(4) More of the mount by us was now encompassed, And far more spent the circuit of the sun, Than had the mind preoccupied imagined, When he, who ever watchful in advance Was going on, began: "Lift up thy head, 'Tis no more time to go thus meditating. Lo there an Angel who is making haste To come towards us; lo, returning is From service of the day the sixth handmaiden. With reverence thine acts and looks adorn, So that he may delight to speed us upward; Think that this day will never dawn again." I was familiar with his admonition Ever to lose no time; so on this theme He could not unto me speak covertly. Towards us came the being beautiful Vested in white, and in his countenance Such as appears the tremulous morning star. His arms he opened, and opened then his wings; "Come," said he, "near at hand here are the steps, And easy from henceforth is the ascent." At this announcement few are they who come! O human creatures, born to soar aloft, Why fall ye thus before a little wind?

(17) In the soul sleep a strange process occurs, namely, the preparation for the sloughing off of the lower sheaths of the soul, leaving it free to enter the life on the Astral Plane clad only in the garments of its highest stage of spiritual attainment reached by it. Each soul awakens on the Astral Plane prepared to dwell on the plane of its highest and best, leaving the rest behind it. It awakens on the plane in which the highest and best in itself is given a chance to develop and expand, and to make progress, for the soul may, and does, make great progress in these between-births sojourns on the Astral Plane.

(2) The entrance of this spirit, also, is accompanied with a noise, and he diffuses himself on all sides without any contact, and effects admirable works conducive to the liberation of the passions of the soul and body. But sometimes a bright and tranquil light shines forth, by which the sight of the eyes is detained, and which occasions them to become closed, though they were before open. The other senses, however, are in a vigilant state, and in a certain respect have a cosensation of the light unfolded by the Gods; and the recumbents hear what the Gods say, and know, by a consecutive perception, what is then done by them. This, however, is beheld in a still more perfect manner, when the sight perceives, when intellect, being corroborated, follows what is performed, and this is accompanied with the motion of the spectators. Such, therefore, and so many being the differences of these dreams, no one of them is similar to human dreams. But wakefulness, a detention of the eyes, a similar oppression of the head, a condition between sleeping and waking, an instantaneous excitation, or perfect vigilance, are all of them divine indications, and are adapted to the reception of the Gods. They are also sent by the Gods, and a part of divine appearances antecedes according to things of this kind.

(40) Just as the diagram representing the front view of man illustrates his divine principles in their regenerated state, so the back view of the same figure sets forth the inferior, or "night," condition of the sun. From the Sphere of the Astral Mind a line ascends through the Sphere of reason into that of the Senses. The Sphere of the Astral Mind and of the Senses are filled with stars to signify the nocturnal condition of their natures. In the sphere of reason, the superior and the inferior are reconciled, Reason in the mortal man corresponding to Illumined Understanding in the spiritual man.

(27) If we now search into the Life of Man in the Mother's [Womb or] Body, concerning his Virtue [or Power,] Speech, and Senses, and the noble and most precious Mind; then we find the Cause why we have made such a long P Register concerning the eternal Birth; for the Speech, Senses, and Mind, have also such an Origin as is above-mentioned concerning the eternal Birth of God, and it is a very precious Gate [or Explanation.]

(1) Whenever by delight or else by pain, That seizes any faculty of ours, Wholly to that the soul collects itself, It seemeth that no other power it heeds; And this against that error is which thinks One soul above another kindles in us. And hence, whenever aught is heard or seen Which keeps the soul intently bent upon it, Time passes on, and we perceive it not, Because one faculty is that which listens, And other that which the soul keeps entire; This is as if in bonds, and that is free. Of this I had experience positive In hearing and in gazing at that spirit; For fifty full degrees uprisen was The sun, and I had not perceived it, when We came to where those souls with one accord Cried out unto us: "Here is what you ask." A greater opening ofttimes hedges up With but a little forkful of his thorns The villager, what time the grape imbrowns, Than was the passage-way through which ascended Only my Leader and myself behind him, After that company departed from us.

(34) This I have here shown very briefly and summarily, and not according to all the Circumstances, that it might thereby be somewhat understood [by the Way, what] the Life [is.] In its due Place all shall be explained at large, for herein is very much contained, and there might be great Volumes written of it; but I have set down only this, that the Overcoming and the Sleep might be apprehended. The Gate [or Explanation] of the heavenly Tincture, how it was in Adam before the Fall, and how it shall be in us after this Life.

