Evolution of Homo Spiritualis

The first of the two paths which you will traverse in the exercises connected with this lesson is the 20th. It is the path of the letter YOD, and in traversing it, the impulse is directed upward from Tiphareth to Chesed. One places himself in Tiphareth, sees himself surrounded by a sphere of yellow light, and then projects the yellow-green ray diagonally upward into the blue sphere of Chesed. In all these projections consciousness should be identified as much as possible with the color employed. First you will feel yourself surrounded with yellow light, then three will be a feeling of flowing movement, taking you upward through a yellow-green stream or current, and finally you will find yourself in a sphere of intense, living blue.

What you are doing, remember, is to set in motion, for the time being, the vibrations of etheric and higher planes which correspond to these imagined physical colors. Do not fall into the error of supposing that nothing happens just because you are "only imagining." When your consciousness takes a particular color-vibration as the result of this practice, even your physical body is slightly modified. The specific result aimed at is the extension of sensation beyond the limits of the physical, the refinement of the senses, and one of the results of this work should be to make you more keenly alive to subtle distinctions of shade and tint in the world around you. A similar result will be effected by your work with tones.

The name of this 20th Path merits considerable attention. It is "Intelligence of Will," and the Hebrew word translated "Will" is רצון (=346). It has many connotations in the Hebrew language, among them being: delight, acceptance, satisfaction, pleasure, favour. All of these words, you see, imply some degree of the bliss which is inseparable from the consciousness of union with the Primal Will.

By Gematria, רצון corresponds to צנור, a water-pipe, a channel, and to מקור, a well, a spring. For to be in the state of consciousness named "Intelligence of Will" is to be conscious also that personality is but a channel for the outflowing of that Will into the externalizations of the world of Name and Form; and it is to be conscious also that this power which flows out into manifestation through personality is like water. Precisely this was what Jesus had in mind when he talked with the woman of Samaria, and told her that within herself she might find a well of living-water.

That living water is the Water which is attributed to Chesed. It is to this that the fourth of our affirmations refers: "From the exhaustless riches of its Limitless Substance." For the substance aspect of the Life-Power is always symbolized as water. (This, too, is one of the reasons why Chesed, the sphere of Jupiter, is colored blue, although the Jupiter vibration itself is violet.)

Consider, too, the letters of רצון. The first is Resh, corresponding to the XIXth Key of the Tarot, and to the 30th path, leading from YESOD upward to HOD. On the Way of Return this takes us upward from the subconsciousness of YESOD, from the automatic cell-consciousness which is the sphere of the Moon, to the intellectual consciousness which is the sphere of Mercury. You will remember that in our exercises this is a path through which we draw up the influence from below, after having stationed ourselves, so to say, in a superior position. All this means that the beginning of our consciousness of Will comes from taking a definite intellectual point-of-view, which is symbolized in the Tarot by the picture of the little boy riding the white horse, and which may be summarized in the statement: "I am a child of the Sun of Life."

The second letter of רצון is Tzaddi, which corresponds to the 28th path of Natural Intelligence, leading upward from YESOD to NETZACH. This, as you know, is a path of projection, and has to do with Meditation. Through its activities the latent powers of the automatic consciousness, are projected up into the sphere of the desire-nature, and this projection raises us in consciousness to the Grade of Philosophus (Netzach). Netzach, on the Tree of Life, and in consciousness, is the sphere of the activity of the Venus vibration, and the reason why it is connected with the Grade of Philosophus is that Venus is the planet of love and of art. The whole philosophy of the inner school is rooted and grounded in love, and seeks ever to express itself in the artistic arrangement of the conditions of life.

The fact that all these ideas are connected with the second letter of the Hebrew word for Will means this: Our consciousness of that Will begins with the grateful recognition that we are children of the Spiritual Sun, and begins, of necessity, as an intellectual point-of-view, reached by careful inductive reasoning from the facts presented to us in the pages of the Book of Nature. Meditation upon our relationship to that Spiritual Sun cannot but awaken within us a feeling of love and gratitude to the Source of our lives, and will, eventually, bring us to the realization that we are children of the Great Artist Who lavishes beauty upon the whole creation, Who paints the East and West as no earthly colorist has ever been able to do, Who expresses Himself in ravishing loveliness of line and mass and color in everything that our eyes behold. As children of that Artist, we are centers of expression for His will-to-beauty, and occult philosophy is ever the doctrine of what Claude Bragdon calls "The Beautiful Necessity." The more we identify ourselves with the Cosmic Purpose, the more we recognize ourselves to be channels for Its externalization of its powers, the more beautiful will be the results of all our action. The ugliness of this man-made world is all spawned from the sense of separateness, all the ridiculous product of the insane fantasy that any man can do anything of himself.

