Tableau 14

The tableau for this week is

| --- | --- | --- | | 16 | 17 | 18 | | 19 | 20 | 21 |

The magic square is:

The central Key in both arrangements is No. 17, THE STAR. The constant summation of the magic square is 51. It shows discrimination (Key6) as the manifestation of attentive observation (Key 1) through Intuition (Key 5). This tableau emphasizes the importance of observation, attention, concentration and all else that the Magician symbolizes, in relation to discrimination. What is pictured in Key 6 is the outcome of Intuition, to be sure, but Intuition does not work unless observation at self-conscious levels has been called into play. Intuition supplies what self-conscious reasoning and observation cannot give – yet at the same time, Intuition requires that self-conscious reasoning and observation shall first have provided the mind with materials to work upon. We arrange the elements of life at self-conscious levels, as the Magician arranges his implements on the table. Then, when the arrangement is finished, the Hierophant gives us the meaning of the arrangement. But no meaning can be given until the arranged has been made.

Note that the number 51 is 3 x 17, the number of the Key at the center of the magic square. This, of course, holds good for the central Keys of all the other magic squares in this series. Their constant summation is always three times the number printed on the central Key. And in all instances, as in this, it points to the operation of the central Key at the three great levels of consciousness: super-consciousness, self-consciousness and subconsciousness. And in this ninefold arrangement, the upper row of Keys represents super-conscious manifestations, the middle row stands for self-conscious manifestations, and the bottom row symbolizes subconscious manifestations of the powers represented by the keys.

The main idea to bring out of this tableau is that Nature unveils herself. It is not we who unveil her. Even though we know that the veil hiding Isis is but the veil of our own ignorance, yet even that veil is lifted by Isis herself. For nature is but the power of the Spirit, “the mysterious power, difficult to cross over,” as it is called in the Bhagavad-Gita. Nature is Spirit in action, and your own quest for reality is another phase of that same action. Spirit is the actual true Self. In us it works to bring about the changes in our personal vehicles which constitute our enlightenment. You who read this lesson read it because Spirit, your real Self, has brought you to this present stage of the Great Work. Spirit speaks to you through these words, or, I might say, these lessons are a means whereby the true I AM makes Itself known to you.

Eliphas Levi says: “Death has not existence in the Sanctum Regnum of existence. A change, however awful, demonstrates movement, and movement is life; those only who have attempted to check the disrobing of the spirit have tried to create a real death. We are all dying and being renewed every day, because every day our bodies have changed to some extent. Understand well that the life-current of the progress of souls is regulated by a law of development, which carries the individual ever upward.” It is by this dying and renewal that Truth becomes manifest to us. We must be receptive, if we would learn the inner doctrine. We cannot be properly receptive until we have rid ourselves of our false personalities. And when we know how to redirect and sublimate the currents of the Great Magical Agent, which brings death to us until we have subdued it, we are unable to partake in the higher consciousness pictured in Key 21. (Keys 13, 17, 21)

One practical observance needs to be insisted upon. It is that of tempering all activities through the exercise of their opposites. Here, again, Levi has words of wisdom. “If you desire long life and health avoid all excesses, carry nothing to extremes. So when you have passed beyond the mortal sphere by the allurements of ecstasy, return to yourself, seek repose and enjoy the pleasures which life supplies for the wise, but do not indulge yourself too freely. Let there be no misunderstanding. To vanquish an enemy there must be no running away: true victory can only follow meeting him face to face, joining in a struggle, and so showing your command over him.” Only a balanced person can be a practical occultist. Only a balanced person, thoroughly poised in mind, emotions and body, can look without danger on the face of Truth. Consider well the balanced disposition of the stars in Key 17. If you would enter fully into the realization of your fourthdimensional nature, you must first of all achieve equilibrium between the conscious and subconscious elements of your mentality. Then from that equilibrium will spring a new awareness of the meaning of personality (typified by the child in Key 20), and in that awareness you will KNOW yourself as freed from Time and Space and all the forms of bondage growing out of these illusions. (Keys 14, 17, 20)

