every pulse of good Seek to serve before thy face, Virgin, Queen of Motherhood, Keep us, Goddess, in thy grace.

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Johann Jacob Wirz (1778-1858) This Swiss mystic formed the Nazarene Community, emphasising a simple and humble way of life. Wirz was guided by Sophia as heavenly Wisdom, as shown in these extracts from his Journals. 8 February 1836 Beloved Mother, heavenly Wisdom, I presume once more to ask you something. What is one actually to understand by the true Wisdom? You have certainly instructed me often already on this; but I note that the sense of Wisdom’s words may often be interpreted in different ways. Instruct me: I want to use my ears. Wisdom’s answer: Listen, my son: one has so many different, often erroneous ideas of the meanings and the essence of Wisdom because one does not obey Her commands. This is known by few. But whoever will do Her will, will inwardly become what She is, and will possess also the correct idea of Her names and being. Remain by what you have understood of Her teachings. You need to give the learned no reckoning of the idea of Wisdom. I see well that this thought is in your heart the actual reason for your question. You must

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only follow Wisdom and be true, and you will come evr closer to Her. Whoever requires a correct idea of Her will find it sung in the Book of Wisdom. 1 January 1837 Wisdom spoke: Endeavour to practice and hold what your Mother, heavenly Wisdom, has said to you. It is certainly difficult to travel forth in nature, wherein you dwell, on the superior way without interruption, and to make all hindrances into favourable circumstances; but faith, practiced in weakness, develops faith, until it finally becomes power. You have last night, on the end of the year, engaged in a new promise for your heavenly Mother. This she has heard better that you hear your own voice. She has taken your vow and today answers you as follows. Blessed are the souls that do not pledge alone to the holy Wisdom, but rather through the vow long to become wholly owned by her. To them she will be in everything that many theosophic authors have glorified as the heavenly Sophia. … First of all is this heavenly Sophia according to her motherly quality care for such a man also like and earthly mother, and grants him stay according to his individual situation and

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as is convenient for the furthering of this soul’s health. Nothing should hinder him in his necessary needs. The heavenly Wisdom is already in herself what God has promised to the souls that have forsaken everything to follow Jesus alone. She is the fulfilling of the glorification of God on earth and in heaven. But everything comes acording to the degree which it can work in a soul. Although there are always only very few men who love and seek the holy Wisdom, she has also in the great crowd of men on earth still a sizable number of friends. But there are always a few who really take to her as mother and themselves as her children, and still fewer, one finds, who long for a true union with her. Whoever has the mother, he is truly cared for according to soul and body. But whoever attains an authentic union with her, he possessses yet more, indeed everything which is permitted himmin time and eternity, even coming to participating in the glorification that belongs to the image of God. …

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Rabbi Isaac Safrin (1806-1874) In Jewish Kabbalah, the Shekhinah is the feminine aspect of the Divine presence, the tenth of the ten Sefirot, or aspects of the Divine. When Rabbi Safrin visited the town of Duqla in 1845 he went to the Bet ha-Midrash (the House of Study) to pray, and had the following spiritual experience, as reported in his Megillat Setarim: I wept in the presence of the Lord because of my anguish over the Shekhinah. In my distress I fainted and slept for a while. I saw a vision of light, a powerful radiance in the form of a virgin all adorned, from whom came a dazzling light. However I was not worthy to see her face. And more one should not write. And her light was brighter than the sun at noon. Rabbi Safrin reported of his visit to Duqla in greater detail in his N’tiv Mitzvotekha, in a third-person narrative. After he “fainted and fell asleep”, he saw the Shekhinah in a vision of light and splendour and great radiance, such a light that it dimmed the light of the wheel of the sun. She was adorned with twenty-four jewels, and each jewel shone with

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such a light that the light of the sun grew veritably dark in comparison, in so many kinds of radiance and splendour that the corporeal thought cannot encompass it. And She said, “Be strong, my son”. And he was distressed that he was granted to see only a view from the back and did not merit to see the face of the Shekhinah. And She responded to him, “But you are alive, and it is written, ‘For man shall not see Me and live’”1

1 Ex.33:20

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Mataracamman Antati (1888) Written by M.Appacami Mutaliyar in 1888, this Tamil Christian hymn praises Mary as the new mother of Mylapore (a town in present-day Chennai), a center of Hindu worship in Southern India. verses 38,90,100 Great Mary, mother for young women, She gives everything to those used to her name “Mary”, She is the virgin cloaked in the lovely sun who extinguishes darkness in lovely, southern Mylapore: Hands joined, shout with praise, praise her lotus feet that stand above the moon, Precious joy in your mind. … This queen among women graciously gives comfort to those who languish, so venerate her, She is wisdom, the seed of true enlightenment right here in Mylapore surrounded by broad, watered ponds that flower and never go dry, She is the holy mother of all, Helpmate to the ascetic, Her face is a lotus,

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She is as lovely as a picture: Draw near to her. … I praise Mary, Joseph, and Jesus the heavenly Lord, So protect me, rule me, That thre might be for me a share In the good death of your pure, glorious Son, O queen of lovely hue, Most perfect one Right here in Mylapore Where gardens bloom and alncil trees touch the clouds, O my bright gem!

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Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900) (Vladimir Sergeevich Solov’ev) This great Russian philosopher had three visions of Sophia, which he described in his poem Trisvidaniya (Three meetings), written towards the end of his life in 1898. His first vision of Sophia was in 1862 when he was nine years. During an Orthodox church service he was overwhelmed by the apparition of a beautiful woman: The altar was open … But where were the priest and the deacon? And where was the throng of people offering prayers? The flood of torments suddenly ran dry, not leaving a trace. There was azure all around, and azure in my soul. Suffused with the golden azure, Holding a flower from distant worlds in your hand, You stood with a radiant smile. Nodded to me, and vanished into the mist.

His second vision was in London in 1875 during a sabbatical leave from his lecturership in religion at Moscow University. In the British Museum Reading Room he actively sought Sophia whilst ‘mysterious forces’ guided him in his wide-ranging reading in Hindu philosophy, Gnosticism, Hermetic writings, and

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Kabbalah. And eventually, in answer to a fervent prayer, he had his second vision of Sophia: And then one day – it was toward autumn - I said to her: O, blossom of a deity! You’re here, I sense it – why haven’t you reealed Yourself to my eyes since childhood years? And no sooner had I thought this prayer Than everything was filled with a golden azure, And before me she shine once more - But only her face - it alone. But Soloviev wanted more than just a face, at which point a voice inside him commanded ‘Be in Egypt!’ Immediately abandoning his studies he departed via Paris, through France and Italy, travelling by steamship to Cairo. Arriving penniless, he was mysteriously directed to Thebes. Captured and then released by Bedouins, he spent the night in the desert, awakening to the fragrant scent of roses and his third - and final - vision of Sophia: And in the purple of the heaven’s splendor, With eyes filled with an azure fire, You looked like the first radiance Of a universal and creative day.

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What is, what was, and what will always be – A single motionless look encompassed everything here… The sea and rivers showed dark blue beneath me As did the distant forest, and the heights of snowy mountains. I saw everything, and everything was one thing only – A single image of female beauty… The infinite fit within its dimensions: Before me, in me – were you alone. O, radiant woman! In you I am not deceived: In the desert I saw all of you … Those roses will not wither in my sould Wherever life’s wave may speed. This third vision was to provide the source for his philosophical and poetic inspiration for the remaining years of life on his return to Russia.

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That Soloviev had a deep understanding of the role of the Divine Feminine is clear from the following passage: Sophia is not only the object of divine activity, as the primordial Cosmos which includes all ideas and created beings in itself; She is Herself an active, attentive living Being who is the spiritual foundation of the world, the Soul of the World, representing nothing other than the first created, undivided, living Creature, the ideal Personality of the world and, above all, of humanity. She is simultaneously the individual and the universal, primordial human being, or (which means the same thing) the individual and universal organism of all of humanity, actually containing in Herself all individual human beings, and in whom every human being as a creature has his or her home and metaphysical roots. She is truly the great Mother of all persons and creatures.

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From the “Sophia Prayer” [London, 1875] O most holy Divine Sophia, essential image of the beauty and sweetness of the transcendent God, the bright body of Eternity, the Soul of worlds and the one Queen of all souls, by the inexpressible profundity and grace of thy first Soul and beloved, Jesus Christ, I emplore thee: descend into the prison of the soul, fill our darkness with thy radiance, melt away the fetters that bind our spirit with the fire of thy love, grant us light and freedom, appear to us in visible and substantial form, incarnate thyself in us and in the world, restoring the fullness of the Ages, so that the deep may be confined and that God may be all in all. ---- Today in azure the whole of you appeared Before me, my tsarina – This heart started beating with sweet rapture And in the lights of the dawning day My soul was illuminated by a soft light. But far away, my dear, the wicked flame Of earthly fire smoked. (1875)

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Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) (Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh) This Russian painter, theosophist and spiritual teacher left Russia after the Revolution, living in New York in the 1920s. After travelling in Asia, he and his family settled in India in 1929. He gave his name to the Roerich Pact, an early international agreement on cultural property signed by members of the Pan-American Union in 1935. Queen of Heaven Far up lies the celestial path. The perilous river of life flows along. On its rocky banks perish inexperienced voyagers who are unable to discern the direction of good and of evil. The All-merciful Queen of Heaven is solicitous about the inexperienced voyagers. The All-benevolent One speeds Her help to those on the hazardous paths. She wants to envelope the whole human sorrow of sin with a virgin veil. Out of the resplendent city, from the wondrous abode of the angelic hosts rises the All-benevolent One. She gathers all her saintly helmsmen and lifts up Her prayers for humankind. The angels marvel at the labors of the Queen.

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Out of the stronghold, legions arise in action. An effulgent, beatific host is pledged to the great achievement. They sound their trumpets in glory to the Queen. From within the ramparts rise the Archangels. Cherubim and Seraphim gather about the Mother of the Lord. The Empowered, the Enthroned, the Ruling Ones aspire together. The Great Sources, which comprise the Mystery draw near. To the Holy Spirit, to the Great Lord, the Queen of Heaven transmits Her prayers; for the voyagers of limited understanding, for the visitations of God’s paths, for salvation, protection, all-mercy. Thus the Great Spirit helps! A great prayer rises unto Thee. The virgin prayer of the Mother of the Lord. Let us bring thanks to the Protectress! Let us proclaim the Mother of the Lord: Every living thing rejoices in Thee, Blessed One.

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Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) (Arabic name: Jubran Khalil Jubran) A famous writer from Lebanon who spent time in North America. ‘The Broken Wings’ (1912) (extract) The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word ‘Mother’, and the most beautiful call is the call of ‘My mother’. It is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything – she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly. Everything in nature bespeaks the mother. The sun is the mother of earth and gives its nourishment of heat; it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hymn of birds and brooks. And this earth is the mother of trees and flowers. It produces them, nurses them, and weans them. The trees and flowers

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become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds. And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.

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T.S.Eliot (1888-1965) Ash Wednesday (1930) (final verse) Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden, Sufer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still Even among these rocks, Our peace in His will And even among these rocks Sister, mother And spirit of the spirit, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separated And let me cry come unto Thee

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Part 2:

Prophecies

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The Ten Prophets Rig Veda (Mandala 7, Ush 5, Mantra 5 and Chapter 6) When in the world the sinful ways will be on the rise and noble behaviour will vanish, as the disappearance of the moon when on its wane on the darkest night, there will appear Vishnu as a prominent Prophet from the Keshatra Clan and will manifest in consecutive form through ten Prophets to bring back the ways of virtue to the ailing world. Bhavisya Purana When in the world there is the deteriorization of noble Dharma, then Vishnu will reincarnate through ten Prophethoods and will preach on the universal and omnipotent value of Naam [Holy life force].

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Bhrigumuni: Nadi Granth The Nadi Granth was written in Sanskrit on lotus leaves about 2000 years ago by the Indian astrologer, Bhrigumuni. Later updated and translated into Marathi by Acharya Kakayyar Bhujander Tatwacharya, c.300 years ago, being entitled Kak Nadi. In this extract the modern editor, Shantaram Athvale, refers to material in the Kak Nadi. While Jupiter is in Pisces a great Yogi will reincarnate on the Earth. By 1970 it will have become quite evident to many people that a new era will have started. Kaliyuga will end and Kritayuga will start. The axis of the Earth will depress and the Earth’s orbit will come closer and closer to the Sun. Human life will undergo a complete revolution. A great Yogi will incarnate at this time. Until this time a yogi or devotee could achieve the bliss of Moksha and find the ultimate meaning of his life only by following the path of devotion, knowledge and Patanjali Yoga, but he would have to go through severe penance in order to awaken the sleeping powers of various chakras of his body and finally enlighten the Kundalini Power.

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By the new method of yoga devised by the great Yogi, human beings will be able to attain the joy of Moksha within one lifetime. It would no longer be necessary to sacrifice one’s body or to die in order to achieve Moksha. The Brahmananda, which so far only great saints had been able to experience, and then only by entering into the Samadhi state at the point of death, due to this new type of yoga could be achieved by ordinary human beings without entering Samadhi state while dying. In the beginning it would be possible for one person among millions to attain this Yoga and Moksha, however, after some time the whole human race, with the help of this yoga, can overcome death. People won’t have to worry about food, shelter or clothing. While living ordinary lives, people will achieve Yoga - Union with God. There will be no necessity for hospitals as there will be no diseases. In the beginning, the great Yogi will be able to heal diseases with a mere touch. Old age, with its destruction of the body, will not exist and people will possess heavenly bodies.

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Due to new scientific discoveries science and religion would become one. With the help of science the existence of God and the Soul could be proved. The veil of ignorance and Maya would be drawn aside and Brahmananda, Moksha, which could previously only be attained by yogis as a result of very hard work and severe penance, would become easily available to many human beings.

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Gospel of John Chapter 3, verse 1-8: Jesus speaks of realisation, of being born again: Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicode'mus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, `You must be born anew.' The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit."

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Chapter 14, verse 15: Jesus, talking to the disciples at the Last Supper: If you love me you will obey my commands; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another to be your Advocate, who will be with you for ever - the Spirit of Truth.

...And the word you hear is not mine; it is the word of the Father who sent me. I have told you all this while I am still here with you; but your Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will call to mind all that I have told you.

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The Gospel of the Essenes from The Communions (Jesus is discoursing) The seventh communion is with our Earthly Mother. She who sends forth Her angels to guide the roots of man and send them deep into the blessed soil. We invoke the Earthly Mother! The Holy Preserver! The Maintainer! It is She who will restore the world! The Earth is Hers, and the fullness thereof the world, and they that dwell therein. We worship the good, the strong, the beneficent Earthly Mother and all Her angels, bounteous, valiant, and full of strength...

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The Gospel of the Holy Twelve LXI,1-3: Jesus Foretelleth The End 1. And as Jesus sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my Name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. 2. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. 3. And in those days those that have power shall gather to themselves the lands and riches of the earth for their own lusts, and shall oppress the many who lack and hold them in bondage, and use them to increase their riches, and they shall oppress even the beasts of the field, setting up the abominable thing. But God shall send them his messenger and they shall proclaim his laws, which men have hidden by their traditions, and those that trangress shall die.

