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What is the TRUE meaning of Zoso?


PlantOneOnMe

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The 666/Satan connection is utter crap. Page is a Thelemite, and regardless of what names Crowley went under, Thelema is not a Satanic discipline. The "Zoso" is an interpretation of his astrological signs. That "In The Light" link is well known to many of us and has been up for years. It's about half right. But like the symbols on his costumes, the symbol is purely astrological. One of the mandates of Thelema is that one choose a personal sigil for meditation. Capricorn, Mercury, Saturn, Cancer, etc. Ruling signs combined. The "dots" in the "o"s represent Saturn, its rings and out moons. Not Satan. Man this gets exhausting! Magick? Yes. Ritual? Yes. Astrology and the Tarot? Yes. Satan? Uh, no. :rolleyes:

Edited by Evster2012
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The 666/Satan connection is utter crap. Page is a Thelemite, and regardless of what names Crowley went under, Thelema is not a Satanic discipline. The "Zoso" is an interpretation of his astrological signs. That "In The Light" link is well known to many of us and has been up for years. It's about half right. But like the symbols on his costumes, the symbol is purely astrological. One of the mandates of Thelema is that one choose a personal sigil for meditation. Capricorn, Mercury, Saturn, Cancer, etc. Ruling signs combined. The "dots" in the "o"s represent Saturn, its rings and out moons. Not Satan. Man this gets exhausting! Magick? Yes. Ritual? Yes. Astrology and the Tarot? Yes. Satan? Uh, no. :rolleyes:

FYI:

Did you know that according to Biblical Christian principles any "dabbling in the occult" including Tarot and Astrology was and is considered (according to the Bible now.....) seeking out the Devil or Satan and is very taboo.

I was a student of The Bible at one time and the scriptures are extremely clear on the subject.

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I was just watching a movie "Small Town Girl " 1936. I wasn't really paying attention and then one of the characters said, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, "...............Stairway to Paradise" this really percked up my ears and watching the movie a little longer a character was introduced as "ZOSO" "Zoso" this and "Zoso"

could this classic film have been a partial inspiration? I guess we'll never know for sure.

It could have been a partial inspiration. Kay married Bob to get out of her dull life. Priscilla wanted his money and social position. "Shes buying the stairway to heaven" fits this movie perfectly.

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There was a pretty good article in Guitar World, 5 years ago, that showed multiple places where it coulda came from. One bein from the brand of Jimmy's first guitar. It's also noted, somewhere I've read that it could be Zofo and not Zoso.

Anyway..... at this point doesn't it simply mean Jimmy Page.

Edited by ArmsofAtlas
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It could have been a partial inspiration. Kay married Bob to get out of her dull life. Priscilla wanted his money and social position. "Shes buying the stairway to heaven" fits this movie perfectly.

Check out The Mummy with Boris Karloff (1932). There's a brief passage of music played in the background whilst showing a scene inside the tomb which sounds eerily similar to Kashmir's duh-duh-duh duhnt duh-duh-duh duhnt. It sounds like duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh. Just the three beats as opposed to the four used in Kashmir.

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FYI:

Did you know that according to Biblical Christian principles any "dabbling in the occult" including Tarot and Astrology was and is considered (according to the Bible now.....) seeking out the Devil or Satan and is very taboo.

I was a student of The Bible at one time and the scriptures are extremely clear on the subject.

FYI: Religious dogma only applies if your are a believer in said religion. As far as I've seen so far, never has Satan been proven to exist. It's the old debate all over again. Do tribal people go to hell? No. For them there is no Hell. Hell is the creation of the Church (decided at the first ecumenical council of Nicea in 325AD, when the churches united to decide what scripture goes in the Bible and what is kept from the people. The very definition of heresy. The first and darkest post-ascension crime against Jesus' teaching.). Men, Milton and Dante created Hell to control people. Heads up, the middle ages are over. If you want to practice Christianity and be a believer, that is your privelidge. Everybody has a choice. But you can't convince me Satan exists. I've studied comparative theology for decades, and until he pokes me in my behind with his pitchfork personally, I'll stay openminded. No offense. You're talking to someone who literally lived in an Orthodox monastery and seriously planned on becoming a priest monk, shunning all things earthly. I don't need things explained to me. I've lit plenty of candles.

Gold, frankinscense and myrrh. They were led by a star.

