Grand Cohen

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Googled "Grand Cohen":

          "Maybe that’ll be a topic for a future 
          post:  Dating Secrets of the Quantum 
          Complexity Theorists.

http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=58

Googled "Grand Cohen Qabalah"

          42. We now come to the consideration of the first 
          Sephira, or the Number One, the Monad of Pythagoras. 
          In this number are the other nine hidden. It is indivisible, 
          it is also incapable of multiplication; divide 1 by itself 
          and it still remains 1 multiply I by itself and it is still 1 and 
          unchanged. Thus it is a fitting representative of the 
          great unchangeable Father of all. Now this number of 
          unity has a twofold nature, and thus forms, as it were, 
          the link between the negative and the positive. In its 
          unchangeable one-ness it is scarcely a number; but 
          in its property of capability of addition it may be called 
          the first number of a numerical series. Now, the zero, 0, 
          is incapable even of addition, just as also is negative 
          existence. How, then, if I can neither be multiplied nor 
          divided, is another 1 to be obtained to add to it; in other 
          words, how is the number 2 to be found? By reflection 
          of itself. For though 0 be incapable of definition, 1 is 
          definable. And the effect of a definition is to form an 
          Eidolon, duplicate, or image, of the thing defined. 
          Thus, then, we obtain a duad composed of 1 and 
          its reflection. Now also we have the commencement 
          of a vibration established, for the number 1 vibrates 
          alternately from changelessness to definition, and 
          back to changelessness again. Thus, then is it the 
          father of all numbers, and a fitting type of the Father 
          of all things.

          The name of the first Sephira is KThR, Kether, the Crown.

There's tonnes more on this site for the "Golden Dawn", plenty of background 
detail for those desiring to investigate the historical background of the 
T.W.I.T.S.

http://www.esotericgoldendawn.com/mysteries_qbl_kabalahunveiled.htm

Googled: "Grand Cohen Kabbalah"


          The appearance of Martinez Pasquales upon the 
          scene of French "Initiation" was like that of many 
          of his contemporaries: mysterious, of unknown 
          origin, filled with claims of supernatural contacts, 
          and filled with Cabalistic signs and symbols. 
          Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, 
          Pasquales' influence would be a lasting one, 
          and his system of magic, restoration, and angelic 
          communications was unique. Nothing of its kind 
          had been revealed to the world since the writings 
          of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly, and while definitively 
          Christian-Cabalistic in nature, nothing equal to it 
          has been delivered since. This is not to say that 
          all other systems are inferior to Pasquales (or 
          even Dee), only that such uniqueness in thought 
          and form comes around only rarely.

          Born in Grenoble, of Spanish descent, Martines 
          Pasquales received his authority to transmit the 
          ancient teachings from his father, who was 
          granted a Masonic charter from Charles Stuart, 
          "King of Scotland, Ireland, and England," dated 
          May, 20, 1738. The power and authority of this 
          charter was transmissible upon death of the holder. 
          As a result, Martines created a movement of 
          distinct masonic character, open only to Master 
          Masons, and named it: Order of Knight Mason, 
          Elect Priests of the Universe, or Elus Cohen (Elect Priests).

          While Pasquales' spiritual mission' officially began 
          around 1758, he did create a masonic chapter in 
          Montpellier four years earlier. It was a year later, 
          in 1755, that the Elect Priests were officially founded 
          in Bordeaux. Paris was the site of the ventual 
          Sovereign Tribunal in 1766, which had among its 
          members several prominent masons of the period. 
          Avignon, Montpellier, Metz, La Rochelle, Versailles, 
          and Lyon were all sites of future Lodges of the 
          Order of Elus Cohen.

          What made the Elus Cohen distinct from the 
          masonic organizations it drew its membership 
          from, was its emphasis on ceremonial magic, or 
          theurqy, for the 'Reintegration' of humanity. The 
          Martinist doctrine of Pasquales focused around 
          the 'Fall of Man' and its rectification. It's 
          fundamental tenants were: 
          
          Archetypal Man, or Adam Kadom, was emanated 
          from God, and originally dwelt on a high spiritual plane.
          Through abuse of his 'free will' Adam Kadom 'fell'.
          This originally unified being shattered into the many 
          individual souls that now exist.The goal of humanity is 
          to reintegrate itself with the original archetype, thus 
          achieving unity.

