ITZLI Stone knife god of the Aztecans, identified with Tezcatlipoca.
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JACHIN & BOAZ The white and black pillars of the High Priestess (entrance to the Temple of Solomon: I Kings, 7.21). Strength and Beauty. Jachin = establishing principle, right, active, male; Boaz = left, passive, female (and according to Case, Strength). Jachin or yod, the phallus, requires beth, the house to contain it. Jachin (He will establish) stands for Man. Boaz (In strength) stands for God. The pillars represent the difficulty in distinguishing Self from Other, which is the source of all opposites and dichotomies. When viewing the temple from outside, Boaz is on one's left and Jachin on the right. From within, looking out, Boaz is on ones right. When there is a middle pillar, it generally stands, rather vagely, for wisdom. -----------------------------------------------------------------------JEBUS An enemy stronghold stubbornly held against the Israelites, hence any place overrun by barbarians, pets, or vermin (Jebusites). -----------------------------------------------------------------------JIHAD Usually translated as Holy War, more nearly means struggle. Al Quran decrees no one should fight unless attacked, but fundamentalists overlook such injunctions in their rabid zeal to bring the world into the submission of Dar-es-Salaam (House of Peace). -----------------------------------------------------------------------JOHN THE BAPTIST The mystical son of Zacharias, born at the summer solstice and complement of Christ whose opposite birth was the winter solstice. In the deepest sense, John the Baptist was both the real and symbolic Christ, dwelling in the wilderness, wearing camel skins and eating locusts and wild honey. It was he who preached, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" It was he who said, long before Christ, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." It was he who said, "Do violence to no man!" It was he who denied the Pharisees his baptism, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" But then we encounter the inevitable Xtian interpolation, added into the Bible a century later: "I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire!" (Note the reference to the usual magical elements - Fire, Spirit, etc. John, born under the sign of the Crab, being the baptiser by Water.) John met his fate supposedly because he spurned the advances of Salome and her mother. Eventually they succeeded in convincing Herod to have him beheaded (i.e., removed the spirit from the body). The Jesus who came after was considered by some to be the reincarnation of John (or the resurrected spirit thereof). -----------------------------------------------------------------------JUDGMENT The 20th and penultimate Arcanum, lettered Shin (the fiery character that means serpents fang). The true judgment and resurrection constitute the awakening from the death of ordinary materialistic preoccupation to the light and life of the spirit. Called by Crowley The Aeon. In our minds, beyond everyday reality, theres one Great Day that contains past,