(1) Now when they came forth from the holy place, they turned their faces towards the south when they began their prayers to God. For when the sun is setting, should anyone desire to pray to God, he ought to turn him thitherwards ; so also at the rising of the same, unto that spot which lies beneath the sun. As they were just beginning to recite the prayer, Asclepius did whisper:

[Asclepius] Let us suggest to father, Tat,—what he did bid us do, —that we should say our prayer to God with added incense and with unguents. Whom when Thrice-greatest heard, he grew distressed and said:

(16) "The sun rises in the east, and in the east is the place for the Worshipful Master. As the sun is the source of all light and warmth, so should the Worshipful Master enliven and warm the brethren to their work. Among the ancient Egyptians the sun was the symbol of divine providence." The hierophants of the Mysteries were adorned with many. insignia emblematic of solar power. The sunbursts of gilt embroidery on the back of the vestments of the Catholic priesthood signify that the priest is also an emissary and representative of Sol Invictus.

(2) O thou radiant Orb, who arisest each day from the Horizon, shine thou upon the face of the Osiris N who adoreth thee at dawn, and propitiateth thee at the gloaming

(104) Morning and Evening are and reach only up from the Earth to the Moon, and take their Original from the Light of the Sun, and this makes Evening and Morning, as also the outward Day, and the outward dark Night, as every one knows.

(1) HERE now is begun the Description of the astral Birth, and it ought well to be observed, what the first Title of this Book means, which is thus expressed, The Day-Spring or Dawning in the East, or Morning-Redness in the Rising. For here will a very simple Man be able to see and comprehend, or apprehend the Being of God.

(126) But when the Dawning or Morning Redness shall shine from the East to the West, or from the Rising to the Setting, then already Time will be no more; but the SUN of the Heart of God rises or springs forth, and, *RA. RA. R. P. will be pressed in the Wine-press without the City, and therewith to R. P. [See the Collection of his Letters. Letter 23. v. 12.]

(72) And the sun rises from that third portal and sets in the third portal in the west and returns to the east, and for thirty mornings rises in the second portal in the east, and in like manner sets in the second portal in the west of the heaven.

(72) And this is the first law of the luminaries: the luminary the Sun has its rising in the eastern portals of the heaven, and its setting in the western portals of the heaven.

(23) Adoration to thee, who arisest out of the Golden, and givest light to the earth on the day of thy birth. Thy mother bringeth thee forth upon her hands, that thou mayest give light to the whole circumference which the Solar Orb enlighteneth

(83) And when I had gone forth below and seen the heaven, and the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting in the west, and a few stars, and the whole earth, and everything as †He had known† it in the beginning, then I blessed the Lord of judgement and extolled Him because He had made the sun to go forth from the windows of the east, †and he ascended and rose on the face of the heaven, and set out and kept traversing the path shown unto him.

(21) And when thou turnest thy face to the West, mine hands are in adoration to thy setting as one who liveth; [13] for it is thou who hast created Eternity

(17) Therefore beforehand will arise the Dawning of the Day, or Morning Redness, whereby the Day may be known or taken Notice of.

(72) And the sun rises on that day from that second portal and sets in the west in the second portal, and returns to the east into the first portal for one-and-thirty mornings, and sets in the first portal in the west of the heaven.

(1) THE adoration of the sun was one of the earliest and most natural forms of religious expression. Complex modern theologies are merely involvements and amplifications of this simple aboriginal belief. The primitive mind, recognizing the beneficent power of the solar orb, adored it as the proxy of the Supreme Deity. Concerning the origin of sun worship, Albert Pike makes the following concise statement in his Morals and Dogma: "To them [aboriginal peoples] he [the sun] was the innate fire of bodies, the fire of Nature. Author of Life, heat, and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no form. He was to them immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his creative energy, that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the BRAHMA of the Hindus, and MITHRAS of the Persians, and ATHOM, AMUN, PHTHA, and OSIRIS, of the Egyptians, the BEL of the Chaldeans, the ADONAI of the Phœnicians, the ADONIS and APOLLO of the Greeks, became but personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world's existence."

(72) And on that day the sun rises from that portal, and sets in the west, and returns to the east, and rises in the third portal for one-and-thirty mornings, and sets in the west of the heaven.

(24) The soul of the deceased is supposed to be in the chamber, and to worship the rising and the setting sun

(72) And the sun mounts up to make the day shorter and the night longer, and the sun returns to the east and enters into the sixth portal, and rises from it and sets thirty mornings.

(45) Apuleius said when describing his initiation (vide ante): "At midnight I saw the sun shining with a splendid light." The midnight sun was also part of the mystery of alchemy. It symbolized the spirit in man shining through the darkness of his human organisms. It also referred to the spiritual sun in the solar system, which the mystic could see as well at midnight as at high noon, the material earth bring powerless to obstruct the rays of this Divine orb. The mysterious lights which illuminated the temples of the Egyptian Mysteries during the nocturnal hours were said by some to he reflections of the spiritual sun gathered by the magical powers of the priests. The weird light seen ten miles below the surface of the earth by I-AM-THE-MAN in that remarkable Masonic allegory Etidorhpa (Aphrodite spelt backward) may well refer to the mysterious midnight sun of the ancient rites.

(72) When the sun rises in the heaven, he comes forth through that fourth portal thirty mornings in succession, and sets accurately in the fourth portal in the west of the heaven.

(72) And the sun goes forth from that sixth portal in the west, and goes to the east and rises in the fifth portal for thirty mornings, and sets in the west again in the fifth western portal.