When Aeneas, the epic Trojan paladin, was approaching the wealthy palace of King Helenus, he saw with astonishment, admiration and pleasant surprise a woman called Andromache, the wife of Hector the Trojan who was gloriously killed in battle at the undefeated foundations of the walls of Troy.
Then, Aeneas gave thanks to the Holy Gods (Angels. Archangels, Principalities, Potencies, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubims and Seraphims of Christianity). He gave thanks to these ineffable beings from the depth of his heart, for having liberated this woman Andromache and for having impeded the Acheans from taking her captive to Micene.
Andromache, a noble woman, was now the wife of Helenus, the Prophet-King, a splendid monarch who gave opulent hospitality to the Trojans in his royal palace.
Aeneas found Andromache offering a ritual meal and performing rites to the dead in a grove in a sacred forest. She was carrying in a magnificent golden urn the ashes of Hector, her former husband.
“Is this a true vision? Is it a true messenger that comes to me, Aeneas, son of the goddess? Are you alive? If the light of life has left you, why are you here? Where is Hector?” This is how the woman spoke, and then she fainted.
The unhappy woman had been held captive by the terrible Pyrrhus, a sly, evil warrior who was the assassin of the Elder Priam.
Fortunately, the fate of this unhappy woman changed radically after Pyrrhus died by the hands of the dreadful warrior Orestes. Then, she married the good King Helenus.
We know that on the third day Aeneas was taken into a solitary cave in order to foresee the will of Apollo.
The most important of the prophesies of Helenus was to tell Aeneas that the conclusion of his voyage was far away and that he was going to enter into many harbours before definitely establishing himself on that land which in a foretime was the ancient Hesperia.
Helenus advised him to go and see the Sibyl of Cumae, a Divine Prophetess, a virgin priestess who foretold the future in prophetic frenzy by writing her magical verses on falling leaves from a corpulent tree which was next to her cave.
Once in a while, a hurricane wind was dislodging the green prophetic leaves and the verses were becoming mixed and extraordinary mingled, thus forming non-intelligible phrases for the profane.
For this reason many men departed without receiving advice and cast maledictions against the Sibyl.
Putting all doubts aside, we can emphatically affirm that only the Initiates with awakened consciousness could understand the strange phrases and the mysterious enigmas of the Sibyl of Cumae.
Helenus also predicted for Aeneas that he would navigate close to Scylla and Charybdis, and as well close to the lands of the Cyclops and that he should avoid the entrance into the meridional shores of Itaca, which in that epoch were populated by the terrible Greeks.
Finally, the bountiful King Helenus advised Aeneas, the illustrious Trojan paladin, to worship the godhead of great Juno first and foremost in his prayers, through his own free will to submit his vows to Juno, and to win the love of the mighty Queen of Heaven with his offerings and prayers, since this Deity was always showing herself as an enemy of the Trojans.
So, the wind blew the sails under the light of the full moon and the paddle struggled with the soft marble and Palinuro consulted the stars. The ships were leaving the seigniorial dominions of the King Latinum, while Andromache was crying at the departure of the Trojans.
Helenus, illuminated King, Prophet of Apollo! You were the one who provided royal and magnificent hospitality to the Trojans, and then filled with love, you interrogated the God of fire for the sake of your friend Aeneas.
Helenus, you were also the one who (oh Gods!) advised this illustrious Trojan man to visit the Sibyl of Cumae.
When arriving to this part of our present chapter, all of the Priestesses of Eritrea, Endor, etc., come into my memory.
Wherever a holy one of these Sibyls abided, it was sure that also a Delphic, Bacchic, Kabiric, Dactylic or Eleusinian Mystery existed.
The Gods and most wise men will never forget the tremendous importance which these mysteries had in ancient times. The fame and great renown of Sais, Memphis and Thebes in the ancient Egypt of the Pharaohs was due to these mysteries.
There, within the night of the centuries, Mithra is still remembered by the Initiates among the Parses. Eleusis, Samothrace, Lemnos, Ephesus, etc., are remembered among the Greeks.
Formidable were the Initiatic Colleges of Bibractis and Alexis among the Gallic-Druids. The mysteries of Heliopolis in Syria and Tara in Ireland, etc., became ineffable and indescribable for their beauty and splendour.
The Druid priests of the Celtics were practising magic and the mysteries in their caverns according to the sayings of Plinio, and also according to the proving of Caesar and Pomponio Mela.
These austere and sublime Druid Hierophants, crowned with oak, were solemnly reunited under the pale light of the moon in order to celebrate their Major Mysteries, especially in Spring-Easter, which is when life is powerfully and gloriously resuscitating.
The Initiatic Colleges were closed in the east, with the military barbarism of Alexander, and in the west with Roman violence.
The city of Cote-d’Or, which is next to St. Reine, was certainly the tomb for the Druid Initiation, since all the Masters and Sibyls were vilely slaughtered by the sanguinary ordes of Rome, without any consideration.
Equally fatal and painful a fate had Bivractis, the glorious emolus of Memphis. As well, Athens and Rome, whose Druid College had 40,000 students of Astrology, Occult Science, Philosophy, Medicine, Jurisprudence, Architecture, Literature, Grammar, etc., followed in the number of victims.
The Latin Mysterium is the Greek Teletai, whose original root is found in the word Telelutia, Death.
A vain thing is the death of the physical body. What is important is the total destruction of the ‘Myself’.
The Illumination of the Sibyls of Cumae, the splendour of the Priestesses of Eritrea, the ecstasy of the Mahatmas, are only for people who have truly passed through the Great Death.
The awakening of the consciousness, the radical and absolute change becomes impossible without the death of the pluralized ‘I’. The coming of the new is only possible through death.
The path of life is made with the prints of the hoofs of the horse of death.
Samael Aun Weor