(29) What we have said so far in our consideration of the individuals manifesting flashes or glimpses of this phase of consciousness, applies in a much greater degree to those who have penetrated fully into the higher sub-planes of this great Plane of Consciousness. On this planet, and on others, dwell Beings so fully awakened and unfolded in this phase of consciousness that they are as Supernatural Beings to the ordinary human being. Many of such beings are performing important offices in the unfoldment of the race, and the betterment of mankind. Many of these people have been regarded as Angels or Demi-Gods by ordinary people with whom they have come in contact in the past, and many of them are the Invisible Helpers of whose presence many of the race have been made aware by actual experiences.

(19) All this the Glimpse [or Discovery] of the Senses brings into the Will of the Mind [and sets it] before the King, before the Light of the Life, and there it is tried. And the King gives it first to the Eyes, which must see what God is among all these, and what pleases them. And here now begins the wonderful Form [or Framing] of Man, 1 out of the Complexions, where the Constellation has formed the Child in the Mother' Body [or Womb] so variously in its Regions. For according to what the Constellation, in the Time of the Incarnation of the Child, in the Wheel that stands therein, and has its Aspect, (when the Dwelling of the four Elements, and the House of the Stars in the Head, in the Brains, are built by the Fiat,) according to that is the Virtue also in the Brains, and so in the Heart, Gall, Lungs, and Liver; and according to that is the Inclination of the Region of the Air; and according to that also a Tincture springs up, to [be] a Dwelling of the Life, as may be seen in the wonderful [Variety in the] Senses and Forms [or Shapes] of Men.

(2) As it is mentioned above, so the Life in the Anguish, with the Kindling of the Light, takes its Beginning from the Glance of the Sunshine, from the Spirit of the Stars and Elements in the great Anguish, where Death and Life wrestle one with the other. For when Man departed from Paradise into another Birth (viz. into the Spirit of this World, into the Quality of the Sun, Stars, and Elements) then the paradisical [Vision or] Seeing ceased, [or was extinguished,] where Man sees from the divine Virtue, without [Need of] the Sun and Stars; where the Springing up of the Life is in the Holy Ghost, and the Light of God is the Glance of the Spirit, from whence he sees; which went out; for the Spirit of the Soul went into the Principle of this World.

(515) which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision,—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them,—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he said. And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven;

(12) The three Regions receive every one of them their Light, with the Springing up of the Tincture in the Blood; and each [Region] keeps its Tincture. The Region of the Stars keeps the Light of the Sun; and the first Principle [keeps] the Fire-flash; and the Essences of the holy Souls receive the most dear and precious Light of the Virgin, yet in this Body only her Rays, wherewith the fights in the Mind against the crafty Assaults of the Devil, as St. Peter witnesses. And although the dear Light stays for a While in many in the new Birth [or Regeneration,] yet it is not steady in the House of the Stars and Elements, in the outward Birth, but it dwells in its [own] Center in the Mind. The Gate of \ Speech.

(15) Chapter VIII. That no one may doubt, we declare that God has sent messengers and signs in the heavens, namely, the i new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus, to show that a great Council of the Elect is to take place. This proves that God reveals in visible nature--for the discerning few--signs and symbols of all things that are coming to pass. God has given man two eyes, two nostrils, and two ears, but only one tongue. Whereas the eyes, the nostrils, and the ears admit the wisdom of Nature into the mind, the tongue alone may give it forth. In various ages there have been illumined ones who have seen, smelt, tasted, or heard the will of God, but it will shortly come to pass that those who have seen, smelt, tasted, or heard shall speak, and truth shall be revealed. Before this revelation of righteousness is possible, however, the world must sleep away the intoxication of her poisoned chalice (filled with the false life of the theological vine) and, opening her heart to virtue and understanding, welcome the rising sun of Truth.

(57) Now you may well perceive that the Birth of the Sun takes its Original in the Fire, and attains his Personality and Name in the Kindling of the soft, white, and clear Light, which is Himself; and Himself makes the pleasant Smell, Taste, and Satisfaction [or Reconciliation and Well-pleasing] in the Father, and is rightly the Father's Heart, and another Person; for he opens and produces the second Principle in the Father; and his own Essence is the Power or Virtue and the Light; and therefore his is rightly called the Power or Virtue of the Father.

