Three Little Dots

[parsifal]

Is it true that the triangle of dots we see throughout occult literature (for example, Shaitan-Aiwaz, 93 ̇. ̇) is a reference to Sirius? Or perhaps more specifically, to the relationship between the Sirius system and Earth? Three dots represent three stars: Sirius A, Sirius B, our Sun. Thoughts?

[david]

May 19, 2016 13:10:35 GMT parsifal said:

Is it true that the triangle of dots we see throughout occult literature (for example, Shaitan-Aiwaz, 93 ̇. ̇) is a reference to Sirius? Or perhaps more specifically, to the relationship between the Sirius system and Earth? Three dots represent three stars: Sirius A, Sirius B, our Sun. Thoughts?

The dots you see "throughout occult literature" are more usually the other way up (ie, with the single dot on top) where they are often used to represent an order, such as the A.'. A.'. or the G.'. D.'. (Golden Dawn).

I haven't come across the three dots as an abbreviation for our Sun and Sirius A and B but, sorry, don't think this a likely explanation either (as apart from anything else this would also negate the tertiary system incorporating Sirius C:)

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/universo/esp_sirio07.htm

Such being my two cents and three dots ...

[parsifal]

Thanks, David. Yes, I did note that the Aiwaz example I gave inverted the triangle, which is upright in most other usages that I've seen. I'm embarrassed to admit that I wasn't aware of there being a Sirius C. Doing a handy-dandy Google search, I see that the Temple book, The Sirius Mystery, claims that the Dogon knew of the existence of a third star, but that modern astronomers consider the probability of a triple system for Sirius to be low? But again, this is just from a very quick Google search, so what do I know. That being said, I guess we need to look at that glyph from the perspective of those who originated it. For example, let's say the symbol originally derived from Masonic tradition in the eighteenth century. Presumably they wouldn't have known about modern conjecture about the existence of a Sirius C, but perhaps they might have known from esoteric lore that Sirius was binary; by the middle of the nineteenth century, when the binary system was confirmed by a German astronomer named Bessel (another Google search!), Freemasons could certainly have known about it being binary and crafted the symbol (representing a binary Sirius and our Sun) based on what they knew at the time (or thought they knew). But all this is conjecture as well, I guess, because I have no idea how old the triangle symbol is, how far back its usage goes, or what it is really meant to signify. Interesting stuff, though.

[Post script: After posting this, it occurred to me that, according to my line of argument above, if my hypothetical Freemasons from the eighteenth century could have known from "esoteric lore" about a binary Sirius, those same mysterious occult sources could have led them to believe in the existence of a third Sirius star as David suggests.]

[parsifal]

As a followup to my original post here: Interestingly, as I was flipping through The Book of Lies to find a chapter that had earlier struck me as being powerfully Typhonian (from an advaita perspective; the chapter, in case you're wondering, is "The Looby," ch. 39) I found what I think is a rare instance of an inverted triangle as cited as an example in my original post on this subject (Shaitan-Aiwaz, 93 ̇. ̇). Again, most usages of this symbol that I've come across have the triangle in the upright position, as in the very familiar "A∴A∴". The inverted version appears in the back pages of Lies, at the top of the section titled "PRO AND CON TENTS," directly over the entry for the first chapter, "The Sabbath of the Goat." What can it mean? It's somewhat intriguing, don't you think? Curiously, that first chapter focuses on N.O.X. and the Night of Pan (Binah, the City of the Pyramids, which exists under the Night of Pan, or N.O.X.). Thoughts?

[david]

Yes it was a v.good suggestion to look at the glyph from the perspective of those (maybe freemasons) who'd originated grafted it from esoteric lore, parsifal.

Having seen several letters signed by Kenneth Grant which have been uploaded, he seems to have regularly signed off his own name followed by those inverted three little dots at the end as well. Perhaps it could relate to the descending triangle representing the force and fire of RaHoorKhuit which is formed by Gedulah - Geburah with it's tip (appropriately enough) in Tipheret? Does anyone know if it's in common use elsewhere like that or just a pesonal idiosyncracy of mr Grants?

