The Five Gems

Use of the Five Gems

EDOUARD CHATELHERAULT

TAKING THE POINTS which we are studying in the order in

which they have struck me, I find most revealing in the Eastern

tradition the freedom which has been lost in the West: the

freedom to look at anything as a possible source of experience.

Most strongly marked was my own quest when, at first, seeking

transcendental knowledge among spiritual people I was

recommended to study what appeared to be a book of spells and

mantrams—the Five Gems. This book is very much in demand

 in its Persian guise, known throughout India, Pakistan and

Central Asia as the Jawahir-i-Khamsa. The only clue to any

deeper meaning than magical processess lies in the authorship.

It is by the mystical saint Gwath Shattar. The run-of-the-mill

orientalist or bibliophile would—and often has in Asia itself—

dismissed this authorship as an attribution intended to gve the

book a greater currency. But it is to be found used as a textbook

by mystics who could not, by any stretch of imagination, be

regarded as occultists. To experience its teaching use occasions

almost as much of a shock as if one were to discover that 'Old

Moore's Almanac' was a disguised religious or psychological

document. The Gems frequently quotes the Sage Timtim, and

also contains magical processes which appear in the work of the

North African 'sorcerer' El-Buni. The reasons why this document

is to be found in a magical disguise is given by the Shattari

teachers as follows:

(1) People are attracted to the magical,

and will tend to protect and distribute 'magical' texts; (2) It is

traditional among 'men of perception' to conceal their meanings

in forms which will not only baffle the inept, but will effectively

test them: if they want magic alone, they will be prevented from

troubling the Shattaris; (3) The Shattaris are under an ancient

obligation to court no high repute in the world. One of their

major teachers being considered a magician furthers this end;

(4) When the real meaning of the Gems is revealed to the

disciple, he understands, in a flash of cognition, that all exterior

presentations of dogma are only formulae, and that truth can

be put in any form.

The 'Star Lore' and 'Magical recitations'

in the Five Gems is an elaborate coding-system. Until an individual

has dropped magical aspirations, he will not face up to

this fact, and will not be able to learn.

EDOUARD CHATELHERAULT is the author of

You and Your Stars, in which astrology, talismans 
and ancient methods of seeking information from the

skies are made intelligible to ordinary readers. Of

Persian, Spanish and English extraction, he has lived

and worked in many countries of the Far East.