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FYI: Religious dogma only applies if your are a believer in said religion. As far as I've seen so far, never has Satan been proven to exist. It's the old debate all over again. Do tribal people go to hell? No. For them there is no Hell. Hell is the creation of the Church (decided at the first ecumenical council of Nicea in 325AD, when the churches united to decide what scripture goes in the Bible and what is kept from the people. The very definition of heresy. The first and darkest post-ascension crime against Jesus' teaching.). Men, Milton and Dante created Hell to control people. Heads up, the middle ages are over. If you want to practice Christianity and be a believer, that is your privelidge. Everybody has a choice. But you can't convince me Satan exists. I've studied comparative theology for decades, and until he pokes me in my behind with his pitchfork personally, I'll stay openminded. No offense. You're talking to someone who literally lived in an Orthodox monastery and seriously planned on becoming a priest monk, shunning all things earthly. I don't need things explained to me. I've lit plenty of candles.

Gold, frankinscense and myrrh. They were led by a star.

Fabulous retort. Well written. My mind is opened. Thank you.

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But you can't convince me Satan exists. I've studied comparative theology for decades, and until he pokes me in my behind with his pitchfork personally, I'll stay openminded.

Really? Doesn't Exist? Hmmm...I don't think He carries a Pitchfork these days.

Then who was it that the Bible says that Jesus met in the Desert after His 40 days/nights of Trial?

Edited by nirvana
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But you can't convince me Satan exists. I've studied comparative theology for decades, and until he pokes me in my behind with his pitchfork personally, I'll stay openminded.

Really? Doesn't Exist? Hmmm...I don't think He carries a Pitchfork these days.

Then who was it that the Bible says that Jesus met in the Desert after His 40 days/nights of Trial?

there's no good without the evil, am i right?...

As i read before Jimmy is very much interested in crowley and as we all know that crowley is a satanist... but that doesn't make jimmy a satanist too, i mean its interesting, we all like to read and know about the dark stuff, it's just curiosity, and if i had the money i would also buy crowley's castle as he did... And Zoso symbol as i can till now has hundreds of meanings so we'll just never know what it means... let's leave it a mystery B)

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As regards Jesus wrestling in the desert, that is not the Satan worshipped by Satanists. To a Satanist, Satan is symbolic of all things indulgent, not the actual entity in the Bible. Read The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey.

Regarding Crowley and Satan. First one must separate the Christian Satan from Lucifer the Lightbearer from the Babylonian Marduk. Crowley was not a Satanist. That's a misnomer. He took "The Great Beast 666" as his title because that's what his mother called him as a child because he was such a wild little boy. Later he employed it publicly for shock value. To get Crowley you have to go back to pre-biblical Egypt. Crowleyism is more about Isis and Nuit than Jesus or Satan.

What is the purpose of Jimmy's symbol? In Thelemic ritual aside from your ceremonial knife and wand, you must design a personal symbol to meditate on. It is to be inscribed on the forehead of your ceremonial head covering.

The bottom line is, if you look at Magick through Christian eyes, it all becomes Satan. That's extremely narrow. You can't just lump all occult belief systems into one basket. Some are dark and inherently evil in a morally enlightened world. Thelema (Crowley's system which Page employed and may still) is not dark. It is a path to enlightenment of one's true destiny in harmony with the universe and all other beings through love.

"Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God." Liber al vel Legis 1:57

Edited by Evster2012
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Sorry for the semi-double post. I was looking for where I'd gone into detail about this on the old board. Finally found it. :beer:

Satanism

First off, we need to separate the Christian Satan, the Devil who rules hell, from the Judaic Lucifer/Satan, and then from LaVey's Church of Satan. In Judaism, there is no hell, no judgment, and Satan is not the "Devil". The Hebrew root of the word Satan means "accuser". He was not the enemy or opposer of God, but rather a sort of Prosecuting Attorney who tests people for God. Witness the story of Job. That said, "Satanism", as in the whole "powers of evil" cult thing, which came to popularity in the last few decades, has little to nothing to with the Biblical Satan, be he angel or demon.

Thelema

Jimmy (and only Jimmy), was/is a Thelemite, not in any form a Satanist. Thelemites do in fact perform rituals to invoke spirits, but for purposes of goodness.

Thelema ("THEL-ay-mah") is a Greek word meaning "will" or "intention". It is also the name of a new spiritual philosophy which has arisen over the past several hundred years and is now gradually becoming established worldwide.

One of the earliest mentions of this philosophy occurs in the classic Gargantua and Pantagruel written by Francois Rabelais in 1532. One episode of this epic adventure tells of the founding of an "Abbey of Thelema" as an institution for the cultivation of human virtues, which Rabelais identified as being squarely opposite the prevailing Christian proprieties of the time. The sole rule of the Abbey of Thelema was: "Do what thou wilt". This has become one of the basic tenets of Thelemic philosophy today.

