PART I
Here beginneth Chapter 2 of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Aeth," wherein is transcribed the Second Quadrant of the Twelve Mansions.
"How they struggle in the immense Universe!
How they whirl and seek!
Innumerable souls, that all spring forth From the vast world-soul.
They drop from planet to planet, And in the abyss they weep For their forgotten land.
These are thy tears, O Dionysus, O Spirit vast, Divine One, Liberator.
Draw back thy daughters to the breast of light."
"Ah, love! Could you and I with him conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits? And then Remould it nearer to the heart"s desire."
TABLET THE FOURTH Cancer
SYMBOL
A woman"s face unconscious, in trance, surrounded by clouds.
IV
REFLECTION
TABLET THE FOURTH
The dreaming woman, whose brooding thoughts shape the coming man.
The race is never any farther advanced than the average thought of the woman. She is yet sleeping, knowing not her powers. So, not until she awakes and recognizes herself as conceiving by the Holy Ghost and the mother of the incarnate G.o.d, will that G.o.d be brought forth unto universal knowledge.
In this is the great lesson to woman: Ever remember thy creative power as the mother of the humanity of the future. The sun in thy mansion exerts its highest power. Awake, therefore, O soul, and eclipse not its brightness with thy dreams of sublunary power.
O child of Adam! Ever honor the womb that gave thee birth, and know that all thy earthly greatness received its seed therefrom.
A fountain cannot rise higher than its source.
TABLET THE FIFTH
Leo
SYMBOL
A man"s arm, bent, exceedingly muscular, a knife in the hand, a streak of lightning opposite the arm, which is defying the lightning.
V
REFLECTION
TABLET THE FIFTH
Here we have the symbol of the incarnate fire of the spirit defying the mere natural fire of the heavens. The woman sleeps and broods and dreams, but the man she has brought forth is awake, and bids defiance to the fiery forces of Nature. He has armed himself with the keen knife of action, and with it has conquered the forces of matter. He has harnessed the lightning, and made the electric fluid his obedient slave. And thus has he mastered all forces inferior to spirit--that spirit of conscious life which is his birthright.
The lesson to be gleaned from this is that, the kingdom of Nature must be taken by storm. Not for rest, but for work, has Mother Nature sent forth her man child; not for peace, but for battle; not for inertia, but for effort.
O child of Adam! Arm yourself with the sword--mayhap the sword of affliction--and, gallantly raising the strong right ann aloft, hurl defiance at the chaos of Nature, sure that the fire from the Sun of the spirit is burning in every vein of that arm.
TABLET THE SIXTH
Virgo
SYMBOL
A Lotus, rising from the water, coiled around its stem a snake, whose efforts fail to reach the flower.
VI
REFLECTION
TABLET THE SIXTH
Here we have the sacred flower, symbol of the virgin soul, uncontaminated by the snake of pa.s.sion, which can only enfold the body-- the stem; the snake of matter--of l.u.s.t--of evil. But the flower of the spirit--the soul--lifts its pure white petals upward as an incense cup to the Sun of the Spirit.
In this symbol read the great lesson of the experience of evil.
If, the flower of the soul, blossoms; the mud of the soil and the snake of the pa.s.sions are but the surroundings of its roots and stem. Both are necessary for the perfection of the flower. The roots sink deep into Mother Earth, and draw nourishment and life, lifting matter upward, while the snake of pa.s.sion becomes, under another aspect, the serpent of wisdom. Coiled around the stem of this life, it gives to the incarnated soul that wisdom which later blossoms in the Seraph of the Sun spheres.
O child of Adam! Take suffering, if it forge the sword of the spirit. Take evil and pa.s.sion, and turn them into deep lessons of life, blossoming the evil into good, changing pa.s.sion into wisdom. Only "the pure in heart can see G.o.d."
PART I
Here beginneth Chapter 3 of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Aeth," wherein is transcribed the Third Quadrant of the Twelve Mansions.
"To know what really exists, one must cultivate silence with ones self, for it is in silence that the eternal and unexpected flowers open, which change their form and color according to the soul in which they grow. Souls are weighed in silence, as gold and silver are weighed in pure water."
"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon turns to ashes; or it prospers, and anon, like snow upon the desert"s dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, is gone."
TABLET THE SEVENTH
Libra
SYMBOL
A crowned king, with a scythe raised in the air, looks closely at two boys wrestling beneath him in a field of grain, a red poppy below them.
VII
REFLECTION
TABLET THE SEVENTH