[parsifal]

whoa, David, what an insightful--and dare I say, informed--answer. Methinks I just had my mind blown, not to mention my preconceptions shaken. Yes, so this would suggest that the glyph represents the second triad in the Tree of Life: Chesed-Geburah-Tifaret--the lightning flash of Holy Illumination emanating from the supernal triad of Kether-Chokmah-Binah. Thus the inverted triangle is the perfect symbol for Shaitan-Aiwaz, the giver of the Book of the Law, the "lightning flash" that illuminates the New Aeon. Viewed in this way, the upright triangles in "A∴A∴" would seem to suggest that the interior order of A∴A∴ resides in the supernal triad (which I guess it does, yes?). Fascinating, and yet, a pity. I was rather attached to my Sirius thesis (haha). I'll have to mull this over further.

Then again, Doesn't Kenneth Grant indicate in Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God that A∴A∴ refers to Sirius? So we come full circle. Fascinating. The mystery deepens (I suppose it was always deep)...

[Gregory Peters]

There is another thread where this came up, but you have to dig around in it as quite a lot of topics were discussed:
theprimalgrimoire.proboards.com/thread/109/symbols-typhonian-tradition?page=2

A few bits:

From Stephen:
In Steffi Grant's representation the large star is the endekangle reflected from every sixth point, attributed to the Princes of the Qlippoth operating in the twelve months of the year, while the inner lineal figure is the endekagram reflected from every fifth point attributed to the Dukes of Edom (I think). The three dots inside the Arabic letter Cheth are the form of mystical notation used in the Typhonian Order. Commenting on A.'.A.'. in the glossary of TMR, Kenneth Grant says:
"The triangle of dots indicates that the Order is a secret society connected with the Ancient Mysteries."
Tobias Churton gives a more prosaic explanation in his biography of Crowley (p.124):
"The three dots are a masonic conceit referring to spiritual activity, derived from 17th-century Rosicrucian sources."
The Typhonian usage of '.' is open to several layers of interpretation - I am not certain that I have ever been given the definitive one - it might be identified with the Yoni of the Goddess and with the lowest Sephirothic Triad of Netzach-Hod-Yesod. Note also that Ouarda gave 666 "the Red Triangle Reversed" as being the sign of Horus, during the Cairo Working. All to be taken as indications of the specific zone of magickal working utilised by the Typhonian Order in the Work of Earthing the 93 Current.

Read more: theprimalgrimoire.proboards.com/thread/109/symbols-typhonian-tradition#ixzz49WGdUGph

And my input:
Some stuff I wrote about the "inverted triangle" which could, by means of occult association, apply to the inverted three dots used in some Typhonian and other writings ('.')

This is the “red three-angled heart” referred to in chapter II verse 28 of Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente:
"The red three-angled heart hath been set up in Thy shrine; for the priests despised equally the shrine and the god."

It is also the “Heart of Blood” referred to in chapter V verse 42 of Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli:
"There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the Wrong of the Beginning."

The heart is another cognate symbol of Tiphareth and the attainment symbolized by the union of fire and water, or the divine and the human. Similarly, blood is considered to be the essence of life, the medium by which the Solar current of prana or life-force is brought into our bodies.

The descending triangle is also an image of the Yoni mudra, which forms the basis of a great many yantras and mandalas of the East, particularly of the Hindu tantrikas. Yantras are considered to be geometric expressions of the deity itself, being the actual manifestation of the Divine in the form of linear expression.

The Yoni mudra is the primary form of the Kali yantra, representing the divine feminine force or Shakti which informs the universe. This mudra also forms the central design for the Sri Yantra, an image which serves in the East a role similar to the Tree of Life in the West, being a map of all creation.