Something of this is hinted at, too, in the title "Occult Intelligence," assigned to Netzach. The Great Secret is that living is an art, having for its object beautiful expression. A half-knowledge of this truth is a very dangerous thing, and from it comes no end of false aestheticism. Qabalistic doctrine has nothing in common with this. It does not confound weak prettiness with beauty. And that is why Beauty is associated with the Mars-vibration, the vibration of Force and Activity.

This Mars-vibration dominates in the path on the Tree of Life ascribed to the letter Nun, for Nun corresponds to Scorpio, ruled by Mars. And Nun is the first letter of the Hebrew noun נסתר, "Occult," the name of the particular mode of consciousness associated with Netzach. Nun also is the letter of the path of Imaginative Intelligence, because the very beginning of true occult philosophy and practice is vigorous, vital, healthful use of the transforming power of imagination. It is because we are creatures of imagination that we can reduce the world to chaos and transform its face, because we can imagine, and so make patterns, that we can adapt the laws of the Life-Power to produce conditions not spontaneously provided by nature. This, and much more, is suggested by ו, the first letter of Occult.

ה, the second letter, is the letter of the path of Trial, concerning which I have written at length in an earlier lesson of this series. The work of the artist is a continual testing, an endless experimentation, and he who truly merits the Grade of Philosophus in the Inner School has to undergo a long probation. Only those who meet the tests are entrusted with the profounder meanings of the Great Secret.

ה, the third letter of "Occult" is the path of Saturn, because the work of the artist in life necessitates a thorough understanding of the principle of limitation. The work of the artist must have the Saturnine quality of definition, must be specific. And this is the detail overlooked by many who aspire to artistic expression -- a detail which often decides whether a given piece of work is good or bad.

Finally, the last letter of "Occult" is ר, and this is related to something which is vital to all artistic effort. No matter what the medium, the adaptation of life to the expression of beauty demands the childlike mental attitude. Except we become as little children we cannot enter the Kingdom, and the moment we begin to be cocky over our work we are falling into the characteristically adult delusion of separateness.

All this is by no means so great a digression from our main theme as you may be disposed to think, although it has taken us a long way from our starting-point, which was the second letter of רצון. For the consciousness of identity with the One Will includes all the elements that have been considered in the last few paragraphs, because we cannot be aware of that Will without knowing it as a power which works through human action to produce beautiful results, and the better we understand the nature of the Secret associated with Netzach and the sphere of Venus, the better shall we grasp the meaning of the Originating Will.

The better we apprehend this inner meaning, the more shall we be disposed to listen for the Inner Voice which brings us the revelations of the One Teacher. On this account we find that the third letter of רצון is that which the Tarot symbolizes as the HIEROPHANT. Intellectual perception begins our consciousness of Will, and artistic aspiration engendered by meditation continues it, but not until we have opened ourselves to instruction from within, not until we deliberately assume the listening attitude, -- not occasionally, but every day of our lives, and as often during each day as we can -- will we begin to penetrate into the deeper mysteries.

Finally, he who is on the path of Intelligence of Will must have conquered death, must have traversed the path of the letter Nun, and must know the higher aspects of the manifestation of the Mars-force associated with Scorpio. This is the Qabalistic explanation of the final letter of רצון. It is the secret of the transformation of the Scorpion into the Eagle, the secret of giving wings to the Serpent, the secret of the metamorphosis which changes נחש the Tempter into משיח the Redeemer. And what is the secret of that change? נחש and משיח are the same in numeration, but in משיח the number 50 is represented by the letters M and I instead of by the letter N. The consciousness of mortality and separateness associated with DEATH has become the consciousness of immortality which comes to the HANGED MAN in Samadhi plus the consciousness of identity with the One Self, the Self represented by the HERMIT.