(7) Thus they spoke while they saw and invoked the coming of the sun, the arrival of day; and at the same time that they saw the rising of the sun, they contemplated the Morning Star, the Great Star, which comes ahead of the sun, that lights up the arch of the sky and the surface of the earth, and illuminates the steps of the men who had been created and made.

(24) As we shall presently discover, when Manifestation begins to dawn into appearance, then, and then only, the Eternal Parent may be said to begin to "dream"—to dream of an infinity of universes, succeeding each other in rhythmic sequence. And only when the Eternal Parent shall awaken fully from the dream, into the bright noon-tide of infinite self-consciousness, may It be thought of as being fully "awake" and conscious. These facts will unfold themselves as we proceed with the consideration of the Aphorisms.

(27) O nobly-born, the special art of these teachings is especially important at this moment: whichever light shineth upon thee now, meditate upon it as being the Compassionate One; from whatever place the light cometh, consider that [place] to be [or to exist in] the Compassionate One. This is an exceedingly profound art; it will prevent birth. Or whosoever thy tutelary deity may be, meditate upon the form for much time — as being apparent yet non-existent in reality, like a form produced by a magician. That is called the pure illusory form. Then let the [visualization of the] tutelary deity melt away from the extremities, till nothing at all remaineth visible of it; and put thyself in the state of the Clearness and the Voidness — which thou canst not conceive as something — and abide in that state for a little while. Again meditate upon the tutelary deity; again meditate upon the Clear Light: do this alternately. Afterwards, allow thine own intellect also to melt away gradually, [beginning] from the extremities.

(6) Those who absolutely have no ear for these sacred initiations do not even recognize the images,-- unblushingly rejecting the saving revelation of the Divine Birth, and in opposition to the Oracles reply to their destruction, "Thy ways I do not wish to know." Now the regulation of the holy Hierarchy permits the catechumens, and the possessed, and the penitents, to hear the sacred chanting of the Psalms, and the inspired reading of the all-Holy Scriptures; but it does not invite them to the next religious services and contemplations, but only the eyes of the initiated. For the Godlike Hierarchy is full of reverent justice, and distributes savingly to each, according to their due, bequeathing savingly the harmonious communication of each of the things Divine, in measure, and proportion, and due time. The lowest rank, then, is assigned to the catechumens, for they are without participation and instruction in every Hierarchical initiation, not even having the being in God by Divine Birth, but are yet being brought to Birth by the Paternal Oracles, and moulded, by life-giving formations, towards the blessed introduction to their first life and first light from Birth in God. As, then, children after the flesh, if, whilst immature and unformed, they should anticipate their proper delivery, as untimely born and abortions, will fall to earth without life and without light; and no one, in his senses, would say from what he saw, that they, released from the darkness of the womb, were brought to the light (for the medical authority, which is learned in the functions of the body, would say that light operates on things receptive of light); so also the all-wise science of religious rites brings these first to delivery, by the preparatory nourishment of the formative and life-giving Oracles; and when it has made their person ripe for Divine Birth, gives to them savingly, in due order, the participation in things luminous and perfecting; but, at present, it separates things perfect from them as imperfect, consulting the good order of sacred things, and the delivery and life of the catechumens, in a Godlike order of the Hierarchical rites.

(10) On the Seventh Day, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, come to receive on. Simultaneously, the pathway to the brute world, produced by the obscuring passion, stupidity, also cometh to receive one. The setting-face-to-face at that time is, calling the deceased by name, thus: O nobly-born, listen undistractedly. On the Seventh Day the vari-coloured radiance of the purified propensities will come to shine. Simultaneously, the Knowledge-Holding Deities, from the holy paradise realms, will come to receive one.

(5) But we have spoken of these things in our Symbolical Theology. Let us now then celebrate the spiritual Name of Light, under Which we contemplate the Good, and declare that He, the Good, is called spiritual Light, on the ground that He fills every supercelestial mind with spiritual light, and expels all ignorance and error from all souls in which they may be, and imparts to them all sacred light, and cleanses their mental vision from the mist which envelops them, from ignorance, and stirs up and unfolds those enclosed by the great weight of darkness, and imparts, at first, a measured radiance; then, whilst they taste, as it were, the light, and desire it more, more fully gives Itself, and more abundantly enlightens them, because "they have loved much," and ever elevates them to things in advance, as befits the analogy of each for aspiration.