Read more: theprimalgrimoire.proboards.com/thread/109/symbols-typhonian-tradition#ixzz49WGpBRHS

[parsifal]

Thanks for your comments, Gregory, and for the references to other posts on this forum. Your response brings up an issue that I come up against sometimes in my reading and practice, which is that I'll get onto some line of thought where I think I've struck upon some essential truth or insight, only to have it dispersed by conflicting data or points of view. This thread is a good example. On Sunday, after I read David's comments about the second triad and Tiphareth, I excitedly wove together this little micro-cosmology that neatly tied together Sirius and the A∴A∴ and the Book of the Law and Shaitan-Aiwaz. It was brilliant! As sometimes happens when a meditation or ritual hits the right chord with me, I felt infused with what I'll call prana or a "magical vibe," for lack of a better term, which I viewed as a sort of validation of the truth I had encountered.

Then Gregory sent his very helpful comments suggesting that there could be a half dozen or more other possible interpretations of that triangle glyph, and just like that, all my brilliant constructions collapsed around me!

So I'm wondering if others here have encountered the same thing in their work and investigations. It seems always to lead me back to Advaita and Ramana Maharshi, this notion that what what passes for reality is a construction of the I-thought: restrain the I-thought at its source, and the true reality—Sat-Chit-Ananda—will emerge. But if this is true, why bother following any occult or religious path at all? If all it does is confront you with contradictions upon contradictions? Isn't this the phenomenon that Liber AL 2:27 describes? ("There is great danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes shall make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reason."). Then again, a few lines down (AL 2:30) we read: "If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought." So is the message here that one should forge on with one's inquiries, but do not cry Why or invoke Because when faced with contradictions? Simply forge on?

Any insights from the group would be appreciated!

[kylefite]

"If this is true, why bother following any occult or religious path at all? If all it does confront you with contradictions upon contradictions?"

I love this question as I feel it's a type of evocation summoning a glorious transformative gnosis for those led to ask it. I have had others ask me the same thing recently and I endeavor to withhold any sort of "explanatory" reply. But I think the answer may vivify those three little dots.

In "The Adamantine Way," Grant writes:

"The reason why we create such an universe of name and form is as inexplicable as why the artist paints his pictures. It may be sheer joy; a compulsion springing from unknown depths; it may be that art is the nature of the artist, so also the production of name and form is the nature of the mind. And so events, peopled with infinite individual and illusory selves, unfold upon the screen of the One Consciousness and imagine a cycle of life and death, until there is realisation by these illusory selves of the real substratum of their evanescent being." (ATFOTG p. 41)

This joy/nature I see expressed in AL 2:26:

"If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down my head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one."

We could say that one path leads us to "the true reality." The other emerges in a purity of "compulsion" from Gnosis in that "true reality" to act (or to "Go").

The Supernals of the "Traditional Triangle" drive toward Ain Soph. Inverted, they would seem to express the Ophidian Current, described by Grant as "The magical current of energy...the Fire Snake in its downward or materializing mode." (cf OG)

I believe we can see this Current running powerfully through Grant's work. He moves like a lightning bolt through a world of numbers and letters but then states "A percept, a concept, or a number, any object, in fact, has no real relationship with any other percept, concept or number. Relationship obtains only in the consciousness which is the background upon which all objects appear as images on a screen."

He goes on to say:

"There can be no association of ideas, no correspondences of any kind, between numbers or the ideas they represent, except in the consciousness of their subject...."

The same would go for "three little dots," yes?

For myself, after many years in the "game," these wonderful observations open the door to a lightness in approaching the Work. The "true reality" pours into our esoteric engagements and we might say it evokes a "conformity to Will."