In its highest expression, the state of consciousness assigned to the 20th Path is a blissful ecstasy beyond words. This is why the mystics of all periods and of all religions have expressed their experience of superconsciousness in terms which grate on the ears of prudes. For they have not scrupled to describe the bliss of union in terms which are reflections of the keenest ecstasy of the senses. And this is one reason why Qabalists tell us that the path of YOD corresponds to the function of Coition. It is not the only reason, but past experience has taught me the unwisdom of trusting too much in the readiness of occult students to hear some aspects of truth. I have learned, too, that the best instructor on these matters is the One Teacher seated in the hearts of men. So I content myself with suggesting that you look for further information concerning this particular attribution.

Consider, now, the symbolism of the IXth Tarot Key as representing Intelligence of Will. Who is the Hermit? He is your true Self, and that Self is the One Self manifesting in countless personalities. This is He whom the Bible calls the Ancient of Days, He whom Jesus had in mind when he said, 'Before Abraham was, I am.'

When, in traversing the 20th Path, the Seeker for Light on the Way of Return comes to identify himself with the HERMIT, he has arrived at the state of consciousness which the Yogi philosophers call Kaivalya, isolation. Kaivalya is defined by Vivekananda as 'Oneness with Absolute Being.' The same writer, commenting on the 55th Sutra in Patanjali's book (Chapter 4) which runs, 'By the similarity of purity between the Sattva and the Purusha (the Knower) comes Kaivalya,' says:

'When the soul realizes that it depends on nothing in the universe, from gods to the lowest atom, that is called Kaivalya (isolation) and perfection. It is attained when this mixture of purity and impurity called mind has been made as pure as the Purusha Itself; then the Sattva, the mind, reflects only the unqualified essence of purity, which is the Purusha.'

At first glance this might seem to contradict the teaching which I have given you concerning the absolute self-surrender symbolized by the HANGED MAN. But it does not. You must remember what Lao-Tze says, 'All the teachings of wise men are paradoxical.' Personality, so we are taught, is always dependent, can do nothing of itself. But the Real Self, the Purusha, the On-Looker, the I AM, depends upon nothing, for everything depends upon that ONE REALITY. Perfection in meditation raises the mind to the Sattva quality of superconsciousness, in which all sense of personal separateness is extinguished, and there is nothing but the knowledge of union with the One who, like the HERMIT, is the Light-Bearer for the whole universe.

Charles Johnston translates Kaivalya as 'pure spiritual life,' and this is his rendition of the last of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras:

'Pure spiritual life is, therefore, the inverse resolution of the potencies of Nature, which have emptied themselves of their value for the Spiritual man; or it is the return of the power of pure Consciousness to its essential form.'

All the sages, you see, tell us the same thing, because they all speak from the same experience. Whether we say with the Qabalists that the Serpent of Wisdom 'climbs the Tree of Life,' or with Lao-Tze, 'The Path of TAO is backward,' or with Boehme, 'Walk contrary to the world,' we are simply expressing the idea that the Goal and the Source are One, and that the way thereto is a Path of Return.

The HERMIT is a symbol of the Goal, for he is attributed to the letter YOD, and this letter refers not only to the 20th Path, but also to Chokmah, since YOD of יהוה is assigned to Chokmah, and even to Kether, since the upper point of that Yod of I H V H is said to be in Kether. For when we have identified ourselves with the HERMIT we have also found the bliss of union with the Wisdom which Qabalists call the Father, and in our union with that Wisdom we are raised to communion with the Primal Will which is the Originating Principle of the whole self-manifestation of the Life-Power. In these subtler cross-correspondences of the letter Yod we find another reason why the 20th path is called "Intelligence of Will."

Notice, too, that the change from נחש to משיח involves a difference in the Tarot correspondences. When the number 50 is represented in any word by N, its sign in the Tarot is the XIIIth Key, DEATH. But when it is represented by M and I, two Tarot Keys, the HANGED MAN and the HERMIT, are the signs that we must consider. And the numbers of these two Keys are XII and IX, whose sum is XXI, the number of the WORLD, which is the picture of the Dance of Life, the picture of Cosmic Consciousness. For when the absolute surrender of personality symbolized by the HANGED MAN is combined with the realization of identity with the Primal Will for which the HERMIT stands, the result is a state of consciousness in which the meaning of the Saturn quality of limitation is understood, in which it is perceived as that which enables Life to express itself in forms of beauty, and in which, especially, one becomes vividly aware of the truth that every human personality is a vehicle or channel through which flows the self-directive potency of the One Life, so that we are all centers of expression for the governing power, or Administrative Intelligence, of the cosmos, and partakers in its dominion over everything.

