excerpted from . . .

The Shadow Tarot 

© Linda Falorio, 1995

The sigil of the 23rd tunnel is painted on a slightly skewed inverted triangle which evokes the sense of vertigo that overtakes one in the sinking descent to the deep regions of the Tunnel of Malkunofat.

At the lower left are three heads—Deep Ones, as depicted by the inhabitants of lost Lemuria in a long-ago dark time, forgotten, submerged for long ages in their deep ocean trench. Modeled after the likeness of remote antecedents of the human race, they have been fashioned as stern guardians of the Gate through which the Outer Forces ever seek to enter human space and time.

On the vast plain of Atlantis once sat these ancient heads. The arcane women of Atlantis sat before them, singing as they wove to keep the Ancient Ones at bay, working designs of protection into the warp and weft of a civilization that was too new, that yet moved too easily between the worlds. The women held the secrets of the sacred alignments, they knew the when and how of opening the Gate that leads to the cold and unknown stars, the gate through which star-travellers make the dangerous leap from world to world, the gate through which the Great Old Ones yet ever seek return. And when Atlantis sank beneath the waves, the Gate yet held for nigh on forty thousand years.

The pentagonal altar, known in later times as the "Shiva lingam," and as the "naval stone," was used to call the Old Ones from their dreaming sleep. On one side of the altar is inscribed their ancient sigil. On the other side is carved the symbol of the "Nommo," those people of the watery Dark Star, companion of the star Sirius. While a third side is inscribed with sigils of protection.

The red starfish upon the altar is symbolic of the womb suffused with the blood of the Ancient Ones: the "spawn of Tiamat" that is the seed-life of this planet. The starfish represents as well the beginning of all life in the waters of the unconscious, their subtle emanations raying forth to form 23 eyed-tentacles pulsing in the depths. We see that a chambered nautilus has been drawn into their dreamlike thrall. Evolutionarily ancient, these dwellers of deep oceans were the first organisms with jaws, the first predators.

The letter "E" marks the entrance to the Tunnel of Malkunofat which is the devouring maw of the telluric Dragon—the Great Serpent, Leviathan-Thetis-Tiamat-Quetzalcoatl—dissolving us into Her silent, glittering darkness. For "E" indicates insight, voidness, the Feminine Principle. It is the secret place for teaching tantric doctrine, the Mother's secret "bhaga" place, the moist kteis. "E" is also that letter which was suspended in the entrance to the Temple of Apollo, and depicted on the Delphic coins.

MEDITATION:

The need to work with the energies of Malkunofat is suggested when we experience a fear of loss of ego-consciousness and control, which may manifest as fear of flying, fear of drowning, or the inability to let go into orgasmic bliss. There may be the inability to contact unconscious elements in ourselves, signaled as a lack of dreaming. The other side of the coin is experienced as lack of grounding, a lack of any sense of connection with the personal or collective past. There may also be a sense of being drawn into dream life and fantasy, of having wandered too far from the haunts of men ever to return.

When we have successfully channeled the power of Malkunofat, we gain ability to manipulate the astral world, and to precipitate its manifestation onto the earth-plane. We may also become adept at divining the earth's treasures, as in dowsing, "water-witching", and the like. Here too, we find our power to transcend space and time, to leap from world to world. And here is the power of ultimate surrender into orgasmic bliss.

Thus in surrender of the soul to the Beloved in the mystic vision of Malkunofat, in its union with the All which is Nirvana, in this our "death by drowning" in the ocean of the unconscious, we are pulled into transcosmic space, rising to the highest spiritual aspiration of which we can conceive, higher, higher, dissolved into the Void of Absolute.

Here lies also the acceptance of the universe as Thanatos and Eros, the ability to merge with Dark plutonian energies for transformation, and regeneration, yielding personal magnetism, inexhaustible energy, sexual power, exaltation, joy, and bliss.