Again, let me remind you that practical occultism is not a method for avoiding problems. It is a method for solving them, and every solution is a revelation of truth. On some versions of the 15th Key, one sees the word SOLVE written on the uplifted arm of the fiend, and COAGULA written on the other. To be able to solve, and then to be able to coagulate the solution into a new form that is the opportunity offered us by all our problems. Thus, you will not forget that the astrological symbol of the sign Aquarius is also the alchemical symbol of dissolution, that is, of analysis. Analysis divests Truth of her veils. But unless we realize that there is always, besides the way of the senses, another approach to Truth, we shall not always solve our problems. This is the lesson of Key 19, in this connection. Until we are ready to be instructed by that which we cannot receive through mere sensory channels, the significance of many a problem must be veiled from us. Conscious acceptance of the possibility of enlightenment from super-conscious sources is the meaning of the gesture of the boy in Key 19. It is also the meaning of the uplifted wand of the Magician. Bear this well in mind. (Keys 15, 17, 19)

In Key 16 you will notice that the twenty-two Yods are shown in two groups. At the right of the Tower are ten, arranged in the form of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. At the left of the Tower the remaining twelve are so disposed that the arrangement suggests two circles, one above the other, like a figure '8.' The Tower itself is built on an isolated peak of rock, and its twenty-two courses are of white brick, symbol of the 'moonshine' of human opinion. The Yods represent the whole Tarot, and the twenty-two forces represented by the Keys. What is intimated is that the forces in question have no physical or 'material' foundation. They support themselves, and they are floating, like the Yods, in the atmosphere, or in free space. The error of errors is this belief of ours in the importance of form, this dependence of ours upon things. Immaterial forces project themselves into our material existence (including our bodies and their physical environment). Things are the external manifestation of invisible and internal realities. Thus the kneeling figure in Key 17 is nude, in contrast to the garmented figures that fall from the Tower. And the whole symbolism of Key 17 is a picture of smoothly flowing fluidic motion, in contrast to the apparent fixity of the Tower and its rocky base. What holds us back from progress is this insane desire of ours to preserve the particular forms of existence which we have enjoyed. Thus as the bottom of the path on Key 18 is a hard-shelled animal. Farther up the path are the relatively soft-skinned dog and wolf. In the middle distance are towers representing the works of man, but between them there is an opening, and the Way of Return leads far beyond them. Far beyond all structure, far beyond all protection of mere form. And in the practical work to which Key 18 refers, the gradual unfoldment of the powers within us does change even our bodies so that they become less and less dense, until finally, in adeptship, we reach a stage wherein their structure is so altered that it is relatively easy to disintegrate them, or at least raise their vibrations from the physical plane to higher octaves of manifestation. Only he who is free from bondage to form and structure ever attains the great heights of adeptship. (Keys 16, 17, 18)

This is one of the main reasons why we must occupy ourselves with thoughts about death, until we see why the death of physical bodies is a beneficent provision of nature. So long as we fear death, we cannot master the forces that will free us from death. You cannot study anything you loathe closely enough to find out its secret. Not until our consciousness is changed from its fatal preoccupation with form, and made to concern itself more and more with the ONE POWER which governs the projection of form into the conditions of Time and Space, can we be free. When we have become sufficiently aware also that our real Being is one with ETERNAL BEING, from this point on we welcome problems. However terrifying the face of circumstance, we know that dwelling within us is the Lord of Circumstance. He who is consciously aware of the real nature of the SELF is preserved by that knowledge from all evil. (Keys 13, 14, 15)