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LXVI, 13 And one said unto him, “Master, when shall the kingdom come?” And he [Jesus] answered and said, “When that which is without shall be as that which is within in, and that which is within shall be as that which is without, and, the male with the female, neither male nor female, but the two in One. They who have ears to hear, let them hear.”

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The Gospel of Peace of Jesus Christ, by the disciple John (Jesus talking) Your Mother is in you, and you in her. … Happy are you when you come to know Her and Her Kingdom; if you receive your Mother’s angels and if you do Her Laws, I tell you truly, he who does these things shall never see disease. For the power of our Mother is above all. … I tell you truly, that your true brothers in the will of the Heavenly Father and of the Earthly Mother will love you a thousand times more than your brothers by blood. … And then shall the sons of Men like true brothers, give love to one another, the love which they received from their Heavenly Father and from their Earthly Mother, and they shall all become comforters of one another. And then shall disappear from the earth, all evil and all sorrow, and there shall be love and joy upon the earth. And then shall the earth be like the heavens, and the kingdom of God shall come.

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The Revelation of John, commonly known as the Apocalypse Chapter 12 verse 1 Next appeared a great portent in heaven, a woman robed with the sun, beneath her feet the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

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The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ This account, channelled through the American mystic, Levi, was published in the early twentieth century. Chapter 44, verses 19-23: Jesus visits Greece; extract from his address to the Athenians Unaided by the Spirit-breath, the work of intellection tends to solve the problems of the things we see, and nothing more.The senses were ordained to bring into the mind mere pictures of the things that pass away; they do not deal with real things; they do not comprehend eternal law. But man has something in his soul, a something that will tear the veil apart that he may see the world of real things. We call this something spirit consciousness; it sleeps in every soul and cannot be awakened until the Holy Breath becomes a welcome guest. This Holy Breath knocks at the door of every soul, but cannot enter until the will of man throws wide the door.

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Chapter 161 , verses 35-38: In Jerusalem, Jesus addresses the eleven disciples And now I go my way, but I will pray my Father-God and he will send another Comforter to you, who will abide with you. Behold, this Comforter of God, the Holy Breath, is one with God, but She is the One the world cannot receive because it sees Her not; it knows Her not. But you know Her, and will know her, because She will abide within your soul.

Chapter 162, verses 4-11 And Jesus spoke again unto the eleven and said ‘Grieve not because I go away, for it is best that I should go away. If I do not go the Comforter will not come to you. These things I speak while with you in the flesh, but when the Holy Breath shall come in power, lo, she will teach you more and more, and bring to your remembrance all the words I have said to you. There are a multitude of things yet to be said; things that this age cannot receive because it cannot comprehend. But, lo, I say, before the great day of the Lord shall come, the Holy Breath will make all mysteries known -

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The mysteries of the soul, of life, of death, of immortality; the oneness of man with every other man and with his God. Then will the world be led to truth, and man will be the truth. When She has come, the Comforter, She will convince the world of sin, and of the truth of what I speak, and of the rightness of the judgement of the just; and then the prince of carnal life will be cast out. And when the Comforter shall come I need not intercede for you; for you will stand approved, and God will know you then as he knows me’.

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Prophecies of the Mahdi Madhi is the name of the last of the 12 Imams. The first Imam was Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed. According to Islam, and in particular the Shiites, Madhi comes at the time of the Last Judgement to save the world. It should be noted that the Hindu ‘Adi Ma’ is the reverse of the Muslim ‘Mahdi’. The Prophet Mohammed ( reported by Abu al-Hujaf in Bihar al-anwar, vol. 51, p. 74): Listen to the good news about the Mahdi! He will rise at the time when people will be faced with severe conflict and the earth will be hit by a violent quake. He will fill the earth with justice and equity as it is filled with injustice and tyranny. He will fill the hearts of his followers with devotion and will spread justice everywhere. The Prophet Mohammed (reported in Bihar al-anwar vol.51, p65; and in Ithbat al-hudat, vol.6, p382): The Day of Resurrection will not take place until the True Qa'im rises. This will happen when God permits him to do so. Anyone who follows him will be saved, and anyone who opposes him will perish. O servants of God, keep God in your mind and go towards him even if it happens to be on the ice, for indeed

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he is the caliph of God, the Exalted and Glorified, and my successor. The Prophet Mohammed (as reported by Abu Said al-Khudari;Bihar al-anwar vol.51, p74; also in Ithbat al-hudat, vol.7, p9): The Mahdi from among my descendants, from my family, will rise at the End of Time, while the heavens will pour rain and the earth will bring forth green grass for him. He will fill the earth with justice and equity as it is filled with tyranny and injustice. The followers of the Mahdi will have special powers of communication with the Imam (vibrational awareness) (reported by Ja’far in al-kulayni, al-Rawda, II/49): At the time of the Advent of our Qa’im, God, may He be exalted and glorified, will develop the hearing and sight of our faithful in such a manner that, without there being a messenger between the Qa’im and themselves, he will speak with them, and they will hear and can see him without him having left the place where he is.

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Another prophecy of the prophet Mohammed relating to vibrational awareness: There will be a Caliph in the last period of my Ummah who will freely give hands-full of wealth to the people without counting it.

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Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202) This Italian Christian abbott proposed the three-age theory of the world which has resonated down the centuries in much of the apocalyptic and prophetic activity in Christian Europe. Expositio in Apocalypsim (begun in 1183) Chapter 5, f. 5r-v: The three states (status) of the world. The first of the three status of which we speak was in the time of the Law when the people of the Lord served like a little child for a time under the elements of the world. They were not yet able to attain the freedom of the Spirit until he came who said: “If the Son liberates you, you will be free indeed” (John 8:66). The second status was under the Gospel and remains until the present with freedom in comparison to the past but not with freedom in comparison to the future. … The third status will come toward the End of the world, no longer under the veil of the letter, but in the full freedom of the Spirit when … those who will teach many about justice will be like the splendour of the firmament and like the stars forever.

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… In that [third] status the Holy Spirit will seem to call out in the Scripture …: “The Father and the Son have worked until now; and I am at work.” [Joachim’s version of John 5:17] The letter of the Prior Testament [Old Testament] seems by a certain property of likeness to pertain to the Father. The letter of the New Testament pertains to the Son. So the spiritual understanding that proceeds from both pertains to the Holy Spirit. Similarly, the order of the married which flourished in the first time seems to pertain to the Father by a property of likeness, the order of preachers in the second time to the Son, and so the order of monks to whom the last great times are given pertains to the Holy Spirit. According to this, the first status is ascribed to the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Spirit, although in another way of speaking the status of the world should be said to be one, the people of the elect one, and all things at the same time belonging to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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Chart illustrating Joachim’s theory of the three overlapping eras of history. In the Liber Concordie novi ac veteris Testamenti (Concordance of the Old and New Testaments) (the first of his triology, all of which were written and revised concurrently), Joachim described the three states in a slightly different way:

The first state was that of knowledge (that is to say, the state in which mankind had to learn); the second is that of wisdom; the third will be that of the fullness of intelligence. The first was one of enslavement; the second one of dependence as of a child on his parents; the last will be one of liberty. The first took place under the whip; the second, under the banner of action; the third will be under that of contemplation. Fear characterized the first;

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faith, the second; charity will mark the third. The first was the age of slaves; the second, of freemen; the third will be that of friends. The first was the time of old men; the second, of young men; the third will be that of children. The first took place under the light of the stars; the second is the moment of dawn; the third will be that of broad daylight.

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Nichiren Daishonin (1222-82)

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A Buddhist reformer in Japan who made this prophecy: When, at a certain future time, the union of the state law and the Buddhist Truth shall be established, and the harmony between the two completed, both sovereign and subjects will faithfully adhere to the Great Mysteries. Then the golden age, such as were the ages under the reign of the sage kings of old, will be realized in these days of degeneration and corruption, in the time of the Latter Law. Then the establishment of the Holy See will be completed, by imperial grant and the edict of the Dictator, at a spot comparable in its excellence with the Paradise of Vulture Peak. We have only to wait for the coming of the time. Then the moral law (kaiho) will be achieved in the actual life of mankind. The Holy See will be the seat where all men of the three countries [India, China and Japan] and the whole jambudvipa [world] will be initiated into the mysteries of confession and expiation; and even the great deities, Brahma and Indra, will come down into the sanctuary and participate in the initiation.

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Birgitta of Sweden (1303-1373) This prophecy was made just before a (nominally) Christian Swedish king led a so-called Crusade against his then non-Christian (‘heathen’) neighbours (he lost). However the prophecy can also be read as refering to a future time, in which the nominally Christian West will learn from the so-called heathens (Indians?) and there will be one flock and One Shepherd. Revelations VI:77 The time will come when the heathens will become so pious that the Christians will be like their humble servants, and the Holy Scriptures will be fulfilled, in saying that there shall be one flock and One Shepherd, one faith and one clear knowledge of God. Then many who were called shall be rejected, but the wilderness shall blossom, and the heathens shall sing, ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost.’

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Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843) A writer regarded as being part of the German Romantic tradition. Hyperion (1797) (extract) The state is the coarse husk around the seed of life, and nothing more. It is the wall around the garden of human fruits and flowers. But is the all around the garden of any help when the soil lies parched? Only the rain from heaven helps then. O rain from heaven! O inspiration! You will bring us the springtime of peoples again. The state cannot command your presence. But let it not obstruct you, and you will come, come with your all-conquering ectasies, will wrap us in golden clouds and carry us up above this mortal world; and we shall marvel and wonder if this is still we, we who in our poverty asked the stars if a spring bloomed for us among them. – Do you ask me when this will be? It will be when the darling of Time, the youngest, loveliest daughter of Time, the new Church, will arise out of these polluted, antiquated forms, when the awakened feeling of the divine will bring man his divinity,

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man’s heart its beautiful youth again, when – I cannot prophesy it, for my eyes are too dim to surmise it, but it will come, that I know for certain. Death is a messenger of life, and that we now lie asleep in our infirmaries testifies that we shall soon awaken to new health. Then, and not till then, shall we exist, then, then, will our spirit’s element have been found.

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Novalis (1772-1801) The penname of George Friedrich Philipp von Hardenburg, a poet and novelist in the German Romantic tradition. This extract is his from last major work, a novel. Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1800) Sophie said: “The great mystery has been revealed to all, and yet remains eternally unfathomable. The new world is born from suffering and the ashes are dissolved in tears to become the drink of eternal life. The heavenly Mother dwells in everyone, in order that each child be born eternally. Do you feel the sweet birth in the beating of your hearts?” … Finally Sophie said: “The Mother is among us. Her presence will bless us forever. Follow us into our dwelling; in the temple there we shall dwell eternally and guard the mystery of the world.”

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Goodwyn Barmby (1820-1881) and Catherine Barmby (d.1854) The Barmbys were young idealists who founded and ran the Communist Church (Commune-ist) in London, 1841-1849. The Woman-power (1842) Woman-Saviour now we muster To await thy advent sure, In the cluster of thy lustre, Come and leave the earth no more? Then before thy gentle look, Swords shall quail and warriors fail, And the spear, a shepherd’s crook, Shall adorn the daisied dale. Woman-power! Incarnate love! Human Goddess come and be, If the Bridegroom’s tears can move, Bride unto Humanity. Thou alone of all can save us Let us be what thou would have us!

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Barmby in a letter to a friend (early 1840s): But the Free Woman who shall give the womanly tone to the entire globe is not yet manifested. Barmby in an 1841 article: … the man must possess the woman-power as well as the man-power, and the woman must possess the man-power as well as the woman-power. Both must be equilibriated beings. Catherine Barmby (1843): We have the priest, we therefore demand the priestess, the Woman teacher of the word, the woman apostle of God’s law!

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Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) This American writer produced several novels that included prophetic themes. The Scarlet Letter (1850) (conclusion) Women, more especially, - in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion, - or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought, - came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled them, as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognized the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened

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with a lifelong sorrow. The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful; and wise, moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how sacred love could make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end!

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Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1870) This Danish writer, best known for his short stories for children, attempted to diversify into what he called “philosophical stories”, several of which had visionary and prophetic qualities. The New Century’s Goddess (1861) (beginning) The muse of the twentieth century we shall never know, but our children may and our grand-children certainly will. Yet we cannot help wondering what she will look like or what songs she will sing: which strings in man’s soul she will touch, and to what heights she will raise her age. Andersen is coy as to where this Goddess will appear, tantalizing the reader with: One lovely morning she will arrive. She will come riding on the back of the modern dragon, a locomotive, through tunnels and over bridges… and in answer to the rhetorical “and when will she appear”, Andersen has a prophetic comment to make:

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Soon the Great Wall of China will crumble. The railroads of Europe will reach the closed archives of Asian culture. The two streams of culture will meet and the rapids of the double river will have deeper tones than have ever been heard before.

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Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900) There has been a long Orthodox Christian tradition of devotion to the Divine Feminine as Sophia. This Russian philosopher’s prophetic vision of the approaching descent to earth of Sophia is expressed in his poems. Let it be known: today the Eternal Feminine In an incorruptible body is descending to Earth. In the unfading light of the new Goddess Heaven has become one with the depths. In the preface to his collected poems, Soloviev wrote: But the more perfect and intimate is the revelation of true beauty which clothes Godhead and by His power leads us to salvation from suffering and death, the narrower is the boundary which separates it from its false image, from that delusive and impotent beauty which merely perpetuates the realm of suffering and death. All this has been predicted, and the end has been predicted: in the end the eternal Beauty will bear fruit, and from her will come the salvation of the world, when her illusory images will have vanished...

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Lady Caithness (1830-1895) (Marie Sinclair, Countess of Caithness) This Spanish-born French theosophist received a spirit communication in 1871 which had revealed to her a revolution in religion that would result in a ‘New Age of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit.’ The Mystery of the Ages (1887) It was generally considered, at the turn of the next century, that the next Divine incarnation was about to come to earth and would be female, the advent of Divine Wisdom, or Theo-Sophia, and that the present age would be the age of making known all that which has been kept secret from the beginning. �

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Anna Kingsford (1846-1888) An English physician, mystic and visionary who served as president of the Theosophical Society, and later founded the Hermetic Society. Her visions were recorded in her book, Clothed with the sun (a reference to Revelations 12:1). Clothed with the sun (1889) Part the First: No.II: Part 1 [based on a vision received in Paris, February 7, 1880) 1. You ask the method and nature of Inspiration, and the means whereby God revealeth the Truth. 2. Know that there is no enlightenment from without: the secret of things is revealed from within. 3. From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within beareth witness. 4. Think not I tell you that which you know not: for except you know it, it cannot be given to you. 5. To him that hath it is given, and he hath the more abundantly.

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6. None is a prophet save he who knoweth: the instructor of the people is a man of many lives. 7. Inborn knowledge and the perception of things, these are the sources of revelation: the soul of the man instructeth him, having already learned by experience. 8. Intuition is inborn experience; that which the soul knoweth of old and of former years. 9. And Illumination is the Light of Wisdom, whereby a man perceiveth heavenly secrets. 10. Which Light is the Spirit of God within the man, showing unto him the things of God. 11. Do not think that I tell you anything you know not; all cometh from within: the Spirit that informeth is the Spirit of God in the prophet.� Part the First: No.II: Part 2: A Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Soul, mystically called the Day of the Woman [based on a vision received in Paris, February 7, 1880)

1. And now I show you a mystery and a new thing, which is part of the mystery of the fourth day of creation. 2. The word which shall come to save the world, shall be uttered by a woman.