The Grade of Exempt Adept, associated with Chesed, is perfected when the power of the sphere of Mars, Geburah, has been drawn along the 19th path back to Chesed. In doing this one places oneself in Chesed, for the knowledge of the Great Arcanum, of the Secret of all spiritual activities, is not open to him who has risen no higher than the Grade of Major Adept That is to say, the 19th Path is not open so long as we are no further along the Way of Return than Geburah, and the power from Geburah must be brought over from the side of Severity on the Tree of Life to the side of Mercy, by a process initiated from the point-of-view afforded by Chesed.

When all the desires of the seeker for Light have been unified in the one desire to be a free, unobstructed vehicle for the manifestation of the cyclic activities of the cosmos, he has traversed the first path leading to the Grade of Exempt Adept, the path of the letter Kaph, corresponding to the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot. After this, by a supreme effort of imagination, he sees behind the mechanistic expression of the Life-Power in the cosmic cycles the operation of a Living Will, and identifies himself with that Will, so that all sense of personal volition is extinguished. Finally, through the 19th Path he transmutes the activities of the serpent-power, and this transmutation is pictured in the Tarot by the woman taming the lion.

You will remember that אריה, lion, the name of the zodiacal sign Leo, is the number 216, and that this is the number of גבורה, Geburah, one of the names of the sphere of Mars. Note, too, that 216 is 9 by reduction, and 9 is the number of Teth, the letter corresponding to the 19th Path. 216 is also the number of ראיה, Sight, the function assigned to the 15th path, and of רוגז, wrath or excitement, which is the function of the 25th Path, that of Probation or Trial. The path to which Sight ראיה is attributed is that of Aries, ruled by Mars. And the path to which רוגז, excitement, is attributed is that of Sagittarius. It thus becomes evident that all these words, גבורה, strength, אריה, the lion, ראיה, Sight, and רוגז, excitement, are related to the fiery power which we have learned to associate with the Mars-vibration.

This vibration, you will recall, is especially active in self-consciousness, and the feeling of strength which it gives is misinterpreted by people who have not progressed beyond self-consciousness. The misinterpretation arises from the illusion of separateness, which engenders the feeling of "myness," and this feeling is at the root of belief in personal will. This is why the Sephirah Geburah is said to represent personal will, which is merely the misunderstanding of the power of undeviating cosmic law in its manifestation through personal centers of expression.

The Major Adept still feels the illusion, although he has overcome the delusion caused by it. But the Exempt Adept, having in his union with the One Self so identified himself with the cosmic memory that he never forgets his relation to the Sources of All, is almost wholly liberated from even the illusion. Almost, I say, because there are times when even he who perfectly remembers the Self (Chesed is the Sephirah of memory) must identify himself with the relative states of being in order to serve, in order to perform the actions necessary to his part in the Great Work. And at such times he feels the illusion of separateness as much as anybody else.

Only one who has freed himself from the error of personal initiative, one who sees in all his actions the outworking of the inevitable cosmic order, and yet realizes that order to be more than a mere mechanism, may safely be entrusted with the Secret of all Spiritual Activities. It is not enough that he should see his actions as part of the cyclic activity that causes every thing which happens. He must see that activity as proceeding from the Self, must know that it is not simply mathematical and mechanical, must realize it as expressing a Living Purpose. For when he sees this, he sees also that the One Purpose is working through every life, and understands what is said in The Book of Tokens: "Nothing is, or can be, my antagonist." None who have not attained to this understanding, none who have not been united in consciousness with the One Self symbolized by the HERMIT, none who have not see that they, like the HERMIT, are light-bearers and guides for others below them on the path of return, are ready to know the Great Secret.

What is that secret? The very letters of the word so translated, הפועלות, tell us. The first letter is H, the letter of the Path of Sight, for the beginning of our knowledge of the Great Arcanum is an understanding of the mystery of Vision. I do not pretend to tell you what that mystery is, for to do so would be to make two false assumptions: 1. That I have attained to the Grade of Exempt Adept, and 2. That you have also reached that Grade. No, all that I can do is to tell you that the sages have left us this clue to what sort of a secret the Great Arcanum is. It is a secret which begins with a realization of the full meaning of another passage in the Book of Tokens: "I utter myself by seeing."

