第52章

O child of Adam! "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves."TABLET THE THIRD

Venus SYMBOL

An altar: on it two cups, one full, the other spilled; near them two bleeding hearts, in one a snake, in the other a dagger.

Above--clouds, from which comes a woman's face, a wreath in the hand, coming out of the cloud; in the wreath an angel, going upwards, with wings outspread.

III REFLECTION

TABLET THE THIRD

There is but one altar, but one blood of the sacrament in two cups, but one flesh of the Christ--the Ego--in two hearts, two experiences in love, ecstacy, and pain; two results of experience, the serpent and the dagger, symbolizing wisdom and affliction.Above the altar the divine woman holds the wreath encircling the angel.The angel of immortal life rises from the altar of sacrifice.Some of the wine is spilled as offering.The cup that is filled is raised to "Ra." To serve at the altar of love is the soul- mission of all, even as Christ served his disciples.Each soul must find its own service, and then the pilgrims of the Sun return to the mansions of the blessed.The great mother-god, Venus, Urania, quivers and thrills as she holds forth her offspring--the angel, the young Eros of life eternal.

O child of Adam, this is the Tablet of Love.Meditate thereon, as the last of the triune God.In this Tablet lies the secret of suffering and pleasure.He who vibrates in pain will quiver in ecstacy.Only those who have agonized in Hell can thrill in Heaven.

PART II

Here beginneth Chapter 2 of the Second Part of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Aeth," wherein is transcribed the Second Trinity of the Planetary Rulers.

"Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice For a draught of milk; withthe 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 SYMBOL NIGHT

A wonderful spider's-web;

The web glitters in the faint moonlight against a dark background of blue; moon invisible; on the outside of web a star, in the center a spot of light, underneath a coffin filled with stones.

IV REFLECTION

TABLET THE FOURTH

The web of life has caught the monad of the soul and thus incarnated the universe, for each soul incarnates its universe at birth, each one's world being different, and peculiar unto himself.At the first breath, the young child polarizes his relations to stars and earth, and it is the affinity and repulsion which make his life experience.And the stars weave the web in their lines of sextile, square and trine, of opposition and conjunction, thus enveloping the monad in the Circle of Necessity.

Outside the star of the spirit, the Ego, shines clear, free from the entanglements of the web and unaffected by the magnetic glamour of the Moon.And lo! the coffin is filled with stones, a symbol of death and the Moon, which is but a casket of stones.Therefore, little monad, caught in the tangle of the web of life and the glamour of earthly things, take heart, for, beyond all, is the star of your being.Call down the law of that star into yourself, and the web is broken and waves its tattered shreds in the breeze.

The moonlight, the reflected light, pales as the Star-Sun of your being rises, and the moonlight of Earth gives place to the Sun-spheres of Ra.

O child of Adam! The beginning of sorrow is the dawn of spiritual life.The wise man rules the stars; the fools of Earth obey.

TABLET THE FIFTH

Mars SYMBOL

An immense helmet on pedestal, across which a streak of lightning flashes; beside it a naked child painting pictures on the helmet; beneath, a broken sword.

V REFLECTION

TABLET THE FIFTH

Can greater irony be shown than in this astral symbol.Mars is externally represented as a fierce warrior, awful to behold; the reality, a little child, painting toy pictures on the helmet, too big for his curly head.The lesson in this is indeed, that the pen is mightier than the sword; that the big and blustering helmet will become a plaything for the child.Soon, that the sword of bloodshed, rape, and ruin, will be broken and war relegated to the past, looked at, but, as pictures, painted with hideous reality by the childhood of the race.

The symbol also reveals the great executive forces of humanity, the child.The soul can paint, execute its ideas, its hopes and its fears in any color--the lurid red of blood, the black of ignorance and crime, or in the living light of beauty.All the same, it is the childhood of man painting its ideals in the material world.

O child of Adam, curb the anger of Mars, that thy painting may set the dove at liberty.Let the magic of thy soul transform the savage of the desert into the angel of mercy.

TABLET THE SIXTH

Jupiter SYMBOL

A cave in the mountain side; a face like the sphinx comes out of the cave, there is a blackness behind it; it looks with upturned head to a lightthat is way beyond; it is a face that means something awful, a godlike defiance to the things that are.

VI REFLECTION

TABLET THE SIXTH