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3. A woman shall conceive, and shall bring forth the tidings of salvation. 4. For the reign of Adam is at its last hour; and God shall crown all things by the creation of Eve. 5. Hitherto the man hath been alone, and hath had dominion over the earth. 6. But when the woman shall be created, God shall give unto her the kingdom; and she shall be first in rule and highest in dignity. … 12. So that man the manifestor shall resign his office; and woman the interpreter shall give light to the world. 13. Here is the fourth office: she revealeth that which the Lord hath manifested. 14. Hers is the light of the heavens, and the brightest of the planets of the holy seven.

15. She is the fourth dimension; the eyes which enlighten; the power which draweth inward to God. 16. And her kingdom cometh; the day of the exaltation of woman. … 20. For the woman is the crown of man, and the final manifestation of humanity. 21. She is the nearest to the throne of God, when she shall be revealed.

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22. But the creation of woman is not yet complete: but it shall be complete in the time which is at hand. 23. All things are thine, O Mother of God: all things are thine, O Thou who risest from the sea; and Thou shalt have dominion over all the worlds.

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Count August Cieszkowski (1814-1894) This Polish nationalist wrote of a forthcoming third age of the Holy Spirit. Oicze Nasz (late 19th century) p98� At the entrance into the Third Age, the Holy Spirit shall lead us into all truth. p230 Today a new prophecy comes with the third revelation to complete the cycle of the revelation of Humanity. For Humanity it is the last and final one. … We are concerned here with the unveiling of the final and highest goal and destiny of man. This is revealed to us in the Third Age of the World.

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Tau Valentin II (Jules Doinel) (1842-1903) Doinel was a French visionary who had recurring visions of the Divine Feminine. As founder and first Patriarch of the Universal Catholic Gnostic Church (part of the French Gnostic tradition), he wrote a Gnostic Catechism (1895) for his church, based on Valentinian Gnosticism, which contained the following prophecy:

(extracts)

I am a Valentinian Gnostic. I have the Pleroma for my Father, Christos for my Savior, Simon and Valentinus as Doctors, Helen and Sophia for moral support, and I wait for the advent of Our Lady Pneuma Hagion, the eternal Feminine. … As Simon saved Helen from supreme degradation, the Savior, sent by the Father, descended into the world in an astral form and delivered Thought from the tyranny of the unjust Angels. In Judea, he is called Jesus and the Son. In Samaria, he was called Simon and the Father. For future races, he will be the Holy Spirit for which we wait, God's Great Virtue, the Woman who is to come.

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Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) A famous writer and educationalist from Bengal ineastern India. Bharat Tirtha Oh! Mother, let my mind awake slowly on this sacred shore of the sea. Where great souls of the world have come together to pay reverence. Here with outstretched hands we bow down to the Divine in human form. With bountiful prosody and supreme felicity we adore thee. Behold here oh! seeker the meditative mountain with rivers resounding and dancing to the solemn music of heaven. Adore here your reverential Mother Earth where great souls have come together on the seashore to pay reverence. Nobody knows whose invitation invoke so many souls who have gathered here like a turbulent current of river that has come and dissolved itself in the Divine Ocean. In this sacred place Aryans, non-Aryans, Dravidians, Afghans and Moughals have come and detached their individuality in One Supreme Body. West has opened her door for everybody to get their

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blessings. Here everybody will bring into union and exchange gifts. Nobody will go empty handed from this seashore where great souls come together to pay reverence. Those crossed the great mountains and deserts singing the song of your glory from their hearts like martial music and got their seats in your Own Self. Oh! Rudra-Vina play your notes in full tune, so that those who are still in doubt may throw away their doubts and will come and gather where great souls have come together on the seashore to pay reverence. Here one day the strings of our heart played an endless tune of Omkara in praise of the Supreme One. In search of the Supreme One they have penanced for ages and oblated their ego into the holy fire. By throwing away the bonds of difference, they have emerged into universal brotherhood . That place of religious homage where so much penance and sacrament had taken place is now open to all. We should bow-down here where the great souls have come together on the seashore to pay reverence. Come oh !Aryans, come non-Aryans, come Hindu and Muslims. Come, come oh

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Englishmen, come Christians, come Brahmins, purify your heart, hold the hands of downtrodden and out-castes. Remove all ills and disrespect. Come quickly for the coronation of Mother, where the ‘Mangal Ghat’ has to be filled with sacred water which become consecrated by the touch of the great souls who have come together on the seashore pay reverence.

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Lionel Johnson (1867-1902) This English-born Irish writer cooperated with W.B.Yeats in developing a Joachimist doctrine of a forthcoming third age of the Spirit. Based on a famous passage in Joachim’s Liber Concordie, this poem concentrates on the sweetness of the third status (age). Vita Venturi Saeculi Be glad with beauty, white with perfect grace, Sweet Age to come, whose face Dawns dimly in our prophesying eyes Eager with good surmise! … Sweet Age to come, whose wings are of white fire, Deny not our desire; O kingdom of the Spirit, conquering all Take willing earth in Thrall! Let green woods wave thee welcome, and blue seas Laugh welcome, and each breeze Be sacred incense round thee: peace appear Through crystal atmosphere, Impassioned, perdurable, omnipotent; Given by God, not lent, Foretaste of Heaven, ere heaven be all in all, Come to the vexed world’s call; …

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Sweet Age to come, declare the doctrine clear; We wait thee now, wait here! Sweet Age to come, upon our ready ground Let lily and rose abound, With pure supremacy of fragrant state Sweetening this world of hate, Which does the wrongs, it knows not, and it knows; Plant thou thy lily and rose!

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Tau Synesius (Leonce Fabre Des Essarts) (1848-1917)

This French theosophist and patriarch of one branch of the French Gnostic Church, wrote to a religious congress in Paris in June 1908:

There is among our tenets one to which I shall call particular attention: the tenet of feminine salvation. The work of the Father has been accomplished, that of the Son, as well. There remains that of the Spirit, which alone is capable of bringing about the final salvation of humanity on earth and thereby, of laying the way for the reconstitution of the Spirit. Now the Spirit, the Paraclete, corresponds to what the divine partakes of a feminine nature, and our teachings state explicitly that this is the only facet of the godhead that is truly accessible to our mind. What will be in fact the nature of this new and not-too-far-distant Messiah?

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Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) An Indian Sufi, originally of the Nizamiyya subbranch of the Chishtiyya, who brought Sufism to the West in the early 20th century. Based in France from 1910, he founded the Sufi Order International. There is no line of work or study which woman in the West does not undertake and does not accomplish as well as man. Even in social and political activities, in religion, in spiritual ideas, she indeed excels man. The charitable organizations existing in different parts of the West, are mostly supported by the women, and I see as clear as daylight that the hour is coming when woman will lead humanity to a higher evolution.

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Zinaida Gippius (1869-1945) and Dmitrii Merezhkovskii (1865-1941) Using terminology reminiscent of the much earlier Joachim of Fiore, this exiled Russian married couple believed in a forthcoming period of time when the Third Testament will disclose itself to humanity. Tayna Trekh [The Mystery of Three] (1925) The Father has not saved the world, The Son has not saved it, The Mother shall save it; The Mother is the Holy Spirit. Christianity separated the past eternity of the Father from the future eternity of the Son, the earthly truth from the heavenly truth. Will they not be united by that which comes after Christianity, the revelation of the Spirit – Eternal Womanhood, Eternal Motherhood? Will not the Mother reconcile the Father and the Son? ---- The fearful knot of social inequality which especially in our times threatens to tighten

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into a noose of death and so strangle humanity, may be untied only in the Third Testament – in the Kingdom of the Holy Ghost. (Merezhkovskii, 1939) Unfortunately none of their religious writings have been fully translated into English. A twentieth century American academic has summarised their views thus (1975): … Gippius observed various revelations of the number three in the composition of the world - the Holy Trinity, the unity of human personality-love-society, or the spiritual world-man-material world, and so forth. All these unities of three are merged and at the same time separated from one another; they are simultaneously one and three. Gippius and her husband also distinguished three phases in the history of mankind and its future. These phases represent three different realms:

- the realm of God the Father, the Creator – the realm of the Old Testament;

- the realm of God the Son, Jesus Christ – the realm of the New Testament and the present phrase in the religious evolution of mankind.

- the realm of the Holy Ghost, the Eternal Woman-Mother – the realm of the Third Testament, which will disclose itself to humanity in the future.

The Kingdom of the Old Testament has revealed God’s power and authority as truth; the Kingdom of

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the New Testament reveals truth as love, and the Kingdom of the Third Testament will reveal love as freedom. The Kingdom of the Third Humanity will resolve all present antitheses – sex and asceticism, individualism and sociality, slavery and freedom, atheism and religiosity, hatred and love. The enigma of Earth and Heaven, the flesh and the spirit, will be solved in the Holy Ghost and the unity of the Earthly and the Divine manifested by the Virgin Mother. The Holy Ghost will redeem the world, giving mankind a new life in peace, harmony, and life. The Three in One will be realised, and Christianity will be brought to completion. God the Father and God the Son will be synthesised by the Holy Spirit, the Eternal Womanhood-Motherhood. The Spirit will reconcile the Father and the Son, Heaven and Earth.

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Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) This pioneer of abstract art was eloquent in his writings on the approaching spiritual epoch and the role that art would play in this new spirituality. Blaue Reiter Almanac (draft preface) A great era has begun: the spiritual “awakening”, the increasing tendency to regain “lost balance”, the inevitable necessity of spiritual plantings, the unfolding of the first blossom. We are standing at the threshold of one of the greatest epochs that mankind has ever experienced, the epoch of great spirituality. The Art of Spiritual Harmony The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal with the narowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area. The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the

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apex was to-day the second segment is to-morrow; what to-day can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms to-morrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.

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Katherine Tingley (1847-1929) This American theosophist founded and lead the Pasadena-based Theosophical Society. Theosophy: The Path of the Mystic (1922) (intro to Chapter 7) The Cycle of the Children It is impossible to gauge the significance of the present time or to realize what is in store for humanity during the next hundred years, merely from our own experience and from recorded history. For this is no ordinary time. It is not simply the culminating point of the past hundred years, but of thousands of years; the night of centuries has passed, and with the new dawn comes the return of memories and powers and possibilities of an age long past. The soul of man still cries out, the darkness is still so close about him that he knows not the dawn is so near. But those who have climbed to the hilltops have seen the glow in the eastern sky and the rays of golden light in the heavens; and with the suddenness of the break of day in the tropics, in the twinkling of an eye, the light will come, the scales fall from our eyes, and we shall see -- not in the

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uncertain gloom of night, but in the glorious sunlight. As the light of day scatters the shadows and the powers of darkness, so will the effulgence of the new cycle break through the dark places of ignorance, prejudice and unbrotherliness in the age now so swiftly passing. The great heroes of old will once more return to earth, the great musicians, painters, poets, wise statesmen, lovers of the race, will again take up their loving task, and the earth shall blossom as a garden. The ancient wisdom taught in the sacred Mysteries will be revived; the earth, the air, the ether, all nature, will reveal their secrets to those who have prepared themselves through purification and by service to humanity.

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Jessie L.Watson (1850-1928) American theosophist and writer. The Age of the Spirit Is it not possible that we are today standing on the threshhold of that Age of the Spirit to which Joachim looked forward as the hope for the crying ills of his time?

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C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) This English academic wrote many novels incorporating a Christian morality. The Great Divorce: a dream (1946)

pp97-99: The reason why I asked if there were another river was this. All down one long aisle of the forest the undersides of the leafy branches had begun to tremble with dancing light; and on earth I knew nothing so likely to produce this appearance as the reflected lights cast upward by moving water. A few moments later I realised my mistake. Some kind of procession was approaching us, and the light came from the persons who composed it. First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers - soundlessly falling, lightly drifting flowers, though by the standards of the ghost-world each petal would have weighed a hundredweight and their fall would have been the crashing of boulders. Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys on one hand, and girls

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on the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, no man who reads that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done. …

‘And who are all these young men and women on each side?’ ‘They are her sons and daughters.’ ‘She must have had a very large family, Sir.’ ‘Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.’ ‘Isn’t that a bit hard on their own parents?’ ‘No. There are those that steal other people’s children. But her motherhood was of a different kind. Those on whom it fell went back to their natural parents loving them more. … ‘Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.’ I looked at my teacher in amazement.

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‘Yes’, he said, ‘It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life’.

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Daniil Andreev (1906-1959) Roza Mira (Rose of the World) (completed 1958) Whilst held in a Stalinist prison in the 1950s, this Russian writer had a series of visions of a future in which the Zventa-Sventana [Divine Feminine] would come to Earth, and through an organization known as the ‘Rose of the World’ would offer the possibility of redemption to humans. This is described in detail in his treatise, which consists of twelve books, each divided into several chapters, and which has been compared to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Preserved by his widow, the manuscript remained unpublished until glasnost in the early 1990s. It has only recently been translated into English. It is reasonable to argue that Andreev was in fact describing the Advent of Shri Mataji and of SahajaYoga. In his Glossary, Andreev defines the ‘Rose of the World’ as The coming all-Christian church of the last centuries that will integrate in itself the churches of the past and will connect in a free union all religions of Light. In this sense, the Rose of the World is inter-religious or pan-religious. Its main goal is to save as many human souls as possible and to deliver them from the dangers of spiritual enslavement by the coming anti-God.

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Andreev identifies the global feminine essence as ‘Zventa-Sventana’ meaning The lightest of the light, the holiest of the holy. As conceived by Andreev, the Rose of the World, being a global religious and social organization, is destined to overcome the contradiction between two primary tendencies – ascetic spirituality which rejects the world and the so-called pagan tendency which extols the carnal world … Finally, the triumpth of the Rose of the World is not possible until the striving of religious humanity towards the Eternally Feminine [Vechno Zhenstvennoe] reveals a new, deeper meaning; until the breathing of the Zventa-Sventana has softened and lightened the extremely gloomy severity of masculinity, which up to now [has] completely dominated ethics, religion, and social life. Andreev clearly sees the feminine principle as essential for the future of humanity: We are entering the cycle of epochs when the feminine soul will become increasingly pure and broad, when more and more women will become deep inspirers, sensible mothers, and wise and visionary leaders. This will be the cycle of epochs when the feminine component

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of humanity will manifest itself with unprecedented strength, balancing the previous dominance of masculine forces in a perfect harmony.

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Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) (1948-) Born Stephen Demetre Georgiou, this singer used the name ‘Cat Stevens’ whilst a musician in the late 1960s and 70s; changed name on conversion to Yusuf Islam. Don’t you feel a change a coming (1971) Don’t you feel a change a coming From another side of time Breaking down the walls of silence Lifting shadows from your mind Placing back the missing mirrors That before you couldn’t find Filling mysteries of emptiness That yesterday left behind And we all know it’s better Yesterday has past Now let’s all start the living For the one that’s going to last And we all know it’s better Yesterday has past Now let’s all start the living For the one that’s going to last Don’t you feel the day is coming That will stay and remain When your children see the answers That you saw the same

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When the clouds have all gone There will be no more rain And the beauty of all things Is uncovered again Don’t you feel the day is coming And it won’t be too soon When the people of the world Can all live in one room When we shake off the ancient Shake off the ancient chains of our tomb We will all be born again Of the eternal womb.