I have said that the regenerated man has a solar consciousness. Other occultists speak of his having a solar body. The two statements are really one. But there is a danger that they may be misinterpreted. It is not meant that we somehow identify ourselves with A being whose organism is the solar system in which we live. Rather is it meant that we identify ourselves with THE ONE BEING whose body is the entire universe. It is true that we progress to this identification by stages, and that one of those stages is that in which the True Self is known to be the Solar Logos, whose brain in our solar system is the Sun, and whose body is composed of all else that is in that solar system. But we do not stop with that. And we arrive at that stage by reason of a change in our own physical bodies, which enables them to receive the impulses of super-conscious Intelligence relayed to us from the solar brain of our particular world-system. When this awareness is perfected, we function as immediate expressions of the Solar Intelligence, and share Its perfect fourth-dimensional awareness. The ordinary human body cannot act as an instrument for the solar Intelligence, because there is not yet developed within it the organ of such awareness. That organ is the “single eye” to which Jesus referred in his cryptic statement: “The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” This is not a metaphysical statement, nor a mere metaphor. The pineal gland is the single eye, and when it is in full development, instead of in the rudimentary state characteristic of most persons, it gives us a new order of vision. In that order of vision, one outstanding feature is direct cognition or perception of the ABSOLUTE UNITY of existence. Ordinary sight is concerned with light and shade, with innumerable pairs of opposites. The SOLAR CONSCIOUSNESS sees unity only, and that man or woman who, having developed the single eye, has a body capable of receiving the vibrations of the Solar Consciousness, is freed from the influence of all these pairs of opposites. We ordinarily think of ourselves as beings, and of the universe as something in contrast to ourselves. We see the universe as consisting of a vast number of things. The Spiritual Knower perceives the universe as ONE, and identifies himself with that ONE. In his consciousness there remains no trace of otherness. Note well that identification begins as an intellectual right classification. Before the full glory of the experience may come to us, we have to identify ourselves correctly, have to put ourselves in the proper category, have to perceive intellectually what is our true place in the universal order. This intellectual identification is an act of reason, and results in faith. The faith becomes a potent suggestion. The suggestion so acts upon subconsciousness that our bodies are regenerated. Then the third eye, which is the single eye, opens and we experience the full splendor of our real nature. I find no words for this, nor shall I waste time in vain attempts to do so. What had better be said is that this attainment is not far off for any reader of those pages who will seek to become ripe. (Keys 19, 20, 21)

Meditations

FIRST DAY: Keys 13, 17, 21. The person that I was, even a moment ago, is no more, for the form of my existence is undergoing ceaseless transformations. The truth I see today was hid from me yesterday by the form my personal consciousness assumed yesterday. The perfect realization towards which I move will find me yet more transformed. AS I CHANGE, TRUTH BECOMES CLEARER TO ME, AND AT LAST I SHALL ACHIEVE PERFECT IDENTIFICATION WITH UNIVERSAL SPIRIT.

SECOND DAY: Keys 14, 17, 20. Let me be free this day from the influence of the pairs of opposites. Truth is ONE, and not TWO. I am a center of expression for that

ONE BEING which IS this moment, and in every moment, free from the duality of Time and Space. THE REAL SELF EQUILIBRATES ALL MY PERSONAL ACTIVITIES, REVEALS TRUTH TO ME, AND SETS ME FREE FROM MORTALITY.

THIRD DAY: Keys 15, 17, 19. My real SELF solves all problems. The solutions reveal truth to me. Solutions may come, and do come, from sources wholly outside the limitations of my sensory awareness. I WELCOME PROBLEMS BECAUSE THEY ARE OPPORTUNITIES TO SEE NEW ASPECTS OF TRUTH AND MAKE MANIFEST POWERS BEYOND THOSE AFFECTING MY PHYSICAL SENSES.

FOURTH DAY: Keys 16, 17, 18. My personal existence is the expression of forces having NO MATERIAL basis. My personality is not a form, but a flux. My body is not a given thing, but an evolving instrument, being made ever finer for the uses of my Self. I RELY ON SPIRIT, NOT ON FORM, ON MOVEMENT, NOT ON STRUCTURE; EVEN IN MY PHYSICAL BODY, I AM CHANGING DAILY INTO A MORE RESPONSIVE INSTRUMENT OF THE LIFE-POWER.

FIFTH DAY: Keys 13, 14, 15. I cannot die, because I was never born. This incarnation of mine is but a stage of the Great Work. The only evil consists in the belief that one can stand still. I WELCOME EVERY CHANGE, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY TRUE SELF IS SHAPING MY PERSONALITY DAY BY DAY INTO A

MEANS MORE PERFECT FOR THE SOLUTION OF EVERY PROBLEM.

SIXTH DAY: Keys 19, 20, 21. This personality of mine is even now experiencing regeneration. I am already a fourth-dimensional immortal, and not a three-dimensional mortal. My true Self is the SINGLE IDENTITY animating the whole universe. TODAY I AM A NEW CREATURE, AWAKENED FROM THE NIGHTMARE OF MORTALITY, CONSCIOUSLY ONE WITH THE SPIRITUAL REALITY OF ALL THINGS.

Bondage - Jupiter Magic Square

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