          The Order of Elect Priests was divided into three 
          principle parts, completed by the secret grade of 
          "Reau+Croix". The first group was composed of those 
          who went through the first three degrees of Craft 
          Masonry, with a complementary degree following; 
          the second group contained the 'Porch Degrees" of 
          Cohen-Apprentice, Fellow-Cohen, and Master 
          Cohen; the third group was the Temple Degrees of: 
          Grand Master Elect Cohen, Grand Architect of 
          Chevalier (Knight) d'Orient, and Grand Elu de Zorobabel.

http://www.hermetic.com/stavish/essays/kabbalah-hermetic.html

This is another particularly rich site, full of historical info on the 
development of kabbalah.

Googled: "Grand Cohen Tarot"

          Neville and Nigel bring Basnight to the T.W.I.T. 
          sanctuary to be initiated into the Order. There, 
          he meets Nicholas Nookshaft, Grand Cohen of 
          the London chapter of T.W.I.T. Mr. Nookshaft 
          goes on to explain the ex detective that, when 
          he jumped into the explosion, he was transported 
          to another dimension, a Lateral-world which was 
          connected to this other one by the explosion 
          (page 211) and also with Yashmeen Halfcourt, 
          a striking young woman who is in Britain under 
          the protection of T.W.I.T; her guardian, 
          Lieutenant-Colonel G. Auberon Halfcourt, is 
          working for the Political Department somewhere 
          in Inner Asia and young Yashmeen well being 
          could be used against him at any moment.

http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/search?q=grand+cohen

this section of chumpsofchoice.blogspot is quite useful for where the group 
discussion is right now:

          He continues with a story about one of the 
          "queer characters" he encountered while 
          exploring in Eastern Africa, one Yitzhak 
          Zilberfeld, "out traveling in the world scouting 
          possibilities for a Jewish homeland." A 
          discussion of Home and Zionism devolves 
          into a Borscht Belt comedy routine when 
          they're charged by an elephant and Fleetwood 
          delivers the "Depends upon how much he's 
          charging -- try to talk him down a little?" 
          punchline while Yitzhak cries "Anti-Semitic!" 
          All ends well, however, with a local paper 
          trumpeting the news, "SAVES JEW FROM 
          INSANE ELEPHANT." Zilberfeld tells Fleetwood 
          that South Africa is the place to make a fortune. 
          "There's fifty-thousand Chinese coolies all lined 
          up, sleeping on the docks from Tientsin to Hong 
          Kong, waiting to be shipped into the Transvaal 
          the minute the shooting [from the Boer War] 
          stops..." This leads to an offstage outburst from 
          Scarsdale Vibe who is "mouth-foaming" because 
          "This money is coming from nowhere."

http://tinyurl.com/2med9o

. . . .and somewhere around here, I'm detecting the "unseen hand" of 
some sort of early 1900's "Fiscal Illuminati" consorting together in Africa

          * Sir Cecil Rhoads; who had connections to high level 
          Freemasonry, was the founder of the De Beers 
          diamond mining corporation & the Rhodes scholarship, 
          also founded the Round Table Group in London in the 
          late 1800’s. The group was created as way of preserving 
          and advancing the interests of the British Empire worldwide. 
          They function as a collection of small discussion groups, 
          one in every major capitol city, answerable only to a head 
          quarters in London. Each group functioned and still 
          functions today very much in secret. Powerful figures in 
          international politics, finance, media and commerce, 
          such as representatives from the Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan 
          and Rothschild families are said to hold membership, 
          giving the society potentially enormous power. It is also 
          said that the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral 
          Commission, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 
          the Bilderberg Group and the Club of Rome are all fronts 
          for this group, whose ultimate aim is the creation of a 
          sinister New World Order state. Some say that it itself 
          is a front for the Bavarian Illuminati.*

http://www.amakudara.com/

While I won't make any claims as to the veracity of the whole 
"Fiscal Illumanati" conspiracy theory, [or this website] I'm sure 
Pynchon has been blending that theme into the mix all along, 
true or not [and more likely than not, the contents of the 
previous website are true anyway].