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Robert Plant (1948- ) Writer and lead singer with the English musical ensemble, Led Zeppelin. This song was consistently one of the most popular pieces of music in England in the 1970s. Stairway to Heaven (1971) extract: verses 6-7 Your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know, The piper’s calling you to join him, Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know Your stairway lies on the whispering wind. And as we wind on down the road Our shadows taller than our soul. There walks a lady we all know Who shines white light and wants to show How everything still turns to gold. And if you listen very hard The tune will come to you at last. When all are one and one is all To be a rock and not to roll.

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John Lennon (1940-1980) English songwriter, musician and social activist. This was the title song from his first solo album. Imagine (1971) extract: verse 3 and chorus Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world… You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope some day you’ll join us And the world will live as one.

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Part 3:

Prophecies and visions from the oral traditions

of the Indigenous peoples

of the Americas and Australia

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The Kagaba people The Kagaba people of Columbia in South America have a belief in Aluna, ‘my Mother’, as creator. Also known as the Kogi (Cogui), and said to be descendents of the ancient Tairona civilisation decimated by the invading Spanish, they live on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains on the Caribbean coast of Columbia. Their stories have been recorded by anthropologists. The mother of our songs, the mother of our seed, bore us in the begining of things and so she is the mother of all types of men, the mother of all nations. She is mother of the thunder, the mother of the streams, the mother of the trees and of all things. She is the mother of the world and of the older brothers, the stone-people. She is the mother of the fruits of the earth and of all things. She is the mother of our youngest brothers, the French and the strangers. She is the mother of our dance paraphernalia, of all temples and she is the only mother we possess. She alone is mother of the fire and the Sun and the Milky Way. . . . She is the mother of the rain and the only mother we possess. And she has left us a token in all the temples . . . a token in the form of songs and dances. She has no cult, and no prayers are really

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directed to her, but when the fields are sown and the priests chant their incantations the Kagaba say, 'And then we think of the one and only mother of the growing things, of the mother of all things.' One prayer was recorded. 'Our mother of the growing fields, our mother of the streams, will have pity upon us. For whom do we belong? Whose seeds are we? To our mother alone do we belong.

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Pawnee people of Oklahoma Originally settled in Nebraska, the Pawnee were moved in 1876 to a reservation in Oklahoma. Behold! Our Mother Earth is lying here. Behold! She giveth of her fruitfulness. Truly, her power gives she us. Give thanks to Mother Earth who lieth here. Behold on Mother Earth the growing fields! Behold the promise of her fruitfulness! Truly, her power gives she us. Give thanks to Mother Earth who lieth here. Behold on Mother Earth the spreading trees! Behold the promise of her fruitfulness! Truly, her power gives she us. Give thanks to Mother Earth who lieth here. We see on Mother Earth the running streams, We see the promise of her fruitfulness. Truly, her power gives she us. Our thanks to Mother Earth who lieth here!

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White Buffalo Calf Woman This is a prophecy of the Lakota Sioux of the American Plains, as told by an elder, Joseph Chasing Horse: We Lakota people have a prophecy about the white buffalo calf. How that prophecy originated was that we have a sacred bundle, a sacred peace pipe, that was brought to us about 2,000 years ago by what we know as the White Buffalo Calf Woman. The story goes that she appeared to two warriors at that time. These two warriors were out hunting buffalo, hunting for food in the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota, and they saw a big body coming toward them. And they say that it was a white buffalo calf. As it came close to them, it turned into a beautiful young Indian girl. That time one of the warriors thought bad in his mind, and so the young girl told him to step forward. And when he did step forward, a black cloud came over his body, and when the black cloud disappeared, the warrior who had bad thoughts was left with no flesh or blood on his bones. The other warrior kneeled and began to pray. And when he prayed, the white buffalo calf who was now an Indian girl told him to go back to his

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people and warn them that in four days she was going to bring a sacred bundle. So the warrior did as he was told. He went back to his people and he gathered all the elders and all the leaders and all the people in a circle and told them what she had instructed him to do. And sure enough, just as she said she would, on the fourth day she came. They say a cloud came down from the sky, and off of the cloud stepped the white buffalo calf. As it rolled onto the earth, the calf stood up and became this beautiful young woman who was carrying the sacred bundle in her hand. As she entered the circle of the nation she sang a sacred song and took the sacred bundle to the people who were there to take of her. She spent four days among our people and taught them about the sacred bundle, the meaning of it. She taught them seven sacred ceremonies. … When she was done teaching our people she left the way she came. She went out of the circle, and as she was leaving she turned and told our people that she would return one day for the sacred bundle. And she left the sacred bundle, which we still have to this very day. When White Buffalo Calf Woman promised to return, she made some prophecies at that time. One of these prophecies was that the birth of a

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white buffalo calf would be a sign that it would be near the time when she would return again to purify the world. What she meant was that she would bring back harmony again and balance, spiritually. A white buffalo calf, named Miracle, was born in 1994, and is regarded by many as the sign the Lakota people had been waiting for. Part of White Buffalo Calf Woman’s original prophecy was to divide the future into seven fires, or ages. She promised to return during the last fire, and bring with her a new and final chance for a new world to be formed uniting all races. Floyd Hand, a Oglala Sioux spiritual leader, has stated: During the seventh fire, a new red nation can be formed – red being the union of red, white, black, and yellow. We will be able to retrace our steps and examine what we have done wrong. We are not preserving what has been given us to care for. We are polluting the Earth. We’ve become our own enemy. During the seventh fire, the light-skinned man will be given a choice between his technologies and his nature. If he chooses nature, there is still a chance for harmony in this world. If he makes the wrong choice, he will bring on the destruction of all of us.

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The Seven Fires of the Anishinabe William Commanda, traditional elder of the Algonquin Nation, related the Seven Fires Prophecy at the Aboriginal Learning Network Constituency Meeting of Elders, policy makers, and academics on April 16th and 17th, 1997 in Aylner, Quebec, Canada: Seven prophets came to the Anishinabe. They came at a time when the people were living a full and peaceful life on the North Eastern coast of North America. These prophets left the people with seven predictions of what the future would bring. Each of the prophecies was called a fire and each fire referred to a particular era of time that would come in the future. Thus, the teachings of the seven prophets are now called the "Seven Fires". The first prophet said to the people, "In the time of the First Fire, the Anishinabe nation will rise up and follow the sacred shell of the Midewiwin Lodge. The Midewiwin Lodge will serve as a rallying point for the people and its traditional ways will be the source of much strength. The Sacred Megis will lead the way to the chosen ground of the Anishinabe. You are to look for a turtle shaped island

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that is linked to the purification of the earth. You will find such an island at the beginning and end of your journey. There will be seven stopping places along the way. You will know the chosen ground has been reached when you come to a land where food grows on water. If you do not move you will be destroyed." The second prophet told the people, "You will know the Second Fire because at this time the nation will be camped by a large body of water. In this time the direction of the Sacred Shell will be lost. The Midewiwin will diminish in strength. A boy will be born to point the way back to the traditional ways. He will show the direction to the stepping stones to the future of the Anishinabe people." The third prophet said to the people, "In the Third Fire the Anishinabe will find the path to their chosen ground, a land in the west to which they must move their families. This will be the land where food grounds on water." The Fourth Fire was originally given to the people by two prophets. They come as one.

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They told of the coming of the light skinned race. One of the prophets said, "You will know the future of our people by the face of the light skinned race wears. If they come wearing the face of brotherhood then there will come a time of wonderful change for generations to come. They will bring new knowledge and articles that can be joined with the knowledge of this country. In this way, two nations will join to make a mighty nation. This new nation will be joined by two more so that four will for the mightiest nation of all. You will know the face of the brotherhood if the light skinned race comes carrying no weapons, if they come bearing only their knowledge and a hand shake." The other prophet said, "Beware if the light skinned race comes wearing the face of death. You must be careful because the face of brotherhood and the face of death look very much alike. If they come carrying a weapon ... beware. If they come in suffering ... They could fool you. Their hearts may be filled with greed for the riches of this land. If they are indeed your brothers,

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let them prove it. Do not accept then in total trust. You shall know that the face they wear is one of death if the rivers run with poison and fish become unfit to eat. You shall know them by these many things." The fifth prophet said, "In the time of the Fifth Fire there will come a time of great struggle that will grip the lives of all native people. At the waring of this Fire there will come among the people one who holds a promise of great joy and salvation. If the people accept this promise of a new way and abandon the old teachings, then the struggle of the Fifth Fire will be will be with the people for many generations. The promise that comes will prove to be a false promise. All those who accept this promise will cause the near destruction of the people." The prophet of the Sixth Fire said, "In the time of the Sixth Fire it will be evident that the promise of the First Fire came in in a false way. Those deceived by this promise will take their children away from the teachings of the Elders.

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Grandsons and granddaughters will turn against the Elders. In this way the Elders will lose their reason for living ... they will lose their purpose in life. At this time a new sickness will come among the people. The balance of may people will be disturbed. The cup of life will almost become the cup of grief." At the time of these predictions, many people scoffed at the prophets. They then had medicines to keep away sickness. They were then healthy and happy as a people. These were the people who chose to stay behind in the great migration of the Anishinabe. These people were the first to have contact with the light skinned race. They would suffer most. When the Fifth Fire came to pass, a great struggle did indeed grip the lives of all native people. The light skinned race launched a military attack on the Indian people throughout the country aimed at taking away their land and their independence as a free and sovereign people. It is now felt that the false promise that came at the end of the Fifth Fire was the materials and riches embodied in the way of life of the light skinned race. Those who abandoned the ancient ways and accepted this new promise were a big factor in causing

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the near destruction of the native people of this land. When the Sixth Fire came to be, the words of the prophet rang true as children were taken away from the teachings of the Elders. The boarding school era of "civilizing" Indian children had begun. The Indian language and religion were taken from the children. The people started dying at a early age ... they had lost their will to live and their purpose in living. In the confusing times of the Sixth Fire, it is said that a group of visionaries came among the Anishinabe. They gathered all the priests of the Midewiwin Lodge. They told the priests of the Midewiwin Way was in danger of being destroyed. They gathered all the sacred bundles. They gathered all the scrolls that recorded the ceremonies. All these things were placed in a hollowed out log from the Ironwood tree. Men were lowered over a cliff by long ropes. They dug a hole in the cliff and buried the log where no one could find it. Thus the teachings of the Elders were hidden out of sight but not out of memory. It is said that when the time came that the Indian people could practice their religion without fear a line boy would dream where the Ironwood log, full of sacred bundles and scrolls, was buried. He would lead his people to the place.

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The seventh prophet that came to the people long ago said to be different from the other prophets. He was young and had a strange light in his eyes. He said, "In the time of the Seventh Fire New People will emerge. They will retrace their steps to find what was left by the trail. Their steps will take them to the Elders who they will ask to guide them on their journey. But many of the Elders will have fallen asleep. They will awaken to this new time with nothing to offer. Some of the Elders will be silent because no one will ask anything of them. The New People will have to be careful in how they approach the Elders. The task of the New People will not be easy.

"If the New People will remain strong in their quest the Water Drum of the Midewiwin Lodge will again sound its voice. There will be a rebirth of the Anishinabe Nation and a rekindling of old flames. The Sacred Fire will again be lit.

"It is this time that the light skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. If they choose the right road,

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then the Seventh Fire will light the Eighth and final Fire, an eternal fire of peace, love brotherhood and sisterhood. If the light skinned race makes the wrong choice of the roads, then the destruction which they brought with then in coming to this country will come back at them and cause much suffering and death to all the Earth's people." Traditional Mide people of Ojibway and people from other nations have interpreted the "two roads" that face the light skinned race as the road to technology and the other road to spiritualism. They feel that the road to technology represents a continuation of headlong rush to technological development. This is the road that has led to modern society, to a damaged a seared Earth. Could it be that the road to technology represents a rush to destruction? The road to spirituality represents the slower path that traditional native people have traveled and are now seeking again. This Earth is not scorched on this trail. The grass is still growing there.

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Eyes of Fire This 200-year-old (18th century?) prophecy is said to be that of an old woman of the Cree people, known as ‘Eyes of Fire’:

There was an old lady, from the Cree, named Eyes of Fire, who prophesied that one day, because of the white man’s or Yo-ne-gis’ greed, there would come a time, when the fish would die in the streams, the birds would fall from the air, the waters would be blackened, and the trees would no longer be, mankind as we would know it would all but cease to exist.

There would come a time when the "keepers of the legend, stories, culture rituals, and myths, and all the ancient tribal customs" would be needed to restore us to health. They would be mankind’s key to survival, they were the "Warriors of the Rainbow". There would come a day of awakening when all the peoples of all the tribes would form a New World of Justice, Peace, Freedom and recognition of the Great Spirit.

The "Warriors of the Rainbow" would spread these messages and teach all peoples of the Earth or "Elohi". They would teach them how to live the "Way of the Great Spirit". They would tell them of how the world today has

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turned away from the Great Spirit and that is why our Earth is "Sick".

The "Warriors of the Rainbow" would show the peoples that this "Ancient Being" (the Great Spirit), is full of love and understanding, and teach them how to make the "Earth or Elohi" beautiful again. These Warriors would give the people principles or rules to follow to make their path right with the world. These principles would be those of the Ancient Tribes. The Warriors of the Rainbow would teach the people of the ancient practices of Unity, Love and Understanding. They would teach of Harmony among people in all four comers of the Earth.

Like the Ancient Tribes, they would teach the peoples how to pray to the Great Spirit with love that flows like the beautiful mountain stream, and flows along the path to the ocean of life. Once again, they would be able to feel joy in solitude and in councils. They would be free of petty jealousies and love all mankind as their brothers, regardless of color, race or religion. They would feel happiness enter their hearts, and become as one with the entire human race. Their hearts would be pure and radiate warmth, understanding and respect for all mankind, Nature, and the Great Spirit.

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They would once again fill their minds, hearts, souls, and deeds with the purest of thoughts. They would seek the beauty of the Master of Life - the Great Spirit! They would find strength and beauty in prayer and the solitudes of life.

Their children would once again be able to run free and enjoy the treasures of Nature and Mother Earth. Free from the fears of toxins and destruction, wrought by the Yo-ne-gi and his practices of greed. The rivers would again run clear, the forests be abundant and beautiful, the animals and birds would be replenished. The powers of the plants and animals would again be respected and conservation of all that is beautiful would become a way of life.

The poor, sick and needy would be cared for by their brothers and sisters of the Earth. These practices would again become a part of their daily lives.

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Chief White Cloud of the Talatawi (19th century?) Man has a poor understanding of life. He mistakes knowledge for wisdom. He trieds to unveil the Holy Secrets of our Father, the Great Spirit. He attempts to impose his laws and ways on Mother Earth. Even though he, himself, is a part of nature, he chooses to disregard and ignore it for the sake of his own immediate gain. But the laws of nature are far stronger than those of mankind. Man must awake at last, and learn to understand how little time there remains before he will become the cause of his own downfall. And he has so much to learn. To learn to see with the heart. He must learn to respect Mother Earth – She who has given life to everything; to our brothers and sisters, the animals and plants, to the rivers, the lakes, the oceans and the winds. He must realise that this planet does not belong to him; but that he has to care for and maintain the delicate balance of nature for the sake of the wellbeing of our children and of all future generations. It is the duty of man to preserve the Earth and the Creation of the Great Spirit. Mankind being but a grain of sand in the Holy circle which encloses all of life.

