Ghuedhe’s Gate – Magick KazimPrints available at www.kazim-renaissance.fr
Ghuedhe’s Gate is a visual reification of a thanatonic travel to the realms of the Deads under the guidance of Ghuedhe, the Loa of Sex and Death.
The Eye within the Circle represents the projection of the Eye of Vision and passage through the Abyss, the Black Hole of the non-sephirah Daath, which leads from the common dayside consciousness to the rawness and primality of the Nightside Realms, related to the Kingdom of Ghuedhe.
The hands act as the projection of the pentagrammaton of the senses at the 8 directions of space and time and serve both as a mean to manifest, and as a circle of protection of, the sphere of the sorcerer in the shadowy realms. Once the tunnel crossed, the sorcerer penetrates the very den of Ghuedhe himself : a dusty ground covered with bones and of the remnants of those who have by past passed away, a sanctuary of death, a mahasmashan, where a cross made of skulls is erected at its very center as the symbol of the lord of the place and Loa’s veve.
A serpent is coiled on it as a reminder of the ophidian mysteries and of the principle of liberation through Knowledge transmitted by the Snake, who was also the Son of Men hanged on the cross in the first gnostic sects. It is also a reminder that both Life and Death are ultimately linked and offer, as the Snake that leaves his skin, a mean to transformation (a major aspect of the Death card in tarot symbolism).
The Labyrinth gives thus a glimpse on every initiatic pilgrimage and opens on a Black Hole at the center of the Cross, recalling the symbolism of the Black Sun at the very heart of the Tomb itself. Here is the Silent Heart of Illuminated Darkness in which one can ultimately know the Self.
The other elements from various origins are part of the author’s personal explorations related to the symbolism of the Skull and the Cross in both magickal and artistic context.