The second letter, Peh, is the letter of Mars, and of the path of Exciting Intelligence. In the Tarot it is THE TOWER, and since this Key shows us lightening destroying a house, I take it that the Great Arcanum has something to do with the disruptive and destructive effect of electricity. Indeed, I believe it to be something associated with what modern science has to say about what would happen if a man knew how to release interatomic energy.

The third letter is a contrast to the one which precedes it, because it is ע, the letter corresponding to the sign Capricorn, ruled by Saturn. Yet we should remember that in Capricorn Mars is exalted, so that this letter conveys, by its astrological associations, a suggestion that the Great Secret shows us how to exalt, or sublimate, the Mars-force, and apply it for the establishment of definite, concrete results. Furthermore, since O is the letter represented by THE DEVIL, I take it that the Great Secret has something to do with the control of the subconscious forces which the Devil symbolizes.

The first three letters of הפועלות, you see, are all related in one way or another to the Mars vibration, Heh through Aries, ruled by Mars, Peh as the letter of Mars, and Ayin as the letter assigned to Capricorn in which sign Mars is exalted. The next three letters are all related to Venus.

Vav is assigned to Taurus, which Venus rules. It corresponds to the Tarot Key of the Hierophant, and may be understood as being in some sense the complement of the Emperor, even as Venus is the complement of the Mars, and as the color of Venus, green, is the complement of the Martian red. In like manner the function assigned to י, Hearing, is what completes the function assigned to ה, which is Sight. When we have learned the deeper meaning of Vision (ה), have mastered the destructive force of Mars (פ) and have exalted this force through learning how to utilize the limiting power of Saturn which seems at first to be our Adversary (ע), we are ready for the deeper revelations of the mysteries which come to us through the channel of interior Hearing, direct from the One Teacher who is represented in the Tarot by the HIEROPHANT.

Lamed is the letter of the sign Libra, which rules the kidneys, and this suggests that the next stage of our initiation into the Secret of All Spiritual activities is a practical lesson in elimination. I think Lao-Tze gives the gist of this particular lesson when he says, "Having emptied yourself, remain where you are." In this connection we might remember that Saturn, the planet which governs excretion, or the purifying processes which rid our bodies (all of our bodies, understand) of waste, is exalted in Libra. The sword of JUSTICE in the Tarot refers to this excretory or eliminative aspect of Saturn. Note that it has a handle like a T, or Tau, which is Saturn's letter, and that the fact that Libra is ruled by Venus means that every activity of this sign must necessarily excite complementary Mars activities, inasmuch as no planetary vibration can be active without inducing its complement, any more than a color-vibration can exist without arousing the complementary color. Thus the sword of Justice has a Saturn hilt (the T) and a Mars blade (steel or iron, metal of Mars). All this means, I take it, that the knowledge gained by listening to the HIEROPHANT enables us to rid ourselves of everything useless in our personalities, helps us to eliminate all waste, to remove every obstruction to the free outflow of the Life-Power. And by this elimination we attain the balance which is represented by the scales of JUSTICE, the equilibrium which is the basis of the Great Work. Elimination is the active part of the process, and hence the sword is held in the right hand of JUSTICE, where it corresponds to the first clause of Lao-Tze's admonition, "Having emptied yourself." Balance is the result achieved, and because the perfectly balanced scales are symbols of rest and stability, they correspond to the second phrase of the Chinese Master's injunction, "Remain where you are."

Vav is repeated in this word, because, it seems to me, the first instruction of the Inner Teacher has to do with purification and the attainment of balance, after which we are ready to listen again; and it has been said to me that the second revelation is to the effect that the HIEROPHANT is the true Self of the Seeker for Light. We can apprehend this teaching intellectually, but we have no words to express what the experience really is. Yet all the sages who have entered into superconsciousness agree in telling us that they have been granted a vision of the inmost meaning of existence, and at the same time they tell us that they have been One with the Father. And this revelation, it would seem, includes the knowledge that the Adversary, so to say, has only been the Father in disguise, playing the game of existence with His children, in order to help them to unfold their latent powers and possibilities. Thus the HIEROPHANT is not only the complement of the EMPEROR, but he is also closely related to the DEVIL. This correspondence will be evident if you compare the symbols of the Vth and XVth Keys, when it will be clear to you that the DEVIL is just a caricature of the

