Cats are incredibly intriguing creatures. They have been worshipped throughout history, especially in ancient cultures, and one might wonder, why is it that the cat has been so revered and so loved throughout the ages?

The ancient Egyptians worshipped cats. There were special festivals just for the adoration of cats, and it was said that when the family cat died, special ceremonies were performed, where people shaved their eyebrows to mourn the passing of them.

The Egyptian goddess Bast is depicted in cat form, and by looking into the worship and the characteristics of this goddess, much can be discovered about the true power of cats.

In Norse mythology the goddess Freya was associated with cats. In Japan cats have also been worshipped and often attributed with supernatural abilities.

Indeed, cats have been revered and feared to some extent throughout history, and there has always been this mystical quality about them that has been recognized by many. In the best of cases, cats were considered to be protective spirits, especially of crops and the land.

But why is this? The fact that they are considered protectors of crops and land may be easily understood rationally, being that they are prodigious killers of mice and other vermin. But why were they given mystical attributions? Why were they considered to be enlightened beings?

Well, from the inner alchemist’s point of view, they are strange and mystical creatures to be sure.

In order to understand the mystical nature of cats, we do not have to look much further than perhaps there most compelling feature, which is their eyes. Cats have an incredibly powerful stare, incredibly powerful vision. To look into a cat’s eyes, is to be lost in a different world. When they look at you they seem to look right through you.

But this is just the relatively simple perception of the outer senses. The average person is captivated by those beautiful big eyes, by their unflinching and yet completely relaxed gaze. But for those that can see, for those that can use their inner senses, it becomes instantly obvious that that gaze is far more powerful than some may suspect.

The cat has always been given mystical abilities, because those that can see, and those that can intuit such things, have always known that the cat can look in between worlds, past the ordinary and mundane reality.

Cats can see past the material essence of things, and due to that ability, they can quite literally be used as a kind of catalyst, like a tiny key, in order to be able to see beyond this three-dimensional cube.

Even without the ability to see yourself, if you own a cat, you can try this now. Lightly gaze into your cats’ eyes as it gazes in any direction. Use your intuition and the feelings that you get, and see if you can note that such a gaze by the cat, seems to be able to pierce some kind of membrane, like it is able to somehow extend beyond the linear scope of that gaze, into another angle, another dimension, another place. As you lightly gaze into your cats gazing, you may feel the reflection of other worlds.

Ancient seers, especially in temples where cat worship was engaged in, would use that power to be able to see beyond the veil of the material. By focusing their seeing on the gaze of the cat, they could use such a gaze sort of like a magical mirror, that would reflect back to them, other deeper realities. As such, cats are a conduit to the spirit.

But there is greater power to them beyond this, and this relates to why H.P. Lovecraft love them so. He in his own words said that, he had a particular respect and affection for them since his infancy. For him cats were a fount of great imagination and the deepest perception. In other words, he knew of the ability of the cat to be able to take you beyond this dimension, and far into materially unperceived of places. Cats played a large and compelling role in some of his stories, and seemed to be native in the dream dimensions, the dreamland, that he sometimes wrote about. And it is in those stories that we are given the final clue as to the power of the cat, and this power is the power of the dreamer. Quite simply, cats are dreamers, they are master projectionists.

How they see, where they see, their gaze, is a gaze that can see across dimensions. It can see into those places where they dream. The cycles of their awake and dreaming states, while annoying to the average person that is so stuck in the routines of the nine-to-five, tells us of a more natural cycle, the cycle of the dreamer, that engages in inner projections of attention in a much more fluid manner throughout the day and night.

Just like there gaze can take you beyond the material, such gaze can also take you into dream realities, dream lands, worlds and cities beyond imagining by the rational mind. H.P. Lovecraft loved cats because they are quite literally a kind of key, the kind of key that I usually speak of when I speak of the power of the projectionist, the power of the inner alchemists and conscious dreamer to go beyond the three-dimensional trap, and into dream dimensions far beyond this material containment that traps the modern human. Perhaps this is why, cats have become so popular in this age of pure materialism.

The cat is a kind of dual creature, one that can exist in places beyond this place. And those that may not be able to see, can still intuit such truth by looking at them, and by trying to follow their gaze, as it somehow tries to take them beyond the material and into the magical, the spiritual other dimensions.

Their eyes are just like the eyes of a seasoned projectionist. Cats have the eyes of a kind of alien creature, a creature that does not seem to be wholly materially focused. A creature that seems to have the possibility to go far, and having returned from its journeys, seems to have brought something back, something alien, something that some consider dark, cold, a darkness, a sliver from that dark sea that I often talk about in my books.

 

“…the robust pagan with the blood of Nordic twilights in his veins there is no beast like the cat; intrepid steed of Freya, who can boldly look even Thor and Odin full in the face and stare contemplatively with great round eyes of undimmed yellow or green.”

H.P. Lovecraft