Although touched upon by various prominent visionary thinkers in the following few hundred years, the seeds of Thelema sown by Rabelais eventually came to fruition in the early part of this century when developed by an Englishman named Aleister Crowley. Crowley was a poet, author, mountaineer, magician, and member of the occult society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1904, while traveling in Egypt with his wife Rose, Crowley became inextricably involved in a series of events which he claimed to inaugurate a new aeon of human evolution. These culminated in April when Crowley entered a state of trance and wrote down the three chapters of 220 verses which came to be called The Book of the Law (also known as Liber AL and Liber Legis). Among other things, this book declared: "The word of the law is Thelema" and "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law".

Crowley spent the rest of his life developing the philosophy of Thelema as revealed by the Book of the Law. The result was a voluminous output of commentary and works relating to magick, mysticism, yoga, qabalah, and other occult subjects. Virtually all of this writing bears the influence of Thelema as interpreted and understood by Crowley in his capacity as prophet of the New Aeon.

One theory holds that each chapter of the Book of the Law is associated with a particular aeon of human spiritual evolution. According to this view, Chapter One characterizes the Aeon of Isis, when the archetype of female divinity was paramount. Chapter Two relates to the Aeon of Osiris, when the archetype of the slain god became prominent, and the world's patriarchal religions became established. Chapter Three heralds the dawning of a new aeon, the Aeon of Horus, the child of the Isis and Osiris. It is in this new aeon that the philosophy of Thelema will be fully revealed to humanity, and will become established as the primary paradigm for the spiritual evolution of the species.

Some of the essential elements of belief in Thelema are:

"Every man and every woman is a star."

This is usually taken to mean that each individual is unique and has their own path in a spacious universe wherein they can move freely without collision.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." and "thou hast no right but to do thy will."

Most Thelemites hold that every person possesses a True Will, a single overall motivation for their existence. The Law of Thelema mandates that each person follow their True Will to attain fulfillment in life and freedom from restriction of their nature. Because no two True Wills can be in real conflict (according to "Every man and every woman is a star"), this Law also prohibits one from interfering with the True Will of any other person.

The notion of absolute freedom for an individual to follow his or her True Will is a cherished one among Thelemites. This philosophy also recognizes that the main task of an individual setting out on the path of Thelema is to first discover his or her True Will, giving methods of self-exploration such as magick great importance. Furthermore, every True Will is different, and because each person has a unique point-of-view of the universe, no one can determine the True Will for another person. Each person must arrive at the discovery for themselves.

"Love is the law, love under will."

This is an important corollary to the above, indicating that the essential nature of the Law of Thelema is that of Love. Each individual unites with his or her True Self in Love, and so empowered, the entire universe of conscious beings unites with every other being in Love.

Of course, with the emphasis on freedom and individuality inherent in Thelema, the beliefs of any given Thelemite are likely to differ from those of any other. In the Comment appended to The Book of the Law it is stated that: "All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself." Although Thelema is sometimes referred to as a "religion", it accommodates the full range of individual beliefs, from atheism to polytheism. The important thing is that each person has the right to fulfill themselves through whatever beliefs and actions are best suited to them (so long as they do not interfere with the will of others), and only they themselves are qualified to determine what these are.

Love is the law, love under will

Ritual Magick

Thelemites do perform ritual magick. Wands, knives, the whole bit. However, not for purposes of evil, but rather to harness the power of ones Holy Guardian Angel. Within the system of Thelema, the Holy Guardian Angel is the "Silent Self", representative of one's truest divine nature.

I'm of the opinion that Page actually performed ritual onstage during his bow solo. The first ritual a Thelemite performs is called the Banishment. It's a cleansing of all things negative. One turns to each of the four corners and invokes the spirit of that cardinal point, ending on the fifth point which is the self. In Jimmy's bow solo, he sure enough strikes one chord after another, each time turning to one of the four directions. He repeats this several time finishing pointing skyward. I've seen the ritual performed, and it's pretty clear to me that's what he's up to. But I'm must stress that this is not evil. In fact it's precisely the opposite. There are a lot of bad vibes in a rock concert audience. Belligerent people who've had too much drink. People experiencing bad drug trips. The Banishment is meant to shake that all away and ground the audience, focusing them back on the music. Of course, that's just my interpretation.

Astrology and Symbolism

Jimmy did use both in Led Zeppelin. His dragon suits bore his astrological chart signs (Capricorn, Mercury and Saturn). His "Zoso" symbol is a stylized amalgam of centuries old alchemical symbols for same.

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Sozo has the basic meaning of rescuing one from great peril. Additional nuances include to protect, keep alive, preserve life, deliver, heal, be made whole.

