The light of Egypt; or, The science of the soul and the stars

FOREWORD Thy temple is the arch Of yon unmeasured sky; Thy Sabbath the stupendous march Of grand eternity. To my Brothers and Sisters of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor:

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK WHICH IS CALLED "THE TABLETS OF ÆTH,'' WHEREIN ARE DESCRIBED THE FORMULAS OF MEDITATION. THE FORMULAS OF MEDITATION, TO THE DRAGON, FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. "When first, a musing boy, I stood beside Thy starlit shimmer, and asked my restless heart What secrets Nature to the herd denied, But might to earnest hierophant impart; When lo! beside me, around and o'er, Thought whispered, `Arise, O seeker, and explore.' ''

PART I ——— OF THE TWELVE MANSIONS —— Here beginneth Chapter I of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Æth,'' wherein is transcribed the First Quadrant of the Twelve Mansions. —— "I sent my soul through the invisible, Some lesson of that after life to spell; And by and by my soul returned to me And answered, `I, myself, am Heaven and Hell.' '' —— "The moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.''

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TABLET THE FIRST Aries I REFLECTION TABLET THE FIRST

TABLET THE SECOND Taurus REFLECTION TABLET THE SECOND

TABLET THE THIRD Gemini REFLECTION TABLET THE THIRD

PART I —— Here beginneth Chapter 2 of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Æth,'' 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 REFLECTION TABLET THE FOURTH

TABLET THE FIFTH Leo REFLECTION TABLET THE FIFTH

TABLET THE SIXTH Virgo REFLECTION TABLET THE SIXTH

PART I —— Here beginneth Chapter 3 of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Æth,'' 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.''

REFLECTION TABLET THE SEVENTH

TABLET THE EIGHTH Scorpio REFLECTION TABLET THE EIGHTH

TABLET THE NINTH Saggitarius REFLECTION TABLET THE NINTH

PART 1 —— Here beginneth Chapter 4 of the Book which is called—"The Tablets of Æth,'' wherein is transcribed the Fourth Quadrant of the Twelve Mansions. —— "A hair, perhaps, divides the false and true. Yes, and a single alif were the clue— Could you but find it—to the treasure house, And, peradventure, to the Master, too. —— `Beware, O my son, of self-incense. It is the most dangerous on account of its agreeable intoxication. * * * Learn, O my beloved, that the light of Allah's truth will often penetrate an empty head more easily than one too crammed with learning.''

TABLET THE TENTH Capricorn REFLECTION TABLET THE TENTH

TABLET THE ELEVENTH Aquarius REFLECTION TABLET THE ELEVENTH

TABLET THE TWELFTH Pisces TABLET THE TWELFTH

PART II of The Book which is called THE TABLETS OF ÆTH —— OF THE TEN PLANETARY RULERS

PART II Here beginneth Chapter I of the Second Part of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Æth,'' wherein is transcribed the First Trinity of the Planetary Rulers. —— "The human heart is the true temple of God; enter ye into your temples and illumine them with good thoughts. The sacred vessels, they are your hands and your eyes. Do I say that which is agreeable to God—doing good to your neighbors? But, first embellish wherein dwells He, who gave you life.'' —— "How small soever your lamp be, never give away the oil which feeds it, but only the light and flame, which crown it.''

TABLET THE FIRST The Sun REFLECTION TABLET THE FIRST

TABLET THE SECOND Mercury REFLECTION TABLET THE SECOND

TABLET THE THIRD Venus REFLECTION TABLET THE THIRD

PART II —— Here beginneth Chapter 2 of the Second Part of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Æth,'' wherein is transcribed the Second Trinity of the Planetary Rulers. —— "Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice For a draught of milk; with the Maruts Come hither, O Agni! They who know the great sky, the Visve Devas without guile; with those Maruts Come hither, O Agni! They who are brilliant, of awful shape, Powerful, and devourers of foes; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni! They who in heaven are enthroned as gods, In the light of the firmament; with the Maruts Come hither, O Agni!'' —— "Let us meditate on the adorable light of the Divine Rulers. May it guide our intellects.''

TABLET THE FOURTH The Moon REFLECTION TABLET THE FOURTH

TABLET THE FIFTH Mars REFLECTION TABLET THE FIFTH

TABLET THE SIXTH Jupiter REFLECTION TABLET THE SIXTH

PART II Here beginneth Chapter 3 of the Second Part of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Æth,'' wherein the Third, and last, Trinity of the Planetary Rulers is faithfully transcribed. —— "Thou hast entered the immeasurable regions. I am the Dweller of the Threshold. What wouldst thou with me? * * * Dost thou fear me? Am I not thy beloved? Is it not for me that thou bast rendered up the delights of thy race? Wouldst thou be wise? Mine is the wisdom of the countless ages. Kiss me, my mortal lover.'' —— "Thus man pursues his weary calling, And wrings the hard life from the sky, While happiness unseen is falling Down from God's bosom silently."