          It has been claimed that Dr. Weishaupt was an atheist, 
          a Cabalistic magician, a rationalist, a mystic; a 
          democrat, a socialist, an anarchist, a fascist; a 
          Machiavellian amoralist, an alchemist, a totalitarian 
          and an "enthusiastic philanthropist." (The last was the 
          verdict of Thomas Jefferson, by the way.) The Illuminati 
          have also been credited with managing the French and 
          American revolutions behind the scenes, taking over 
          the world, being the brains behind Communism, 
          continuing underground up to the 1970s, secretly 
          worshipping the Devil, and mopery with intent to gawk. 
          Some claim that Weishaupt didn't even invent the 
          Illuminati, but only revived it. The Order of Illuminati 
          has been traced back to the Knights Templar, to the 
          Greek and Gnostic initiatory cults, to Egypt, even to 
          Atlantis. The one safe generalization one can make 
          is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has 
          worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever 
          agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or 
          purpose of the Order actually was (or is . . .). There 
          is endless room for spooky speculation, and for 
          pedantic paranoia, once one really gets into the 
          literature of the subject; and there has been a 
          wave of sensational "ex-poses" of the Illuminati 
          every generation since 1776. If you were to 
          believe all this sensational literature, the damned 
          Bavarian conspirators were responsible for 
          everything wrong with the world, including the 
          energy crises and the fact that you can't even 
          get a plumber on weekends. (pp. 3-4)

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Illuminati.htm

Of course, the late , great RAW didn't realize at the time that, in fact,  
the damned Bavarian conspirators were responsible for everything 
wrong with the world, including the energy crises. 

If my obviously overheated imagination appears to veering 
off the rails in a traverse fashion, put on your Polaroid 
sunglasses and consider the following:

          I was also able to steal, or let us say "derive," in 
          more subtle ways. I had grown up reading a lot of 
          spy fiction, novels of intrigue, notably those of 
          John Buchan. The only book of his that anyone 
          remembers now is The Thirty-nine Steps, but he 
          wrote a half dozen more just as good or better. 
          They were all in my hometown library. So were E, 
          Phillips Oppenheim, Helen MacInnes, Geoffrey 
          Household, and many others as well. The net 
          effect was eventually to build up in my uncritical 
          brain a peculiar shadowy vision of history 
          preceding the two world wars. Political 
          decision-making and official documents did not 
          figure in this nearly as much as lurking, spying, 
          false identities, psychological games. Much later 
          I got around to two other mighty influences, 
          Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station and 
          Machiavelli's The Prince, which helped me to 
          develop the interesting question underlying the 
          story --- is history personal or statistical? My 
          reading at the time also included many Victorians, 
          allowing World War I in my imagination to assume 
          the shape of that attractive nuisance so dear to 
          adolescent minds, the apocalyptic showdown. 
          Slow Learner, pg 18

Of course, Pynchon never met a pun he didn't like. Or use.

Googled: "Koan"

          26.   Trading Dialogue for Lodging

          Provided he makes and wins an argument about 
          Buddhism with those who live there, any wondering 
          monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, 
          he has to move on.

          In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother 
          monks were dwelling together. The elder one was 
          learned, but the younger one was stupid and had 
          but one eye.

          A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, 
          properly challenging them to a debate about the 
          sublime teachings. The elder brother, tired that 
          day from much studying, told the younger one to 
          take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in 
          silence," he cautioned.

          So the young monk and the stranger went to the 
          shrine and sat down.

          Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to 
          the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is 
          a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."
          
          "Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.

          "Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one 
          finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. 
          So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and 
          his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing 
          Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the 
          harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist 
          in my face, indicating that all three come from 
          one realization. Thus he won and so I have no 
          right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.

          "Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, 
          running in to his elder brother.

          "I understand you won the debate."

          "Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up."

          "Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the 
          elder one.
          
          "Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, 
          insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. 
          Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite 
          to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him 
          that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held 
          up three fingers, suggesting that between us we 
          only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to 
          punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"

http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/zenindex.html