Sozo is used 108 times in the NASB (Click following for all 108 uses in NT: 14x Mt, 13x Mk, 16x Lu, 6x Jn, 13x Acts, 8x Ro, 8x 1Cor, 1x 2Cor, 2x Eph, 1x 1Th, 1x 2Th, 4x 1Ti, 2x 2Ti, 1x Titus, 2x Heb, 5x Js, 2x in 1Pe, 2x Jude) and is translated as: bring...safely, 1; cured, 1; ensure salvation, 1; get, 1; get well, 2; made well, 5; made...well, 6; preserved, 1; recover, 1; restore, 1; save, 36; saved, 50; saves, 1; saving, 1.

Sozo is sometimes used of physical deliverance from danger of perishing (see Mt 8:25; Mt 14:30; Lu 23:35; Acts 27:20 27:31), physical healing from sickness (Mt 9:21-22; Mk 5:23, Acts 4:9), and deliverance from demonic possession (Lu 8:36).

More often sozo refers to salvation in a spiritual sense as illustrated in the following passages: Matthew recorded the angel's conversation with Joseph declaring

"She (Mary) will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save (sozo) His people from their sins." (Mt 1:21)

Here sozo is equated with deliverance from sins (guilt and power of) with Jesus' name being a transliteration of Joshua meaning "Jehovah is salvation".

Jesus warned His disciples "And you will be hated by all on account of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved (sozo)." (Mt 10:22, cf Mt 24:13) Note it is not one's endurance (self effort or works) that save them but that one is able to endure because of the fact that they are saved. Again Jesus was teaching His disciples about salvation and declared

"it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And when the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, "Then who can be saved?" (Mt 19:24-25)

Here He equated entrance into the kingdom of God with being saved. In explaining to His disciples and the multitudes what it meant to come after Him, denying self, taking up one's cross and following Him, Jesus declared that

"whoever wishes to save (referring to one's physical life) his life shall lose it (eternally); but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's shall save (spiritually) it (eternally)." (Mk 8:34)

Jesus speaking to a

"woman in the city who was a sinner" (Lu 7:37) "said to her ""Your sins have been forgiven" (Lu 7:48) and then

"Your faith has saved (sozo) you; go in peace." (Lu 7:50).

In these passages Jesus equates sozo with forgiveness of sins, confession of faith and experiencing peace! In a parable explaining the role of the Word of God and the character of the "soil" in salvation, Jesus taught that

"those (people) beside the road are those who have heard (the seed, the Word, the Gospel); then the devil comes (Mark's gospel adds "immediately", "at once") and takes away (present tense - continually) the word from their heart, so that they may not believe and be saved." (Lu 8:12)

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As regards Jesus wrestling in the desert, that is not the Satan worshipped by Satanists. To a Satanist, Satan is symbolic of all things indulgent, not the actual entity in the Bible. Read The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey.

Regarding Crowley and Satan. First one must separate the Christian Satan from Lucifer the Lightbearer from the Babylonian Marduk. Crowley was not a Satanist. That's a misnomer. He took "The Great Beast 666" as his title because that's what his mother called him as a child because he was such a wild little boy. Later he employed it publicly for shock value. To get Crowley you have to go back to pre-biblical Egypt. Crowleyism is more about Isis and Nuit than Jesus or Satan.

What is the purpose of Jimmy's symbol? In Thelemic ritual aside from your ceremonial knife and wand, you must design a personal symbol to meditate on. It is to be inscribed on the forehead of your ceremonial head covering.

The bottom line is, if you look at Magick through Christian eyes, it all becomes Satan. That's extremely narrow. You can't just lump all occult belief systems into one basket. Some are dark and inherently evil in a morally enlightened world. Thelema (Crowley's system which Page employed and may still) is not dark. It is a path to enlightenment of one's true destiny in harmony with the universe and all other beings through love.

"Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen, knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the House of God." Liber al vel Legis 1:57

EV, This is excellent----as many seem to leave out the all too essential Love part!

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Kudos, Ev and Rover. That was absolutely wonderful. Ev, that answered a lot of questions I had about Thelema. Rover, I was reading Ev's post and thinking how some of it reflected basic biblical philosophy and then, I read your post. I think the true meaning of Zoso has been found. :)

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Kudos, Ev and Rover. That was absolutely wonderful. Ev, that answered a lot of questions I had about Thelema. Rover, I was reading Ev's post and thinking how some of it reflected basic biblical philosophy and then, I read your post. I think the true meaning of Zoso has been found. :)

For those of us who've studied Crowley and Thelema for years, because of our beloved Jimmy, it was never a mystery. I've posted this so many times over the years, but people just seem to pass it over again and again and ask the same questions. Maybe it's just too big. To me it's simple. I just don't get it. Here's the answer. Why not take it? I imagine someone will post tomorrow the same question and once again my answer will be swept under the current. At least you read it. That makes it worth my effort! :wave:

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