The Golden Star

VISION 10

The Great Light

“According to the Ancient Teachings, the colours of Light were symbolic of life and death; white being the quintessence of Light. Towards its negative pole white is condensed in blue and fixed in black; towards its positive pole white is condensed in yellow and fixed in red. Blue invites to repose or slumber, whilst black is absolute rest, the sleep of death. Yellow is active, red is absolute motion, and white is the equilibrium of motion, or healthful activity.

“The progress in life—unfoldment—is from black to red; red is the Zenith of manhood’s prime; in the decline of life the course is from red to black. In both unfoldment and decline white is traversed; in the healthful, elastic period of first maturity and in the medium stage of old age.

“White is the aggregation of light, and black its absence; the three colours of the Light-Scale—red, yellow and blue, with the four not noted herein, constitute the Syllepsis, or luminous synthesis. Positive, plus Light in its extreme polarity is Life at its prime; negative, minus Light in its extreme depolarity is Death.

“Light is saturated with Life. The red colour of the vital fluid, the blood, is a polarization of the most positive ray, polarized and fixed therein when the oxygen of the air drives out and replaces the carbonic acid introduced with the food and generated in the excretory organs and glands.

“The actinic or chemical ray is not the sole or even the chief actor in producing molecular changes, for the actinic element simply dissolves old forms and prepares the molecules or atoms for the action of the calorific ray, or rather for its next neighbour, the red ray, which is the creator of new forms by imparting new affinitive attraction to the molecules or atoms prepared for it. These two principles form the two atomic forces, attraction and repulsion, the former being the red, and the latter the blue in action.

“And the whole of all these actions and reactions is but a series of reflections from ‘Darkness,’ which is the absolute Light, and the Root of the seven fundamental Cosmic Principles; that Darkness which, in a sense, is the Deity itself: Iao-Pater, he who was, who is, and who will be; the Eternal One, whose ineffable, unpronounceable Name is the Name par excellence of the Jews; the name of the oracle of Dodona, the fair nymph of the Ocean, beloved by Jupiter; the God whose name is the same as the Vedic Indra and the Biblical Jehovah. As Pindarus says: ‘Happy he who descends into the grave thus initiated, for he knows the end of his life and the kingdom given by Jupiter.’

“Above, LIGHT; below, LIFE. The former is ever immutable, the latter manifests under the aspects of countless differentiations. According to the Occult Law, all potentialities included in the higher become differentiated reflections in the lower; and according to the same law nothing which is differentiated can be blended with the homogeneous; nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its being in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation.

“The Hermetic ‘Tres Matres,’ and the ‘Three Mothers’ of the Sepher Jetzirah are the same; they are no Demon-Goddesses, but Light, Heat, and Electricity, the whole of the forces of agencies which have a place assigned to them in the modern system of the correlation of forces; and they are the same as the three powers of the three great Gods: Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva.

“At the periods of new generation, perpetual motion becomes Breath; from the Breath comes forth primordial Light, through whose radiance manifests the Eternal Thought concealed in Darkness, and this becomes the Word. From that Word all the Kosmos springs into being from the act of generation or production. You cannot invoke this Divine Light with impunity, for once you have asked that Sublime Radiance to shine and search through all the dark corners of your being, you have consciously invoked Divine Justice to take note of your motives, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in your account. It is an irrevocable step and never again can you force yourself back into the matrix of illusion and irresponsibility. Though you flee to the uttermost corners of the earth, and hide yourself from the sight of men, or seek oblivion in the tumult of the social whirl, that radiant Light will find you out and light up your every thought, word or deed.

“But in spite of this warning: be brave; and if you fail—as all inevitably do—try again; for failures are not irremediable if you follow them up with ever renewed struggles upward. And always remember that although you may see no guiding Angel beside you, the Holy Power is ever there, and the Holy Light will shine in your hour of Spiritual need.

“According to the Crata Repoa, an anonymous work on the ancient Egyptian Mysteries published in the eighteenth century, after a preliminary trial at Thebes, the neophyte had to pass through many probations, called ‘The Twelve Tortures,’ and in order that he might come out triumphant and never cease to govern his passions, he was commanded to concentrate all the time on the God-Power—or the Great Light—within himself. When he had conquered the terrors of his trials, after many wanderings in darkness in the secret labyrinths, ending in the hall called the ‘Gates of Death,’ he was conducted to the ‘Hall of Spirits’ and judged by them. Among the rules in which he was instructed he was ordered: Never to desire or seek revenge; to be always ready to help a brother in danger, even unto the risk of his own life and possessions; to bury every dead body; to honour his parents above all; to respect old age; and to protect those weaker than himself; and, finally, to ever bear in mind the hour of death, and that of resurrection in a new and imperishable body. In this manner the neophyte was made into a Kristophoros, and the mystery-name of IAO was communicated to him, and henceforth he walked in the paths of LIGHT and Primeval Wisdom. In him was placed the seed which led to Avatarism; the seed of which contains the potency and cause of all divine incarnations as World-Saviours, Bodhisattvas and Avatars.

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