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Addressing the white men who attacked and decimated his people, Chief White Cloud observed: Your religious calling was written on plates of stone by the flaming finger of an angry God. Our religion was established by the traditions of our ancestors, the dreams of our elders that are given to us in the silent hours of the night by the great spirit, and the premonitions of the learned beings. It is written in the hearts of our people, thus we do not require churches – which would only lead us to argue about God. We do not wish this. Earthy things may be argued about with men, but we never argue over God. And the thought that men should rule over nature was never understood by us. Our belief is that the Great Spirit has created all things, not just mankind, but animals, all plants, all rocks … all on Earth and amongst the stars, with true soul. For us all life is sacred. But you do not understand our prayers when we address the sun, moon and winds. You have judged us without understanding, only because our prayers are different. But we are able to live in harmony with all nature. All of nature is within us and we are part of all nature.

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Tashunca-Uitco (Crazy Horse) The Teton Sioux Chief Crazy Horse had a final vision in which He saw his people being driven into spiritual darkness and poverty while the white people prospered in a material way all around them. But even in the darkest times, he saw that the eyes of a few of his people kept the light of dawn and the wisdom of the earth, which they passed on to some of their grandchildren. He saw the coming of automobiles and airplanes, and twice he saw the great darkness and heard the screams and explosions when millions of people died in two great world wars. But he saw, after the second great war passed, a time come when his people began to awaken, not all at once, but a few here and there, and then more and more, and he saw that they were dancing in a beautiful light of the Spirit World under the Sacred Tree even while still on Earth. Then he was amazed to see that dancing under the tree were representatives of all races who had become brothers, and he realized that the world would be made new again and in peace and harmony not just by his people, but by members of all races of mankind.

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Crazy Horse also stated: I see a time of seven generations when all the colours of mankind will gather under the sacred tree of Life and the whole earth will become one circle again. and I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that centre within you, and I am at that place within me, we shall be as one.

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Black Elk This Holy Man of the Ogalala Sioux had many visions of a future world, including: And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.

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Yothu Yindi This is a kinship term of the Yolngu, a coastal people of the north-eastern part of the land now known as Australia. Mandawuy Yunupingu, a Yolngu elder, has written: Yolngu culture in north-east Arnhem Land is among the oldest living cultures on earth. We live by codes of behaviour laid down by our totemic ancestors at the beginning of time, laws that are embedded in the land itself. The main kinship term we use to describe ourselves is Yothu Yindi, meaning child and mother. It encompasses the two sides of our world which we keep in balance. A balance between people and land ensuring our survival for tens of thousands of years. In his song ‘Baywara’, Mandawuy Yunupingu sings of the Great One: Maker of the land Maker of the songs Maker of the constitution (chorus) The journey of the Great One Starts from the east Where the mighty ocean meets the land Then the population came She walked with the Law in Her hands

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Singing children of the earth Praise the journey of the songlines Find the sign and follow the sun … (chorus) Lightening She spoke The power of One Into the sea Where the splinters fell Her mind at its best She did create. Baywara Baywara (chorus)

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Sources…

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Part 1 Devi Sukta This translation by Abinah Chandra Bose, Hymns from the Vedas (London: Asia Publishing House, 1966), pp307-309. For other translations see Hymns of the Rigveda, translated by Ralph T.H.Griffiths (Varanasi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 4th ed., 1963), pp571-572; Thomas B.Coburn, Devi-Mahatmya: the crystallization of the Goddess tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), pp255-256; George Thompson, ‘Ahamkara and Atmastuti: self-assertion and impersonation in the Rgveda’ History of Religions 37(2), 1997, pp140-171, esp.148-151. For an overview of Devi worship in India see N.N.Bhattacharyya, The Indian Mother Goddess (New Delhi: Manohar, 3rd ed.,1999); Devi: Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna M.Wulff (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Tracy Pintchman, The rise of the Goddess in the Hindu tradition (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994); Shashi Bhusan Das Gupta, ‘Evolution of Mother worship in India’ in Great women of India, edited by Swami Madhavananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1954), chapter 3, pp60-61; P.C.Jain, ‘Conception and evolution of the Mother Goddess in India’ (2004) http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/mother Sri Sukta Text from http://shaktisadhana.50megs.com/DEVI/lakshmi.html For background and a full translation see Thomas B.Coburn, Devi-Mahatmya: the crystallization of the Goddess tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984), pp258-263. Lao Tzu Extracts from Tao Te Ching: the book of meaning and life, translation by Richard Wilhelm and H.C.Oswald (London: Arkana (Routledge), 1985), pp37,50. There are as many ways of translating this text as there are translations. For a survey of online translations (including several ‘in-progress’) see

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http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/gthursby/taoism/ttc-list.htm See also E.M.Chen, ‘Tao as the Great Mother and the influence of motherly love in the shaping of Chinese philosophy’, History of religions 1974;14(1):51-73; and her ‘Nothingness and the Mother principle in early Chinese Taoism’, International Philosophical Quarterly 1969;9(3):391-405. The Wisdom of Ben Sira Extract from Ann Baring and Jules Cashford, The myth of the Goddess (New York: Viking, 1991; London: Arkana/Penguin, 1993), p472. See also The Anchor Bible: the Wisdom of Ben Sira: a new translation, by Patrick W.Skehan [and] Alexander A. Di Lella (New York: Doubleday, 1987). For Wisdom in the Jewish tradition, see Wisdom in ancient Israel, edited by John Day [et al] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Robert L.Wilken, ed., Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and early Christianity, (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975); John G.Gammie and Leo G.Perdue, The Sage in Israel and the ancient Near East (Winona Lake, WA: Eisenbrauns, 1990); John J.Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenic age (Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1997); Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 3rd ed., 1990). The Orphic Hymn to Nature Translation by A.P.Long and D.Scott, in Asphodel P.Long, In a chariot drawn by lions: the search for the female in diety (London: Women’s Press, 1992), pp67-68. The Homeric Hymns Translated by Hugh G.Evans-White, Hesiod: the Homeric hymns (London: Heinemann, 1914), p457. More recent translations include those by Diane J.Rayor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Apostolos N.Athanassakis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2nd ed., 2004), p60; Jules Cashford (London: Penguin, 2003), pp140-141; Martin L.West (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,

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2003), pp213-214; Michael Crudden (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Wisdom of Solomon This extract from the New English Bible. Text available online at: http://goodnewsinc.org/othbooks/wisdom.html The dating is based on The Anchor Bible: The Wisdom of Solomon: a new translation by David Winston (New York: Doubleday, 1979), p3. Trimorphic Protennoia From the translation by John D.Turner from The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M.Robinson (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), pp511-522. Also in The other Bible (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984), pp588-593. Text available at http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/trimorph.html and at http://www.crosswinds.net/~essenes/13tri.html It should be noted that this text contains many interpolations by the translator, and readers are encouraged to consult the printed text to see the full extent. For Wisdom in the Nag Hammadi library see also The Wisdom texts from Qumran and the development of Sapiential thought, edited by C.Hempel [et al] (Leuven: Peeters, 2002). The Thunder, Perfect Mind From the translation by George W.MacRae in The Nag Hammadi Library in English, edited by James M.Robinson (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), pp294-303. Text available at: http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/thunder.html Lucius Apuleius This is a composite text from the translation by William Adlington (1566) in Rose Horman Arthur, The Wisdom Goddess: feminine motifs in eight Nag Hammadi documents (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), pp158-159; and the translation by Paul Halsall, adapted from translations by Adlington and Robert Graves (1951), at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/lucius-assa.html

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Lotus Sutra Text from the translation by John Blofield, Compassion yoga: the mystical cult of Kuan Yin (London: Mandala Books/Unwin paperbacks, 1977), pp105-108. See also The Lotus Sutra, translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1993); The Lotus Sutra in Japanese culture, edited by George J.Tanabe and Willa Jane Tanabe (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989). Devi Mahatmya This extract is a modified version of the translated verses in J.N.Tiwari, Goddess cults in ancient India (Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1985). The standard English translation and commentary is by Thomas B.Coburn: Encountering the Goddess: a translation of the Devi-Mahatmya and a study of its intepretation (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991). See also his chapters: ‘Devi: the great Goddess’, in Devi: Goddesses of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna M.Wulff (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp31-48; ‘The threefold vision of the Devi mahatmya’ in Devi: the great Goddess, edited by Vidya Dehejia (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1999), pp37-57. Also Coburn’s earlier Devi-Mahatmya: the crystallization of the Goddess tradition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1984). Another English translation: The Devi-Mahatmyam or Sri Durga-Saptasati (700 mantras on Sri Durga) by Swami Jagadisvarananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrihna Math, 4th ed., 1972). A French translation: Celebration de la Grande Deesse (Devi Mahatmya) par Jean Varennif (Paris: Societe D’Editions “Les Belles Lettres”, 1975). This text is also known as Sri Candi, for which see Rajikishore Mishra, ‘A peep into the Candi text’ Orissa Review October 2004, pp34-36 http://orissagov.nic.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/ oct2004/englishPdf/apeepcandi.pdf which includes a brief discussion of the Devi Mahatmya in other puranas.

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Lakshmi Stuti Text from http://www.stephen-knapp.com/prayers_to_goddess_lakshmi.htm http://www.boulderkirtan.com/Shrine/Lakshmi/MAHALAKSHMI%20STOTRAM2.html See also Ganga Sagar Rai, ‘Euology of Goddess Lakshmi by Purandara’ Purana v40(1), 1988, pp1-3. Upendra Nath Dhal, Goddess Laksmi: origin and development (Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 2nd ed., 1995); C.Sivaramamurti, Sri Lakshmi in Indian art and thought (New Delhi: Kanak Publications, 1982). Mahalakshmi Stotram Text from http://www.boulderkirtan.com/Shrine/Lakshmi/MAHALAKSHMI%20STOTRAM2.html See also http://padma-purana.puranas.org/ For an overview of the Puranas and their dating, see http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Religions/texts/Puranas.html Athanasius From http://www.scripturecatholic.com/blessed_virgin_mary.html For his life and teachings: Khaled Anatolios, Athananius (New York: Routledge, 2004) (includes a selection of extracts from the writings); Alvyn Pettersen, Athananius (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1995); Christopher Haas, Alexandria in late antiquity : topography and social conflict (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed (1878): http://www.ccel.org/a/athanasius/athanasius-EB.html Entry in John Crawley, Lives of the saints (1892): http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/ATHAN.HTM For a selection of academic critiques see Classical and medieval literature criticism, vol.48(2002), pp1-78. See also biography, extracts and links: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainta15.htm

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Aurelius Clemens Prudentius Translated from the Latin by Raymond F.Roseliep, and quoted in Andrew M.Greeley, Mary myth (New York: Seabury Press, 1977), p112. Another translation by R.Martin Pope (1905) is at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14959/14959-h/14959-h.htm http://www.ccel.org/ccel/prudentius/cathimerinon.txt Boethius This extract from Boethius: the consolation of philosophy, translated by V.E.Watts (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1969), as quoted in Ann Baring and Jules Cashford, The myth of the Goddess (New York: Viking, 1991; London: Arkana/Penguin, 1993), pp634-635. The full text in an earlier English translation (1902) is at: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/boethius/boephil.html For scholarly studies on Boethius and his writings, see Henry Chadwick, Boethius: The consolations of music, logic, theology, and philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981); John Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). The account of this vision was widely circulated in medieval Europe. The German nun Hilegard of Bingen (1098-1179), one of the most original visionaries of her time, late in life had a vision which quite clearly draws on the imagery in Boethius’ account (see later in this anthology). For Boethian influences on middle English texts, see Michael D.Cherniss, Boethian apocalypse: studies in middle English vision poetry (Norman, OK: Pilgrim Books, 1987). Romanos The Singer From http://www.scripturecatholic.com/blessed_virgin_mary.html See also Romanus Melodus: Die Hymnen, [edited by] Johannes Koder (Stuggart: Hiersemann, 2005). The Mother in the Islamic tradition Hadith extracts and the anonymous verse from ‘Fatimah, Mary and Divine Feminine in Islam’, Knowledge of Reality no.22. http://www.sol.com.au/kor/22_02.htm

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The verse by Rumi is from his Masnavi, V, p701, and taken from ‘Islam and the Divine Feminine’ http://www.penkatali.org/feminine.html Sankaracharya From the appendix to Self-knowledge: an English translation of Sankaracarya’ Atmabodha with notes, comments and introduction [by] Swami Nikhilananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1947), pp203-205. For traditional biography see Madhava-Vidyaranya, Sankara-Dig-Vijaya: the traditional life of Sri Sankacharya, translated by Swami Tapasyananda (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 3rd ed., 1986); Jonathan Bader, Conquest of the Four Quarters - Traditional Accounts of the Life of Sankara (New Delhi, 2000) Modern biographies include: T.S.Rukmani, Shankaracharya (New Delhi, 2000); P.George Victor, Life and Teachings of Adi Sankaracarya (New Delhi, 2002); Sridevi Rao, Adi Sankaracharya - The Voice of Vedanta (New Delhi, 2003); Nitin Kumar, ‘Life of Shankaracharya - the adventures of a poet philosopher’ (2005) http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/shankaracharya Ambrose Autpert From http://www.scripturecatholic.com/ blessed_virgin_mary.html Short biography from the Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.yushanth.org.tw/lib/The%20Catholic%20Encyclopedia/cathen/02143b.htm Lakshmi Tantra Text from http://shaktisadhana.50megs.com/DEVI/lakshmi.html See also Laksmi Tantra: a Pancaratra text, translated by Sanjukta Gupta (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1972; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003); P.Pratap Kumar, The Goddess Laksmi: the Divine Consort in South Indian Vaisnana tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). For an overview of the early tantras, see: http://www.tantraworks.com/Tantra_Ref.html

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Devi Upanishad From the translation by Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier (Chennai: Theosophical Publishing House): http://www.celextel.org/ebooks/upanishads/devi_upanishad.htm Professor Timothy Lubin (personal communication via RISA-L, 30 August 2005) considers this text to be one of a group of late upanishads, post 11th century CE. Prose summary in N.S.Subrahmanian, Encyclopedia of the Upanisads (New Delhi: Sterling, 1985), pp303-304. French translation: Devi Upanisad, publiee et traduite par Jean Varenne (Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1971), reviewed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society v93(3), 1973, pp375-376. Hildegard of Bingen 1 Hildegard of Bingen. Scivias, translated by Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990) 2 Hildegard of Bingen. The Book of the Rewards of Life (Liber Vitae Meritorum), translated by Bruce W.Hozeski (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994) 3 Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine works, with letters and songs, edited by Matthew Fox (Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company, 1987) 4 The letters of Hildegard of Bingen, translated by Joseph L.Baird and Radd K.Ehrmann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994-1998. 2v) Extracts from Scivias from the translation by Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop. ‘Another vision’ from Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St.Hildegard’s theology of the feminine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 56-57. Caritas extract, ibid, pp69-70; also in Newman, God and the Goddesses: vision, poetry, and belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p88. Vision influenced by Boethius: from Letters, op cit, v2, p92. There is a substantial secondary literature, including Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179: a visionary life (London: Routledge, 2nd ed. 1998), her ‘Hildegard von Bingen’ Dictionary of Literary Biography v.148, 1995, pp59-73,