[parsifal]

Thank you, Kylefite. I drew enormous inspiration from your comments when I first read them a couple days ago. Rereading them now, I am not only inspired, but greatly encouraged about following the Typhonian way and finding out where it may lead. In one of my earlier posts here, I said that I happened upon an example of the inverted triangle of dots while flipping to the list of chapter titles in the back of the Book of Lies. I was trying to find a certain entry that had inspired me earlier. Looking back on that now, I'm struck by the synchronicity of it all, because the entry in question seems to be speaking directly to these very issues we've been discussing with regard to those three little dots, which is that the "true reality" will be found by us in that discomfiting space between Not This and Not That, in that undiscovered country between contradictory postulates, where the Bornless One "lies dreaming." As I noted earlier, the passage I was looking for--"The Looby"--struck me as being very Typohonian in an Advaitist sense. The text is copied below. Kind of weird how these things work, these strange little coincidences and synchronicities, as though they're signposts that seem to already know where you're headed even if you don't.

THE LOOBY

Only loobies find excellence in these words.
It is thinkable that A is not-A; to reverse this is but
to revert to the normal.
Yet by forcing the brain to accept propositions of
which one set is absurdity, the other truism, a
new function of brain is established.
Vague and mysterious and all indefinite are the
contents of this new consciousness; yet they are
somehow vital. by use they become luminous.
Unreason becomes Experience.
This lifts the leaden-footed soul to the Experience
of THAT of which Reason is the blasphemy.
But without the Experience these words are the
Lies of a Looby.
Yet a Looby to thee, and a Booby to me, a Balassius
Ruby to GOD, may be!

[movebywillalone]

This reminds me of Beyond the Mauve Zone pg. 87 'Hadit is represented in the Tantric system by the anusvara, the bindu or dot . Nuit, or Nada by the visarga : together they form the trikona of the creative Kamakala. And in the footnote to Kamakala Grant states that the trikona was carried over in the Western Arcane Tradition via the Freemasons. There are also more relevant verses to the three dots as the chapter continues. In my opinion the inverted trikona '.'could be more in line with Thelema than the upward triangle of the A.'.A.'.because the the two dots on top represent Nuit and the bottom bindu is Hadit which is a reflection of the Stele'of Revealing with Nuit arched above Hadit. Ra Hoor Khuit is also symbolized as an inverted red triangle.

[Gregory Peters]

Jun 4, 2016 1:51:46 GMT movebywillalone said:

This reminds me of Beyond the Mauve Zone pg. 87 'Hadit is represented in the Tantric system by the anusvara, the bindu or dot . Nuit, or Nada by the visarga : together they form the trikona of the creative Kamakala. And in the footnote to Kamakala Grant states that the trikona was carried over in the Western Arcane Tradition via the Freemasons. There are also more relevant verses to the three dots as the chapter continues. In my opinion the inverted trikona '.'could be more in line with Thelema than the upward triangle of the A.'.A.'.because the the two dots on top represent Nuit and the bottom bindu is Hadit which is a reflection of the Stele'of Revealing with Nuit arched above Hadit. Ra Hoor Khuit is also symbolized as an inverted red triangle.

Awesome thanks for this reminder movebywillalone. I have a vague recollection of Grant discussing the inverted version of the three little dots in a few places, but until I run across them again can not find the references

[Michael Staley]

Jun 6, 2016 16:50:59 GMT Gregory Peters said:

Awesome thanks for this reminder movebywillalone . I have a vague recollection of Grant discussing the inverted version of the three little dots in a few places, but until I run across them again can not find the references

I'm sure there's several meanings, but I have always taken the inverted triangle of dots to glyph the yoni of the Goddess.

[Gregory Peters]

Jun 9, 2016 8:48:55 GMT Michael Staley said:

Jun 6, 2016 16:50:59 GMT Gregory Peters said:

Awesome thanks for this reminder movebywillalone . I have a vague recollection of Grant discussing the inverted version of the three little dots in a few places, but until I run across them again can not find the references

I'm sure there's several meanings, but I have always taken the inverted triangle of dots to glyph the yoni of the Goddess.