TABLET THE SEVENTH Saturn REFLECTION TABLET THE SEVENTH

TABLET THE EIGHTH Uranus REFLECTION TABLET THE EIGHTH

TABLET THE NINTH Neptune REFLECTION TABLET THE NINTH

TABLET THE TENTH The Cypher -the unknown REFLECTION TABLET THE TENTH

PART III of The Book which is called THE TABLETS OF ÆTH —— OF THE TEN GREAT KABBALISTICAL POWERS or ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE

THE TWO SEALS OF THE EARTH

13.

CHAPTER XII PENETRALIA THE SECRET OF THE SOUL

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FOREWORD

Thy temple is the arch
Of yon unmeasured sky;
Thy Sabbath the stupendous march
Of grand eternity.

To my Brothers and Sisters of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor:

GREETING—For some years it has been my desire to leave a spiritual legacy to the many devoted friends and followers who have braved so much amid present truth and error for my sake.

In choosing the present work for such a purpose, I have had in view the deeper spiritual needs of the soul—the prophetic element of the interior spirit, which can best exalt itself through the contemplation of Nature's arcane symbolism of the starry heavens—not the material expression of the glittering splendors of the midnight sky, but the spiritual soul-pictures of those blazing systems that reveal to the seeing eye the shining thrones of the Rulers—the Powers that Be.

Ever since the dawn of intellectual human life upon our Mother Earth, long before the days of the cave man, or even the first frost that heralded the coming of the Ice Age, souls have hoped and hungered and souls have quailed and fallen in their struggles with the mysteries of God. But ever and anon some bright flower of the race has gained the spiritual victory. A Messianic soul has responded to aspirations of a great-hearted, great-souled woman, pregnant with spiritual yearnings beyond her race, and she has unconsciously blessed her kind for the generations yet to come with that incarnated mystery the Son of God. Blessed, O Woman, is thy patient mission on the earth, and transcendent are the holy mysteries of thy maternity. Every human birth is a Divine miracle in humanity, performed by the Motherhood of God.

Hence it is that, from the earliest ages of life, triumphant souls have stormed the gates of the sanctuary and penetrated Nature's most occult mysteries and there recorded their spiritual victories. Amid these sacred records lies one great scroll, that none but the brightest and bravest may read.

This sacred scroll, sealed with the seven mystic seals of the heavens, contains The Tablets of Æth, a record of the soul's experiences upon the planes of both conscious and sub-conscious life-spirit and matter, that are expressed in a series of universal symbols, which manifest to the seer the processes of creative life, of spiritual cause with material effect. And, finally, the mystery of the seven vials and the seven stars of Saint John are written therein; for the Tablets are the hieroglyphic keys which unlock the realities of truth involved within the unrealities of external life, and open up, to the aspiring soul, inconceivable vistas of knowledge yet possible of realization, within the Divine womb of the uncreated Æther.

Myriads of exalted spirits, who have toiled for the treasure which doth not corrupt, have added, and are adding, their portion of personal conception to this universal conception of life, so that the sacred symbols themselves, inscribed upon these imperishable Tablets, are evolutionary—are slowly unfolding through the eons of time, and revealing wider and yet deeper processes of the light, life, and love, of the Motherhood of God.

Therefore, all Divine revelation of infinite truth is limited and finite as to its conception, when revealed through a finite capacity. All Divine truths are universal; all personal conceptions of such truths are limited; hence springs the unquenchable fountain of the one eternal truth, eternally repeating itself, in cosmic as in human life, by the progressive unfoldment of Nature's unlimited potentialities.

"The outward doth from the inward roll,
And the inward dwells in the inmost soul.''

The true poet is always a seer, and he might have added that the inmost soul is the uncreate, and, the yet uncreated itself, lies buried in the ever eternal beyond; hence the immortality of the human spirit.

This sacred astral scroll, rightly and reverently studied by the disciple of the higher law, becomes a boundless source of knowledge and inspiriation{sic}. There is no mood of the mind or yearning of the soul that cannot be satisfied and refreshed from this inexhaustible fountain of spiritual truth, no passion of the human heart that cannot be eased of its burden and soothed of its pain. Its spiritual refreshment

falls like the dew from heaven upon those who are weary and heavy laden with the trials and sufferings of external life.

Accept it, then, even as it is given unto you. My friends and brethren, accept it as Zanoni's last work on earth—his legacy to you, and may the spirit of the All-Father-Mother, the ineffable spirit of Life, Light, and Love,—the Unknowable, whom men call God, rest upon you and be with you now and forever.

Very Truly
T.H. Burgoyne [?]

[Description: Photograph of T. H. Burgoyne]

University of Virginia Library

FOREWORD Thy temple is the arch Of yon unmeasured sky; Thy Sabbath the stupendous march Of grand eternity. To my Brothers and Sisters of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor:

Very TrulyT.H. Burgoyne [?]

FOREWORD

Thy temple is the arch
Of yon unmeasured sky;
Thy Sabbath the stupendous march
Of grand eternity.

To my Brothers and Sisters of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor:

Very Truly
T.H. Burgoyne [?]