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and ‘”For God distinguishes the people of Earth as in Heaven”: Hildegard of Bingen’s social ideas’ Journal of Religious History v22(1), 1998, pp14+; Elisabeth Gossmann, ‘Hildegard of Bingen’ in A history of women philosophers. Volume II: Medieval, Renaissance and Enlightenment women philosophers, edited by Mary Ellen Waithe (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), chapter 2; Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom, op cit, and her earlier ‘Hildegard of Bingen: visions and validation’, Church History 54(2) 1985, pp163-175; Fiona Maddocks, Hildegard of Bingen: the woman of her age (New York: Doubleday, 2001); Carolyn Worman Sur, The feminine images of God in the visions of Saint Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993); Also two edited volumes: Voice of the living light: Hildegard of Bingen and her world, edited by Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Hildegard of Bingen: a book of essays , edited by Maud McInerney (New York: Garland, 1998). For the wider context see Newman, God and the Goddesses, op cit. Elisabeth of Schonau From Liber visionem tertius, as translated by Anne L.Clark in her Elisabeth of Schonau: the complete works (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), pp123-5. Recent academic study on this saint has been mostly by Clark, Elisabeth of Schonau: a twelfth-century visionary (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992); and her ‘The priesthood of the Virgin Mary’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion v18(1), spring 2002, pp5-24. See also Ann Storey, ‘A theophany of the feminine: Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schonau, and Herrad of Landsberg’, Woman’s Art Journal v19(1), 1998, pp16-20. For a useful overview of this saint see: http://homeinfionline.net/~ddisse/schonau.html

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Alain de Lille First text: translation by Douglas M.Moffat (Yale Studies in English, v.36, 1908), extract from: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/alain-deplanctu.html Also at: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/ALAIN-DE.HTM Second text: translation by Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: vision, poetry, and belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), p76. The most recent study of Alain de Lille is by Newman, op cit, chapter 2. See also George D.Economou, The Goddess Natura in medieval literature (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1972), chapter 3; and the selection of academic critiques in Classical and medieval literature criticism, vol.53 (2003), pp1-75. Thomas Aquinas Extract from: Sr.Thomas Mary McBride, ‘The marian prayer of St.Thomas Aquinas’ http://www.udayton.edu/mary/meditations/thomasaquinas.html For a prose translation see ‘Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary’ in The Aquinas reader, edited by Mary T.Clarke (New York: Fordham University Press, 1972), pp535-536. See also Jean-Pierre Torrell, Aquinas: vol.1: the person and his work (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, rev. ed., 2005); Brian Davies, Aquinas (London: Continuum, 2002); Contemplating Aquinas, edited by Fergus Kerr (London: SCM Press, 2003); The Cambridge companion to Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). For a selection of academic critiques on this writer, see Classical and medieval literature criticism, vol.33 (1999), pp1-140. Alfonso, El Sabio Cantiga 340 can be heard on Cantigas de Santa Maria by Esther Lamandier (Astree E7707, recorded 1980). An ensemble version is on Cantigas de Santa Maria by the Ensemble Unicorn, Vienna (Naxos 8.553133, recorded 1994). For further information on the Cantigas, see Cobras e Son: papers on the text, music and manuscripts of the ‘Cantigas de Santa Maria’ edited by Stephen Parkinson (Oxford: Legenda,

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2000); Joseph F.O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the Cantigas De Santa Maria (Leiden: Brill, 1998); Connie L.Scarborough, Women in thirteenth-century Spain as portrayed in Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1993), esp. chapter 5. For an overview of the reign of this remarkable Spanish king, see the special issue of Thought: a review of culture and idea (Fordham University, New York, USA), v60(239), 1985; and in particular, Robert I.Burns, ‘Alfonso X of Castile, the Learned’, ibid, pp375-387. Dante Alighieri The extracts are from http://www.italianstudies.org/comedy.index.htm Another full-text site is http://www.divinecomedy.org/divine_comedy.html For a guide to this complex work, see Angelo A. De Gennaro, The reader’s companion to Dante’s Divine Comedy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1986). For Islamic influences on Dante see Miguel Asin Palacios, La escatologia musalmana en la Divine Comedia (Madrid,1919), available in an abridged English translation as Islam and the Divine Comedy (London: Frank Cass, 1926); Paul A.Cantor, ‘The Uncanonical Dante: The Divine Comedy and Islamic philosophy’ Philosophy and Literature 20(1), 1996, pp138-153. Francesco Petrarch First extract from the translation by William H.Draper (London: Chatto & Windus, 1911) http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/secretum.html http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/SECRET.HTM Second extract, slightly modified, from the translation by Helen Lee Peabody, in Andrew M.Greeley, Mary myth: on the femininity of God (New York: Seabury Press, 1977), pp176-177. See also Giuseppe Mazzotta, The worlds of Petrarch (Duke University Press, 1993). For a selection of critiques of Petrarch and his major works, see Classical and medieval literature criticism, vol.20 (1997), pp192-336.

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Heinrich Suso Translation by Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: vision, poetry, and belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennyslvania Press, 2003), pp207-208. See also Alois Maria Haas, ‘Schools of late medieval mysticism’ in Christian spirituality: high Middle Ages and reformation, edited by Jill Raitt (New York Crossroad, 1988), esp. pp153-155. Birgitta of Sweden Original written in Swedish, transcribed into Latin (some surviving mss. in Middle English). Text from Jeannette Nieuwland, ‘Motherhood and sanctity in the life of Saint Birgitta of Sweden: an insoluble conflict?’ in: Sanctity and motherhood: essays on holy mothers in the middle ages, edited by Annekke B.Mulder-Bakker (New York: Garland, 1995), p319. See also: Bridget Morris, St.Birgitta of Sweden (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 1999); Claire L.Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden and the voice of prophecy (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2001), and her ‘Gender and prophetic authority in Birgitta of Sweden’ in Gender and text in the later Middle Ages, edited by Jane Chance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), pp69-95; Cornelia Wolfskeel, ‘Birgitta of Sweden’ in A history of women philosophers. Volume II: Medieval, Renaissance and Enlightenment women philosophers, edited by Mary Ellen Waithe (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), chapter 8; Birgitta of Sweden: Life and selected writings (Paulist Press, 1990); Yvonne Bruce, ‘”I am the Creator”: Birgitta of Sweden’s Feminine Divine’, Comitatus v31, 2001, pp19-41. See also http://home.infi.net/~ddisse/birgitta.html and Classical and medieval literature criticism v24 (1998), pp87-167. Christine de Pizan Extract from Selected writings of Christine de Pizan, translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kevin Brownlee (New York: Norton, 1997), pp93-94. For a discussion of this text see Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: vision, poetry, and belief in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennyslvania Press, 2003), p116-

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119; Charity Cannon Willard, Christine de Pizan: her life and works (New York: Persea Books, 1984), pp106-113. This writer since the late nineteenth century has increasingly been regarded as an early feminist, eg. http://wwwpinn.net/~sunshine/whm2000/pizan5.html a view perceptively discussed by Beatrice Gottlieb, ‘The problem of feminism in the fifteenth century’, in Selected writings, op cit, pp274-297. For on-line extracts from the major works see the links at: http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/christin.html Angelo Poliziano Stanzas from a Latin hymn written by the Florentine humanist, Angelo Poliziano, and set to music as a motet by Josquin Desprez (c.1455-1521) for the funeral of Lorenzo di Piero de’Medici, the effective ruler of Florence during the period 1469-1492. This text is from the notes to the Motets recording by the Orlando Consort (Archiv produktion, Deutsche Grammophon, 2000). For a discussion of these motets, see Jacquelyn A.Mattfield, ‘Some relationships between texts and cantus firmi in the liturgical motets of Josquin des Pres’ Journal of the American Musicological Society, v14(2), summer 1961, pp. 159-183; also a letter by Martin Staehelin, ibid, v28(1), spring 1975, p160. See also Peter Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli (Princeton University Press, 1998). Devi Gita Extract from The Devi Gita: the Song of the Goddess, translated by C.Mackenzie Brown (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp52-53, 161. This translation, without commentary and footnotes, has been published for the general reader as The song of the Goddess. The Devi Gita: spiritual counsel of the Great Goddess (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002). Guru Nanak First two texts from Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh, The feminine principle in the Sikh vision of the transcendent (London: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp49,30.

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Other text from http://www.valaya.co.uk/ KNOWLEDGEmastersGUR.htm Rabbi Joseph Caro The first text is from a now defunct website: http://www.jps.net/arowyn/Shekhinah/voices.html archived at: http://www.adishakti.org The second text, as recorded by Rabbi Solomon Alkabetz, is from Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Jewish mysticism: an anthology by (Oxford: Oneworld, 1995), p144. A slightly different translation is in Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 3rd ed, 1990), pp204-205. The full text is at http://www.kheper.auz.com/topics/ Kabbalah/ maggid.htm See also Lawrence Fine, Safed spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), pp159-162; R.J.Werblowsky, ‘The Safed revival and its aftermath’ in Jewish spirituality II, edited by Arthur Green (New York: Crossroad, 1989), and his earlier Joseph Karo: lawyer and mystic (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2nd ed., 1977); Charles Mopsik, ‘Oralite et ecriture dans la journal mystique de Rabbi Joseph Caro (1488-1575)’ available at http://www.chez.com/jec2/archcaro.htm For an overview of the Shekhinah in Judaism see: Rabbi Leah Novick, ‘Encountering the Shechinah, the Jewish Goddess’ in The Goddess re-awakening,, edited by Shirley Nicholson (1983), available online at: http://www.dhushara.com/book/torah/shek.htm; Gersholm Scholem, ‘Shekhinah: the feminine element in divinity’ in his On the mystical shape of the Godhead: basic concepts in Kabbalah (in German, 1962; English edition: New York: Schoken Books, 1991), chapter 4, pp140-196. Available online at: http://www.dhushara.com/book/torah/cardoza/shape.htm; Asphodel P.Long, ‘Wisdom, the Torah and the Shekinah’ in her In a chariot drawn by fire (London: Women’s Press, 1992), pp175-179; Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, op cit, esp. chapters 4 and 9; Peter Schafer, Mirror of His beauty: feminine images of God from the Bible to the early Kabbala (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), esp. chapters 4-6.

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Jacob Boehme Extract from The way to Christ, as translated into English in Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria: a holistic view of creation (Munich, 1988 in German; English tr.:York Beach, Ma, USA: Samuel Weisner, Inc, 1998), p206. See also Jacob Boehme's Way to Christ, translated by Peter C.Erb (Paulist Press, 1978). For the most recent study of Boehme’s theology see Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s children: a Christian esoteric tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999). Other useful studies include: David Walsh, Mysticism of innerworldly fulfillment: a study of Jacob Boehme (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1983); Andrew Weeks, Boehme: an intellectual biography of the seventeenth century philosopher and mystic (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991); Pierre Deghaye, ‘Jacob Boehme and his followers’, in Modern esoteric spirituality, edited by Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp210-247. John Pordage First extract, translated from the German edition of Sophia (Amsterdam, 1699), and quoted in B.J.Gibbons, Gender in mystical and occult thought: Behmenism and its development in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p113. Second extract, from Sophia (probably written in London in 1675, and published in German translation in Amsterdam, 1699), in Wisdom’s book: the Sophia anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, Minn: Paragon House, 2000), pp76-106, quote at 90. His English publications are Theologia mystica (London, 1683), and A treatise of Eternal Nature with Her seven eternal forms (London, 1681); substantive parts of both have been reprinted as The wisdom of John Pordage, edited by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, Mn: New Grail Publishing, 2003). The main German publications are Sophia, op cit, and Ein grundliche philosophisch Senschreiben vom rechten under wahren Steine der Weissheit (Berlin: Christian Ulrich Ringmacher, 1799). See also Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s children: a Christian esoteric tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999), chapter 3; Manfred Brod, ‘A radical network in the English revolution: John Pordage

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and his circle, 1646-1654’ English Historical Review, v99(484), 2004, pp1230-1253; Ariel Hessayon, ‘Pordage, John’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), v44, pp909-913; Gibbons, op cit, pp106-113. Jane Lead Text from her diary, A Garden of Fountains, volume 1 (1696), available online at: http://www.passtheword.org/Jane-Lead/fount-of-gardens-vol1a.htm For biography and teachings see Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s children: a Christian esoteric tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999), chapter 4; Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria:a holistic view of creation (Munich, 1988 in German; English tr.:York Beach, Ma, USA: Samuel Weisner, Inc, 1998), pp219-223; Catherine F.Smith, ‘Jane Lead: mysticism and the Woman Cloathed with the Sun’ in: Shakespeare’s sisters: feminist essays on women poets, edited by Sandra M.Gilbert and Susan Gubar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), pp3-18; and her ‘Jane Lead: the feminist mind and art of a seventeenth-century Protestant mystic’ in: Women of spirit: female leadership in the Jewish and Christian traditions, edited by Rosemary Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), pp183-203; and her ‘Jane Lead’s Wisdom: women and prophecy in seventeenth-century England’ in Poetic prophecy in Western literature, edited by Jan Wojcik and Raymond-Jean Frontain (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1984), pp55-63; B.J.Gibbons, Gender in mystical and occult thought: Behmenism and its development in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), chapter 7; Julie Hirst, ‘The Divine Ark: Jane Lead’s vision of the second Noah’s Ark’ http:www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVI/divineark.htm Donald F.Durnbaugh, ‘Jane Ward Leade (1624-1704) and the Philadelphians’ in The pietist theologians, edited by Carter Lindberg (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), pp128-146; Paula McDowell, ‘Enlightenment enthusiasms and the spectacular failure of the Philadelphian Society’ Eighteenth-Century Studies v35(4), 2002, pp515-533; Sylvia Bowerbank, ‘Lead, Jane’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), v32, pp959-961.