That has been my main focus of course, as we have a direct tie in with the Kaula tantra and its stellar bloodline that feeds in to the Typhonian current

[parsifal]

Gregory, at its most fundamental (ie, very briefly) what is Kaula tantra and how does it relate to the Typhonian tradition? And what is its stellar "bloodline"? Further, how does all this relate to the yoni of the Goddess? I'm guessing these are BIG subjects, but any essentials you can provide, I am sure, will greatly broaden my perspective on those three little dots!

[Gregory Peters]

Jun 11, 2016 0:05:36 GMT parsifal said:

Gregory, at its most fundamental (ie, very briefly) what is Kaula tantra and how does it relate to the Typhonian tradition? And what is its stellar "bloodline"? Further, how does all this relate to the yoni of the Goddess? I'm guessing these are BIG subjects, but any essentials you can provide, I am sure, will greatly broaden my perspective on those three little dots!

parsifal  the Kaula tantras weave their way throughout the trilogies. See for example Cults of the Shadow for some discussion of the vamamarga. Stellar bloodline is me being romantic in referring to the Kaula current, which is said to descend from the Goddess herself. In addition to the many mentions of the tantrik influences in the Typhonian trilogies, a great discussion of these ideas and how the Yoni of the Goddess, bloodlines, Kaula tantra, vamamarga fits together, check out Kiss of the Yogini by David Gordon White.

[Gregory Peters]

Some very interesting ideas here, including some on the three little dots
www.williamhenry.net/2016/06/dr-john-dee-the-holy-grail-the-light-body-and-englands-greatest-secret/

[stephen]

I was working on THE NINTH ARCH last night and came across this in the commentary to Verse 620-14, (on page 395).

Verses 619-620 of OKBISh read: The Qliphoth of Daath will descend
/Below Malkuth and void themselves through the Tunnels of Set.


"..The Oracle is a number of Isis and of ChKMH BINH VDOTh (Chokmah-Binah-and-Daath), the first descending triad ‘.’ 620 is the number of KThR (Kether), ascribed to Pluto and to the ultimate door, or gateway, leading from the supernals of the Outer Ones. Note also 620 = ShORIM, ‘the doors’ indicating the Stellar (ChKMH), Saturnian (BINH), and Uranian (DOTh) gateways."

Clearly, this is another interpretation of the Three Dots symbolism, with rather different applications to those previously considered. Thought it worth drawing attention to.

[parsifal]

Gregory: excellent link, and I'll need to give this a good look.

Stephen: This is a stunning item to find tucked away in a textual commentary. Here we see again this idea of the inverted triangle representing the lightening flash of illumination blazing down the Tree of Life (if I interpret this correctly), only adjusted slightly from what was discussed above: instead of representing the second triad, it forms a triad with Daath/abyss as the "tip of the spear," thus it might be said in this circumstance to symbolize the breaching of the gulf between the supernal triad and the lower worlds, via the abyss. Again, we see a symbol of the inrushing force of the stellar transplutonic current from the Great Outside (transplutonic Isis=Nuit=Sirius?)

(Sorry, been fixating on Sirius again lately! Which brings me back around to my original post about these enigmatic three little dots).

[horus93]

I was re-reading Grant's "Magical Revival" and came across a passage which reminded me of this thread. In it he doesn't refer to the dots, but rather the symbol of a triangle or pyramid (however the shape is the same). He states that the upward triangle represents Horus, whilst the downward triangle represents Set. 

I believe Set is an apt symbol of the Typhonian tradition.

[Fr. Ankh-m-Maat]

I have just been re-reading The Magical Revival myself, read the quote that relates to this and remembered this discussion here. Just came here to post it but see that horus93 already beat me to it.

Nevertheless, for future scholarship, here is the full quote from top of page 134 (of the 2010 edition):

The threefold seed is represented geometrically by the triangle or pyramid, the symbol of Horus and of the unwedded Mother. When the apex is uppermost, Horus is indicated; when it is inverted, or southward-pointing, Set is implied. In the tantras the Sri Yantra appears with the central triangle upward or downward-pointing, according as to whether the ritual is of the Right-Hand Path or the Left-Hand Path.