2.
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
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 God, will that God 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
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
REFLECTION
TABLET THE SIXTH
Here we have the sacred flower, symbol of the virgin soul, uncon-
taminated
by the snake of passion, which can only enfold the body—
the stem; the snake of matter—of lust—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 passions 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 passion 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 passion, and turn them into deep lessons of life, blossoming the evil into
good,
changing passion into wisdom. Only "the pure in heart can see God.''
[Blank Leaf]