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For the wider perspective, see Gibbons, op cit; Phyllis Mack, Visionary women: ecstatic prophecy in seventeenth-century England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Paula McDowell, The women of Grub Street: press, politics, and gender in the London literary marketplace 1678-1730 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), esp.167-179,196-200. Ann Bathurst Diary entry for 26 May 1684, as quoted in Sylvia Bowerbank, ‘Bathurst, Ann’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). The manuscript diary, Rhapsodical meditations and visions by Mrs.Ann Bathurst, covers the period March 1679 to October 1696, and is held in the Bodlean Library, University of Oxford. Extracts have been published in Wisdom’s book: the Sophia anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, Minn: Paragon House, 2000), pp149-170; Lay by your needles ladies, take the pen: writing women in England, 1500-1700, edited by Suzanne Trill [et al] (London: Arnold, 1997), pp271-274; Women’s worlds in seventeenth-century England: a sourcebook, edited by Patricia M Crawford and Laura Gowing London: Routledge, 2000, pp44-48. See also B.J.Gibbons, Gender in mystical and occult thought: Behmenism and its development in England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp107,113-114. Johann Georg Gichtel Extracts from Wisdom’s book: the Sophia anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, Minn: Paragon House, 2000), pp132-139. See also Gichtel, Awakening to Divine Wisdom: Christian initiation into three worlds, translated by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, MN: New Grail, 2004); For biography and teachings see Arthur Versluis, Wisdom’s children: a Christian esoteric tradition (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999), chapter 2; Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria: a holistic view of creation (Munich, 1988 in German; English tr.:York Beach, Ma, USA: Samuel Weisner, Inc, 1998), pp223-226. Gottfried Arnold

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From Arnold’s Das Geheimnis der Goettlichen Sophia (Leipzig, 1700), as quoted in Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria: a holistic view of creation (Munich, 1988 in German; English tr.:York Beach, Ma, USA: Samuel Weisner, Inc, 1998), p213. Longer extracts in English translation are in Wisdom’s book: the Sophia anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, Minn: Paragon House, 2000), pp108-128. For an overview see Peter C.Erb, ‘Gottfried Arnold’ in The Pietist theologians, edited by Carter Lindberg (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005); Schiflinger, op cit, chapter 12. Apirami Antati Extracts from the English translation by Francis X.Clooney, Divine Mother, blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp69-87 (text), 187-217. See also http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/ 1427/story.html Ramprasad Sen First text: http://swamij.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=440 Second text: Ramprasad Sen, Grace and mercy in Her wild hair: selected poems to the Mother Goddess. Translated by Leonard Nathan and Clinton Seely (Boulder, Co: Great Eastern Book Co., 1982), p52. See also Malcolm McLean, Devoted to the Goddess: The Life and Work of Ramprasad (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998). For a biographical overview and some poems: http://www.poetry-chaikhna.com/R/Ramprasad/ Frederich Holderlin Extract from Hymns and fragments of Friedrich Holderlin, translated by Richard Sieburth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) pp133,135. Another translation is in Selected Poems and Fragments [by] Friedrich Holderlin (Harmondworth, UK: Penguin Classics, 1998), pp273-275.

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William Wordsworth From William Wordsworth, The Complete Poetical Works (London: Macmillan, 1888). Written in 1821, and published in his Ecclesiastical Sketches (1822), later renamed the Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Bibliographical details from http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2379.html See also John L Mahoney, William Wordsworth: a poetic life (Fordham University Press, 1996). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe From Faust (Penguin Classics), pp284-288. For biography see John R Williams, The Life of Goethe: a critical biography (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001). For the Eternal Feminine in Goethe’s writings, see Cyrus Hamlin, 'Tracking the Eternal-Feminine in Goethe's Faust II’, Goethe Yearbook Special volume 1: 1994; also published in Jane K.Brown, ed., Interpreting Goethe's Faust today (Columbia: Camden House, 1994), pp142-155, comment at 142; Hans Eichner, 'Exploring the Eternal Feminine: an aspect of Goethe's ethics', Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada v9, 1971, pp235-244, also published in Faust: a tragedy, edited by Cyrus Hamlin (NY: Norton, 1976), pp615-625; Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary through the centuries (New Haven: Yale U.P., 1996), pp168-175. Johann Jacob Wirz Extracts from Wisdom’s book: the Sophia anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis (St.Paul, Minn: Paragon House, 2000), pp195-234, at 200-201, 197-198. See also Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria:a holistic view of creation (Munich, 1988 in German; English tr.:York Beach, Ma, USA: Samuel Weisner, Inc, 1998), pp231-235. Rabbi Isaac Safrin The Megillat Setarim extract from Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Jewish mysticism: an anthology (Oxford: Oneworld, 1995), p199, slightly modified by the translation in Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 3rd ed, 1990), pp217-218.

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The N’tiv Mitzvotekha extract is from Patai, p218. The Megillat Setarim (Book of Secrets) has recently been translated (along with the earlier ‘Book of Visions’ of Rabbi Hayyim Vital (1542-1620)) by Morris M.Faierstein, Jewish mystical autobiographies: Book of Visions and Book of Secrets (New York: Paulist Press, 1999). Mataracamman Antati Extracts from the English translation by Francis X.Clooney, Divine Mother, blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) pp88-108 (text), 208-217 (analysis). Vladimir Soloviev Extracts from Trisvidaniya from the English translation by Ralph Koprince in The Silver Age of Russian culture: an anthology, edited by Carl Proffer and Ellendea Proffer, 5th ed. (Ann Arbor: Aldis, 1975), pp127-134. For a discussion of these visions, using this translation, see Kristi A.Groberg, ‘The Eternal Feminine: Vladimir Solov’ev’s visions of Sophia’, Alexandria 1 (Grand Rapids, Mich: Phanes Press, 1991), pp76-95. Extract on Sophia as the primordial Cosmos quoted in Thomas Schipflinger, Sophia-Maria:a holistic view of creation (Munich, 1988 in German; English translation:York Beach, Ma, USA: Samuel Weisner, Inc, 1998), p73 (footnote). Extract from the Sophia Prayer from Maria Carlson, ‘Gnostic elements in the cosmogony of Vladimir Soloviev’ in Russian religious thought, edited by Judith Deutsch Kornblatt and Richard F.Gustafson (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996, pp49-67, quote at 49. ‘Today’ verse from Hamutal Bar-Yosef, ‘Sophiology and the concept of femininity in Russian symbolism and in modern Hebrew poetry’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, v2(1), 2003, pp59-78, verse at 78. There is a considerable amount of literature on Soloviev, for which see Kristi Groberg, ‘Vladimir Sergeevich Solov’ev: a bibliography’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, vol.14-15, 1998, pp299-398.

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Useful introductions to Soloviev’s philosophy and worldview include Jonathan Sutton, The religious philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov: towards a reassessment (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1988); Dimitrii N.Stremooukhoff, Vladimir Soloviev and his messianic work (Paris, 1935; English translation: Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1980); Nicholas Zernov, Three Russian prophets (London: SCM Press, 1944); Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, ‘Vladimir Sergeevich Solov’ev’ Dictionary of Literary Biography v295 (2004), pp377-386. For the wider context of Sophia in the Russian religious tradition see Brenda Meehan, ‘Wisdom/Sophia, Russian identity, and Western feminist theology’, Cross Currents, v46(2), 1996, pp149-168; Oleg A. Donskikh, ‘Cultural roots of Russian Sophiology’, Sophia 34(2), 1995, pp38-57; Kristi Groberg, ‘The feminine occult Sophia and the Russian religious renaissance: a bibliographical essay’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies v26, 1992, pp197-239. Nicholas Roerich Dedication to the fresco of the World Mother, Church of Princess Tenisheff’s Estate. Text from: Roerich, Realm of light [vol.6 of the American edition of his Works] http://www.roerich.org/realm.html For biography and art, see Jacqueline Decter, Messenger of beauty: the life and visionary art of Nicholas Roerich (Rochester, Vt: Park Street Press, 1997); Kenneth Archer, Nicholas Roerich: East and West (Bournemouth, UK: Parkstone, 1999). Kahlil Gibran From The Broken Wings (first published in Arabic in 1912), as printed in The greatest works of Kahlil Gibran (Bombay: Jaico, 1989), Book Twelve, p407. This extract is also in The voice of Kahlil Gibran: an anthology edited by Robin Waterfield (London: Penguin Arkana, 1995), p151. An online translation is at http://www.arab2.com/gibran/wings/index.htm For biography and writings see Robin Waterfield, Prophet: the life and times of Kahlil Gibran (Penguin); Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: man and poet (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999)

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Khalil S.Hawi, Kahlil Gibran (Beirut: The Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 1972); Mikhail Niamy, Kahlil Gibran: a biography (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950). Of the many web pages, see especially Kahlil Gibran Research and Studies Project, University of Maryland: http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/gibran/ Professor Juan Cole, ‘Kahlil Gibran Page’ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/gibran/gibran1.htm T.S.Eliot From Andrew M.Greeley, Mary myth: on the femininity of God (New York: Seabury Press, 1977), p220. See also John Kwan-Terry, ‘Ash-Wednesday: a poetry of verification’ in The Cambridge Companion to T.S.Eliot, edited by A.David Moody (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp132-141.

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Part 2 The Ten Prophets Verses quoted in Bhai Kirpal Singh Gill, ‘Prophecies about Guru Nanak in Hindu Vedas’ (Paper presented to the Assembly of World Religions, Washington, DC, November 1997) Available online in several locations, including: http://www.hinduweb.org/home/sikh/rverma/ksgill.html It should be noted that the Bhavisya Purana is sometimes refered to (as in the above paper) as the Bhavekhath Purana. Nadi Granth The Nadi Granth was written in Sanskrit on lotus leaves about 2000 years ago by Bhrigumuni. Later updated and translated into Marathi by Acharya Kakayyar Bhujander Tatwacharya (possibly Satwacharya), c.300 years ago, being entitled Kak Nadi. In this extract the modern editor, Shantaram Athvale, refers to material in the Kak Nadi. Text of this extract from Knowledge of Reality no.16, p1. Background information from Knowledge of Reality no.18, p24; and from Yogi Mahajan, New millennium fulfils ancient prophecies (Delhi, 2nd rev ed., 1999), pp41-43. Gospel of the Essenes From The Essene Gospel of Peace Book Two, translated by E.B.Szekely (UK: C.W.Daniel Co. Ltd, 1982), p37. Text available at http://www.essene.com/GospelOfPeace/peace2.html http://www.concentric.net/~shddemon/peace2.html Gospel of the Holy Twelve Extract taken from the translation by the Rev. Gideon Ouseley, published in 1892. Ouseley claimed this to be a translation of an original Aramaic document found in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet. http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/jesus/twelve.htm http://members.tripod.com/jbrooks2/Holy_12_Index.html For a discussion of this and other so-called ‘Alternative Gospels’, all of which lack original manuscripts, see http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/jesus/alternative.htm

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Gospel of Peace of John From the English translation by E.B.Szekely published as The Essene Gospel of Peace. Book One (London, 1937). Szekely claimed he discovered the manuscript in Aramaic in the Vatican Library in Rome, and in ancient Slavonic in the library of the Hapsburgs in Vienna, Austria. Text available online at http://www.subtleenergies.com/ormus/jesus/essene1.htm http://www.essene.com/GospelOfPeace/peace1.html http://www.concentric.net/~shddemon/peace.html The Aquarian Gospel From The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus The Christ by Levi H.Dowling (first published in 1907). Text available at http://www.sacredtext.com http://reluctant-messenger.com/aquarian_gospel.html Prophecies of the Mahdi Texts of the Prophet’s sayings (hadith) taken from Ayatollah Ibrahim Amini, Al-Imam al-Madi: the just leader of humanity. The English translation of this book is online at: http://www.al-islam.org/mahdi/nontl/index.htm Ja’far’s text from Masjid, ‘The 12 Imams’, Knowledge of Reality no.13, pp24-28. Final quote (unattributed) from Robert A.Nelson, The Prophecies of Islam, at: http://www.alternative-approaches.com Joachim of Fiore Extract from Chaper 5 of the Liber Introductorius in Apocalypsim, the introduction to the Expositio in Apocalypsim. English translation from Bernard McGinn, Visions of the end: apocalyptic traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp133-134. The chart is from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/primary/joachim.html The Liber Concordie extract is from Conversations about the end of time, edited by Catherine David [et al] (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Group, 1999), p75. For an excellent summary of Joachim’s life and theology, see McGinn’s article at:

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/joachim.html Academic studies include Delno C.West and Sandra Zimdars-Swartz, Joachim of Fiore: a study in spiritual perception and history by (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983); Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the prophetic future (London: SPCK, 1976) but note that all textual extracts are in the original Latin with no English translation; Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the history of Western thought (London: Macmillan, 1985); Warwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the myth of the Eternal Evangel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev ed. 2001). Nichiren Daishonin Extract from Masahara Anesaki, Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1916; reprint: Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith, 1966), p110. See also Selected writings of Nichiren, translated by Burton Watson [et al] (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Letters of Nichiren, translated by Burton Watson and P.B.Yampolsky (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). For an overview of Nichiren’s life and teachings, see Jacqueline I.Stone, Original enlightenment and the transformation of medieval Japanese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii/Kuroda Institute, 1999), chapter 6; Diane Collinson et al, Fifty eastern thinkers (London: Routledge, 2000), pp347-358; B.Petzold, The Buddhist prophet Nichiren – a lotus in the sun (Tokyo: Hokke Janaru, 1978); Birgitta of Sweden From Anthony Butkovich, Revelations [of] Saint Birgitta of Sweden (Los Angeles: Ecumenical Foundation of America, 1972), p9. See also the notes in part 1.

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Frederich Holderlin English extract from Hyperion and selected poems. Edited by Eric L.Santner (New York: Continuum, 1990), pp23-24. Novalis From the English translation at http://www.levity.com/alchemy/novalis.html See also the English translation by Palmer Hilty: Henry von Ofterdingen: a novel (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1964), p148. See also Graham Brown, ‘Novalis’ spiral path’, Knowledge of Reality no.19, pp12-14; William Arctander O'Brien, Novalis (Duke University Press, 1994). For the German Romantics, see Ernst Benz, The mystical sources of German romantic philosophy (1968; English translation: Allison Park, Penn: Pickwick Publications, 1983); Antoine Faivre, ‘Nature: religious and philosophical speculations’ in the Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd ed., 2005), pp6431-6437; Kate Rigby, Topographies of the Sacred: the poetics of place in European Romanticism (University of Virginia Press, 2004). Goodwyn Barmby ‘The Woman-power’ was originally published in The Promethean, or Communitarian Apostle vol.1 no.1 (January 1842). The quotation from Catherine Barmby is from her ‘The Demand for the Emancipation of Woman, politically and socially’, New Tracts for the Times vol.1 no.3 (London, 1843), p2. All text extracts are in Barbara Taylor, Eve and the new Jerusalem: socialism and feminism in the nineteenth century (London: Virago, 1983), pp156-157 (poem), 172-182. Nathaniel Hawthorne Online text available in several places, including http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/sl.html Susan Dennison Sinclair, Hawthorne’s “new revelation”: the female Christ (PhD thesis, Duke University, 1981) comments: “Several times in his notebooks and novels, Hawthorne expressed his hope that a new religion inaugurated by a pure female “apostle” would soon come into being. Despite being uniformly

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critical of contemporary religions, he believed that religion was psychologically beneficial and that this “new revelation” might replace the spiritually and emotionally unsatisfactory remnants of Christianity.” Curiously, Sinclair appeares to have been unaware of the European Sophic tradition, siting her study solely within the field of American literature, as does Kathy Hallenbeck, Completing the circle: a study of the archetypical male and female in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (MA thesis, East Tennessee State University, 2002). See also Richard Kopley, The threads of the Scarlet Letter: a study of Hawthorne's transformative art (University of Delaware Press, 2004); Charles Swann, Nathaniel Hawthorne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), especially chapter 4; Brook Thomas, ‘Love and politics, sympathy and justice in The Scarlet Letter’ in The Cambridge companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Richard Millington (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); New essays on ‘The Scarlet Letter’, edited by Michael J.Colacurcio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Larry J Reynolds (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Hans Christian Andersen Extracts from Hans Christian Andersen: the complete fairy tales and stories, translated from the Danish by Erik Christian Haugaard (New York: Random House, 1974/ Anchor Books, 1983), pp729-734. Haugaard uses the first line of the story - ‘The muse of the twentieth century’ - as the title, rather than the literal translation of the original title in Danish. In notes to the second volume of New Fairy Tales and Stories (1861), Andersen wrote: “I have been reproached for having written, during my later years, philosophical stories, which, according to my critics, lie beyond my scope. These remarks were especially meant for The New Century’s Goddess. But this story is a natural outgrowth of the fairy tale.” (quoted by Haugaard, p1087) See also Sven Hakon Rossel, Hans Christian Andersen: Danish writer and citizen of the world (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), p249+; Poul Houe and Sven Hakon Rossel, Images of America in Scandinavia (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998), pp9-10

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Vladimir Soloviev First extract from the poem ‘Das EwigWeibliche’ (1898) as quoted in Samuel D.Cioran, Vladimir Solov’ev and the Knighthood of the Divine Sophia (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1977), p63. Second extract, from the preface to the collected poems, from N.O.Lossky, History of Russian philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1952), pp131-132. See also the notes in part 1. Lady Caithness Extract from The Mystery of the Ages (1887), pp316-317, as quoted in the pamphlet accompanying The Millennium CD (London: IPO, 2000), and reprinted in Knowledge of Reality no.18, p24. There is no full-length biography of this intriguing mystic. There are mentions in various academic studies, including Janet Oppenheim, The other world: spiritualism and psychic research in England, 1850-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp170-172; Paul K.Johnson, The masters revealed (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994, pp63-64. See also: http://www.gnostique.net/ecclesia/history.htm Anna Kingsford Extracts from Clothed with the sun (1889), available online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/cws/cws06.htm http://www.thenazareneway.com/Clothed%20With%20The%20Sun/clothed_with_the_sun_part_1.htm Also in The perfect way (rev. ed.,1888), appendix 3: Concerning prophesying; and prophecy. For an overview of the life and work of Anna Kingsford see Diana Burfield, ‘Theosophy and feminism: some explorations in nineteenth century biography’ in: Women’s religious experiences, edited by Pat Holden (London Croom Helm, 1983), pp27-56, esp. pp36-41; Joscelyn Godwin, The theosophical enlightenment (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994), chapter 16; Joy Dixon, Divine Feminine: theosophy and feminism in England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp165-166; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), v.31, pp699-701.