HIEROPHANT. Thus the DEVIL wears the Pentagram, symbol of the HIEROPHANT'S number, but wears it upside-down, recalling the occult maxim, 'The Devil is God upside-down.' Then, too, XV, the number of the DEVIL, is the extension of V, the number of the HIEROPHANT, even as the Adversary is our misinterpretation of the Father, when the Father extends Himself, so to say, in the conditions of Name and Form. All our ideas of the demoniac or diabolical are derived from wrong judgment as to the real nature of the seemingly antagonistic forces which surround us. Nothing is more clearly established by the study of psychology in connection with comparative religions than the fact that every devil known to man is an image conjured up to account for something in his environment which makes a man afraid. The Ageless Wisdom tells us that the Adversary is only a human caricature of the Redeemer, and men who have experienced superconsciousness confirm this doctrine by testifying with one voice that in the state of union all consciousness of evil disappears completely. Thus the final revelation of the HIEROPHANT may well be: 'Child, long hast thou feared me, and that fear was the beginning of thy wisdom, for it drove thee in quest of refuge from thine Adversary. Now, at the end of thy long quest, thou hast no need for fear. For I was the Adversary, I the opponent without Whom there would have been no game to play. And this, which seemed a game of war thou seest now as but the game of love. Enter into joy, for He with whom thou hast wrestled is none other than thy true Self.'

The final letter of הפעולות is ט, or Teth, and this is STRENGTH in the Tarot. It shows the Lion being mastered by the Woman, who has above her head the symbol which appears also above the head of the MAGICIAN. Thus is intimated the idea that the dominant thing in the picture of STRENGTH is the Mercurial activity which descends through the path of Beth. The MAGICIAN points his left hand downward toward the garden, and roses and lilies spring up in response. STRENGTH shows the hidden law which finds expression in the growth of these flowers. It is the law that all subhuman expressions of the solar energy are under the immediate direction of subconsciousness, while subconsciousness, the Woman of the picture, is ever amenable to control through suggestions formulated in self-consciousness. When self-consciousness, by right intellection, grasps the truth that all the power a man can exercise is a transformation of the One Life-Power, that all the volitions a man feels at work within him are expressions of the One Will, this right knowledge of the relation between personality and the One Life becomes the dominant suggestion to the subconscious. In response to it, the body-building activities of the subconscious plane are all directed to the fashioning of a personal vehicle which shall offer no obstruction to the free outflow of the Life-Power into the externalizations of the objective plane of name and form. Thus, little by little, the bodies of the man are purified, changed day by day into a more truthful likeness and image of the Life above and within. And the end of the process is the radiant, deathless, beautiful body of the Master, concerning which I shall have more to say in the next lesson.

Finally, הפעולות = 206, and 206 is the number of דבר, Word, concerning which the Sepher Yetzirah says: 'Voice, Spirit, and Word: this is the Spirit of the Holy One.' (S. Y. I., 9). Notice the planetary attributions of the letters in דבר, Venus-Mercury-Sun. Venus for love and art, Mercury for intellect, merging at its highest sublimation into superconsciousness, the Sun for vitality and light, for the heart-consciousness which astrologers rightly interpret as the direct expression of individuality. (Individuality, remember, is akin to indivisibility, and the only Individual in all the universe is the One Self manifest through countless masks or persons.) Here are some clues to the Secret of the Word. It is the Secret of the Word made flesh, of the Primal Thought which, through vibration begun as Sound, and then raised to the electric potency of FOHAT, clothes Itself with garments of pulsing radiance which our imperfect senses only half-perceive, which our deluded minds belittle and besmirch with lying labels. How long will it be before the world will come to understand the beautiful simplicity of the saying, 'This is my body, which is broken for you.' These were the words of the One Self, speaking freely through an unobstructed channel. Everything that we call 'matter' is the body of Spirit, apparently broken or divided into Many-ness and so concealing the essential unity. Not the man Jesus, but the Self behind that personality, spoke these words, too simply clear in meaning for the muddled minds of theologians. The mystery of the Word made flesh is the secret of all spiritual activities. That Word dwells among us. That is to say, we all share in its presence in this world of name and form. That Word is seated in your heart and mine. When we have learned to listen, as quickly as we are ready, it will make known to us all the mysteries of the Great Arcanum.

And then shall the Severity of the Law be swallowed up in Mercy. Then shall the powers of the Greater Adept, wonderful as they seem, be merged with the exhaustless riches of the self-impartation of the One.