The Greek philosopher Heraclitus had said: “A hidden connection is stronger than one we can see.” Otto Maier was always fascinated with Time. Things occupy space—but how many of them there are (or could be) belonging to time? If you take off the face of a clock you won’t find time there, only human fabrication. Those numbers, circling round, make time almost...
Hagal is the rune of a goal and confrontation with past patterns.
It was in 1926, in the thick of transformative ferment of the interbellum, that an anonymous volume—issued in a luxury edition of three hundred copies by a small Paris publishing firm known mostly for artistic reprints—rocked the Parisian occult underworld. Its title was Le Mystère des cathédrales (The Mystery of the Cathedrals). The author, “Fulcanelli,” claimed that the great secret of alchemy, the queen of Western occult sciences, was plainly displayed on the walls of Paris’s own cathedral, Notre-Dame-de-Paris. Surrealism […]...
In almost all myths all over the world the same theme reoccurs. The twelve knights, twelve tribes, twelve heroes etc. In his last and longest dialogue (Laws), Plato teaches: There are twelve feasts to the twelve Gods who give their names to the twelve tribes. Also in early christianity, the image of twelve disciples with the Godman figure at their center echoes...
Deeper levels and meanings in tales not only transcend time, they also cross continents and cultures. These links and hidden meanings one can find best in original local tradition and folklore. One such link is the original French myth of Melusine, whose name is associated with honey. Her story recalls the Indian tradition whereby the royal lineage claimed to come from serpent...
It’s almost Walpurgisnacht, no better moment to have a closer look at our witches or Hexen. Where did this cruel hatred against women and the ancient pre-christian sanctuaries start? When Pope Innocent VIII (1484–92) professed his belief in witchcraft, he condemned it, and dispatched inquisitors to Germany to try its supposed practitioners and punish them unimpeded. Singling out Mainz, Cologne, Trier, Salzburg, and Bremen, the papal bull declared that “some parts of Northern Germany” were infested with “many persons of […]...
Wagner’s mythic medievalism and Teutonic underworldliness was shared by the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s embrace of William Blake’s prescient dictum—Gothic form is living form—the largely unacknowledged creed of Victorian architectural revival. Barbaric An adjective that had once meant “barbaric,” “Gothic” had been redeemed by perception of the medieval Catholic Church’s architectural embrace of the divine-maternal, the mysterious, tempting curve: the very essence of...
Occult knowledge and ancient wisdom. What was Parsifal seeking in Wolfram Eschenbach’s poem that was referred to as “the Grail”? A stone ? The Lapsis exillis? It is also said that a pagan astrologer read the mystery of the Grail in the stars: ” Flegetanis, the heathen saw with his own eyes in the constellations things He was shy to talk about,...
For those who are into the multi-level and the different themes of the Maier Files already noted that one of the themes associates with the Grail Quest, the hidden knowledge and the search for this power. The quest of the Golden Fleece and the Argonauts has always been in connection with the quest of the Holy Grail. And yes, also this tale has plenty layers or levels. In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece (Greek: χρυσόμαλλον δέρας chrysómallon déras) is the […]...
Since the dawn of civilization, labyrinths have fascinated humankind. Knossos in Crete, has a distinctive circular maze design with seven rings. Exactly the same design appears mysteriously at different periods in history on stones and artifacts as far apart as India, Norway, Germany, Ireland, England, Arizona, … In English, the term labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze. As a result of the...
When it is exclaimed that contradictions may very well be true, numerous analytic philosophers will screw up their face into an appearance of discomfort, and say ‘But I just don’t see what it could be for a contradiction to be true’. They could mean numerous things by this. ‘See’ might just mean ‘understand’, by which case they might be complaining that traditional...
The Rose of the world Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale waters in their wintry race, Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, Lives on this lonely face. Bow down, […]...