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The only major biography of Kingsford is by her collaborator, Edward Maitland (1824-1897): Anna Kingsford: her life, letters, diary and work (London: George Redway, 1896). There is a new biography in preparation by Alan Pert, who has a most useful website: http://www.personal.usyd.edu.au/~apert/ak.html For links to shorter biographies and a list of books and pamphlets by Kingsford and Maitland see: http://www.anna-kingsford.com/english/ Count August Cieszkowski Extracts from The Desire of all Nations, English edition abridged from Oicze Nasz (Our Father), prepared by W.Rose (London, 1919), as quoted in Warwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the myth of the Eternal Evangel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev ed. 2001), pp334. See also Jerzy Jedlicki, A suburb of Europe: nineteenth-century Polish approaches to Wsetern civilization (Budapest/New York: Central European University Press, 1998), pp128-131. Tau Valentin II (Jules Doinel) Gnostic Catechism (1895) For background, see T.Apiryon, ‘History of the Gnostic Catholic Church’ (1995) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1896/egc.html Rabindranath Tagore English translation from the Bengali by Rabi Ghosh. See also A hundred devotional songs of Tagore [translated by] Mohit Chakrabarti (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1999); Rabindranath Tagore: selected poems, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004); Uma Das Gupta, Rabindranath Tagore: a biography (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004); Edward Thompson, Rabindranath Tagore: poet and dramatist (1948; reprinted: New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989); Kalyan Sen Gupta, The philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004).

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Lionel Johnson Text from Warwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the myth of the Eternal Evangel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev ed. 2001), pp261-2. Unpublished in the poet’s lifetime, the poem has been dated to 1902 and may be unfinished (ibid, note 123). Tau Synesius (Leonce Fabre Des Essarts) Extract is from http://www.gnosis.org/wandering_bishops.htm The following article on the history of the French Gnostic Church is also useful: http://www.gnostique.net/ecclesia/history.htm Hazrat Inayat Khan Extract from ‘The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan’, Part III: Journal: ‘East and West’ http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/bio/Journal_3.htm See also Carl W.Ernst and Bruce B.Lawrence, Sufi martyrs of love: the Chishti order in South Asia and beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp140-143; Karin Jironet, The image of spiritual liberty in the Sufi movement following Hazrat Inayat Khan (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2003), especially chapter 2; Elisabeth Keesing, A Sufi master answers: on the Sufi message of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1997); and her earlier Hazrat Inayat Khan: a biography (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1981). Zinaida Gippius and Dmitrii Merezhkovskii First extract from The Mystery of Three as translated by N.O.Lossky, History of Russian philosophy (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1952), p340. Also quoted by Kristi Groberg, ‘The feminine occult Sophia and the Russian religious renaissance: a bibliographical essay’ Canadian-American Slavic Studies 1992; 26(1-4), pp197-239, quotation at p221. Second extract, ibid, as translated by C.Harold Bedford, The seeker: D.S.Merezhkovskiy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1975), p112. Third extract from Warwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the myth of the Eternal Evangel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev ed. 2001), pp331.

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Summary paragraphs by Temira Pachmuss from the introduction to her Between Paris and St.Peterburg: selected diaries of Zinaida Hippius (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), p17. Vassily Kandinsky The opening paragraph of the draft (unpublished) preface of 1911 from The Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. New documentary edition. Edited with introduction by Klaus Lankheit (Munchen, 1965; English translation: London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), p250. Also quoted in Warwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the myth of the Eternal Evangel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev. ed., 2001), p336. Second extract from Wassily Kandinsky, The art of spiritual harmony, translated with an introduction by M.T.H.Sadler (London: Constable, 1914), p14. See also Shearer West, The visual arts in Germany, 1890-1937: utopia and despair (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). Katherine Tingley Text from http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/pathmyst/path-7.htm Jessie L.Watson Extract from ‘The Age of the Spirit’, Quest 18(4) July 1927, quotation at p400, as quoted in Warwick Gould and Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the myth of the Eternal Evangel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rev. ed., 2001), p345. C.S.Lewis From C.S.Lewis, The Great Divorce: a dream (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1946), pp97-99. See also Gilbert Meilaender, The taste for the other: the social and ethical thought of C.S.Lewis (Vancouver, Canada: Regent College Publishing, 2nd ed., 2003).

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Daniil Andreev All extracts from Roza Mira taken from the study by Mikhail Epstein, ‘Daniil Andreev and the Russian mysticism of feminity’ in: The occult in Russian and Soviet culture, edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997):325-355. Available online at: http://www.emory.edu/INTELNET/fi.andreev.html The published English translation of the Roza Mira (New York: Lindisfarne Press, 1997) lacks much of the prophetic text. Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam) From the music album Teaser and the Firecat (1971) Lyrics from http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/cat-stevens/28194.html A biography is at http://catstevens.com/discography/people/00001.html Robert Plant From Led Zeppelin’s Untitled music album (1971) Lyrics from the ‘Robert Plant Now and Zen’ website: http://www.users.globalnt.co.uk/~liden/rp_home.html An earlier usage of the ‘stairway to heaven’ can be found in the story of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:10-22. John Lennon From the music album Imagine (1971) Lyrics from http://www.bagism.com/lyrics/imagine-lyrics.html For biographical information see Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) v.33, pp349-355.

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Part 3 The Kagaba people of Columbia As told to the German anthropologist, K.T.Preuss, and included in his Die Eingeborenen Amerikas, p39. English translation from Mircea Eliade, From primitives to zen (London: Collins, 1967), p16. A slightly different translation is found in Erich Neumann, The Great Mother (New York: Pantheon Books, 1955), p85; and quoted by subsequent authors, including Andrew M.Greeley, The Mary myth (1977), p111. For further information on the Kagaba/Kogi/Cogui people and their ancestors, the Tairona, the following web pages are useful: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kog http://tribalink.org/pressrelease/KagabaProject.htm http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/EthnoAtlas/Hmar/Cult_dir/Culture.7835 http://www.taironatrust.org/ The Pawnee people of Oklahoma From Alice C. Fletcher, The Hako, a Pawnee Ceremony, in Twenty-second Annual Report, part 2, Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, D.C., 1904), p334; quoted in Mircea Eliade, From primitives to zen (London: Collins, 1967), pp270-271. For further information see the entry in the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.: http://www.bartleby.com/65/pa/Pawnee.html See also http://www.pawneenation.org White Buffalo Calf Woman Extracts from Joseph Chasing Horse are from: http://www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/buffpipe.html The quotation from Floyd Hand is from http://www.thepeoplespath.net/articles/tmt-mir.html See also ‘White Buffalo Woman – prayers for peace are being answered’ by Morgan Cathbadh: http://www.mindspring.com/~what/white.html Another version of the story, by Lone Man, and recorded by Frances Densmore in Teton Sioux music (Bureau of American Ethnology, 1918), is at: http://www.jananimals.com/bison/index9.html

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The Seven Fires of the Anishinabe This prophecy is available in several places on the internet, including http://www.gnostic.ca/prophecy.htm and http://pages.sprint.ca/KillarneyHistory/sevenfires.html See also the Anishinabe’s own webpage: http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/migration/prophecy.htm Eyes of Fire From http://wovoca.com/prophecy-cree2.htm According to http://www.powersource.com/ebt/stone.html this story was told to Lelanie Fuller Stone of the Cherokee by her grandmother when a young girl. It is from this story that Robert Hunter named the Greenpeace protest ship the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ - cf. http://archive.greenpeace.org/~comms/vrml/rw/text/def/cree.html Chief White Cloud of the Talatawi From http://woj.mysitespacepro.com/wojsite/circle.html Second text also at: http://wovoca.com/prophecy-talatawi.htm Tashunca-Uitco (Crazy Horse) From http://wovoca.com/prophecy-of-crazy-horse.htm where it is stated: “This was passed on by Chief Joe Chasing Horse, a relative of Crazy Horse. He translated it from the words of a grandmother who was present when the words were spoken.” Black Elk From Black Elk speaks, being the life story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, as told through John G.Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow) (1932), available at: http://www.blackelkspeaks.unl.edu/index2.htm This extract from http://www.gnostic.ca/links.htm Yothu Yindi From Yothu Yindi: One blood (Sydney: Mushroom Records, 1999. MUSH33229.2)

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Index Alain de Lille I:66 Alfonso, El Sabio I:70 Ambrose Autpert I:51 Andersen, Hans Christian I:157 Andreev, Daniil I:185 Anishinable I:199 Apirami Antati I:100 Aquarian Gospel I:138 Arnold, Gottfried I:99 Arthavana Veda I:53 Athanasius of Alexandria I:41 Barmby, Catherine I:153 Barmby, Goodwyn I:153 Bathurst, Ann I:95 Ben Sira, Wisdom of I:17 Bhavani I:48 Bhavisya Purana I:127 Bhrigmuni I:128 Birgitta of Sweden I:80,149 Black Elk I:214 Blaue Reiter Almanac I:177 Boehme, Jacob I:90,96 Boethius I:43,63,66 Buddhist texts I:31,148 Cantigas de Santa Maria I:71 Caritas I:61 Caro, Joseph I:88 Caithness, Lady I:160 Chinese texts I:16,31 Cieszkowski, August I:165 Commanda, William I:199 Crazy Horse I:212 Cree I:207 Dante Alighieri I:72 Devi Gita I:85 Devi Mahatmya I:34 Devi Sukta I:13 Devi Upanishad I:53 Doinel, Jules I:166

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Earthly Mother I:133,195 Eliot, T.S. I:125 Elisabeth of Schonau I:64 Essenes I:133 Eyes of Fire I:207 Fabre Des Essarts, Leonce I:172 Gichtel, Johann Georg I:96 Gibran, Kahlil I:123 Gippius, Zinaida I:174 Gnostic texts I:24,27,166,172 Goethe I:106 Gospel of John I:131 Gospel of the Essenes I:133 Gospel of the Holy Twelve I:134 Gospel of Peace of John I:136 Hadith I:46 Hawthorne, Nathaniel I:155 Hazrat Inayat Khan I:173 Hildegard of Bingen I:55 Holderlin, Friedrich I:104,150 Homeric Hymns I:21 Isis I:29 Islamic tradition I:46,141 Jesus I:131,133,134,136,138 Joachim of Fiore I:144,170,174,181 John, Gospel of I:131 John, Gospel of Peace of I:136 John, Revelation of I:137 Johnson, Lionel I:170 Kagaba I:193 Kak Nadi I:128 Kandinsky, Vassily I:177 Kingsford, Anna I:161 Kogi I:193 Kuan Yin I:31 Lakota Sioux I:196 Lakshmi I:15,35,39,52 Lakshmi Stuti I:35 Lakshmi Tantra I:52 Lao Tzu I:16 Lead, Jane I:93

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Lennon, John I:191 Levi I:138 Lewis, C.S. I:183 Lotus Sutra I:31 Lucius Apuleius I:29 Madonna I:104 Mahalakshmi Stotram I:39 Mahdi, Prophecies of I:141 Markandeya Purana I:34 Mary I:41,42,45,51,64,70,71,72,74, 77,80,83,104,105,114 Mataracamman Antati I:114 Merezhkovskii, Dmitrii I:174 Mohammed, Prophet I:46,141 Nadi Granth I:128 Nanak I:86 Nature I:19,21,66,133 Nichiren Daishonin I:148 Novalis I:152 Ogalala Sioux I:214 Orphic Hymn to Nature I:19 Padma Purana I:39 Pawnee I:195 Petrarch I:74 Pizan, Christine de I:82 Plant, Robert I:190 Pneuma Hagion I:166 Poliziano, Angelo I:83 Pordage, John I:91 Prudentius I:42 Ramprasad Sen I:102 Revelation of John I:137,161 Rig Veda I:13,15,127 Roerich, Nicholas I:121 Romanus Melodus I:45 Rumi I:47 Safrin, Isaac I:112 Sankaracharya I:48 Shekhinah I:27,88,112 Silvestris, Bernard I:66 Soloviev, Vladimir I:116,159 Sophia I:27,90,91,93,95,96,99, 109, 116,152,159,160,166

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Sri Sukta I:15 Stevens, Cat I:188 Sufis I:46,173 Suso, Heinrich I:78 Synesius, Tau I:172 Tagore, Rabindranath I:167 Talatawi I:210 Tao te Ching I:16 Tashunca-Uitco I:212 Third Age I:144,165,170,174,181 Thomas Aquinas I:70 Thunder, Perfect Mind I:27 Tingley, Katherine I:179 Trimorphic Protennoia I:24 Valentin II, Tau I:166 Virgin Mary I:41,42,45,51,64,70,71,72,74,77, 83,105,106 Vishnu Purana I:35 Watson, Jessie L. I:181 White Buffalo Calf Woman I:196 White Cloud of the Talatawi I:210 Wirz, Johann Jacob I:109 Wisdom I:17,22,78,109,160 Wisdom of Ben Sira I:17 Wisdom of Solomon I:22 Wordworth, William I:105 Yolngu I:215 Yothu Yindi I:215 Yunupingu, Mandawuy I:215 Yusuf Islam I:188