TOTBL

The Fourth Path · IV

Quod tu es, ego fui. Quod ego sum, tu eris.

Death is the oldest gate out of the world. The dead know the way.

Death is the first and greatest transgression of the cosmos: the moment the spirit leaves the prison of flesh. The necromantic current turns toward this gate while still alive, and seeks counsel from those who have already passed through it.

Since antiquity the dead have been called by night — with fire, with offerings, with blood poured into the earth, as Odysseus poured it at the edge of the world so that the shades would drink and speak. The spirits of the dead and the spirits that walk among them are summoned in the circle, and they answer in smoke, in dream and in silence.

The Temple does not open graves and does not touch the remains of the dead; the gate is not in the earth but in the night itself. The adept meditates upon his own death until it no longer holds him, and goes to the threshold as one who already belongs to the other side.

SISTEVIATOR

Stand still, traveller.

QVOD TV ESEGO FVIQVOD EGO SVMTV ERIS

What you are, I was. What I am, you will be.

Historical Traditions

Speaking Across
the Threshold

  1. Antiquity

    The Nekyia

    In the eleventh book of the Odyssey, Odysseus calls the shades and speaks with the dead — a scene, above all, of memory and grief.

  2. Antiquity

    Oracles of the dead

    The Greek world knew sanctuaries where the dead were consulted. Their rites are known only in fragments, through later writers.

  3. Scripture

    The medium of Endor

    In the first book of Samuel, King Saul seeks out a woman who calls up the prophet Samuel — the best-known necromantic scene of the Hebrew Bible.

  4. Middle Ages

    Nigromantia

    In medieval Latin, necromancy blurred into “black art” — a name for forbidden learning in general, preserved in clerical manuscripts.

  5. Early modern

    Ars moriendi & vanitas

    Manuals on the art of dying and still lifes of skulls and hourglasses taught the contemplation of mortality as wisdom.

The discipline

The dead are called by night, in the circle, with fire, smoke and offering — through their names, through the seals of the spirits that walk among them, through the meditation upon one’s own death. The resting places of the dead are never disturbed and no remains are touched: the gate is in the night, not in the earth.

The Clauses

  1. I.

    Death is the gateout of the prison.

    What the herd fears as the end, the adept honours as the first door to Chaos.

  2. II.

    The dead arecalled by night.

    When the sun of the Demiurge has set, the threshold is thin.

  3. III.

    Blood callsthe shades.

    As in the oldest rite of the West: the shades drink, and then they speak.

  4. IV.

    To rememberis to summon.

    The name of the dead spoken in the circle is the oldest invocation.

  5. V.

    The ancestors of the pathstill walk it.

    Those who served the Adversary before us are not gone. They are waiting.

  6. VI.

    Die beforeyou die.

    Meditate upon your own corpse until death has nothing left to take.

  7. VII.

    The grave is not opened.The night is.

    No resting place is disturbed. The gate is in the dark, not in the earth.

Siste, viator. What you are, I was. What I am, you will be.