(4) The prudery of today, however, declares this same mystery to be unfit for the consideration of holy-minded people. Contrary to the dictates of reason, a standard has been established which affirms that innocence bred of ignorance is more to be desired than virtue born of knowledge. Eventually, however, man will learn that he need never be ashamed of truth. Until he does learn this, he is false to his God, to his world, and to himself. In this respect, Christianity has woefully failed in its mission. While declaring man's body to be the living temple of the living God, in the same breath it asserts the substances and functions of this temple to be unclean and their study defiling to the sensitive sentiments of the righteous. By this unwholesome attitude, man's body--the house of God--is degraded and defamed. Yet the cross itself is the oldest of phallic emblems, and the lozenge-shaped windows of cathedrals are proof that yonic symbols have survived the destruction of the pagan Mysteries. The very structure of the church itself is permeated with phallicism. Remove from the Christian Church all emblems of Priapic origin and nothing is left, for even the earth upon which it stands was, because of its fertility, the first yonic symbol. As the presence of these emblems of the generative processes is either unknown or unheeded by the majority, the irony of the situation is not generally appreciated. Only those conversant with the secret language of antiquity are capable of understanding the divine significance of these emblems.

(1) THE yoni and phallus were worshiped by nearly all ancient peoples as appropriate symbols of God's creative power. The Garden of Eden, the Ark, the Gate of the Temple, the Veil of the Mysteries, the vesica piscis or oval nimbus, and the Holy Grail are important yonic symbols; the pyramid, the obelisk, the cone, the candle, the tower, the Celtic monolith, the spire, the campanile, the Maypole, and the Sacred Spear are symbolic of the phallus. In treating the subject of Priapic worship, too many modern authors judge pagan standards by their own and wallow in the mire of self-created vulgarity. The Eleusinian Mysteries--the greatest of all the ancient secret societies--established one of the highest known standards of morality and ethics, and those criticizing their use of phallic symbols should ponder the trenchant words of King Edward III, "Honi soit qui mal y pense."

(16) (4) The Modified Phallic Cross , indicates the Sexual Duality of the Manifested Universe—the Presence and Activity of the Universal Male Principle and the Universal Female Principle, respectively. [The Modified Phallic Cross of the Rosicrucians, however, must not be taken to indicate any relationship of the Rosicrucians with the gross forms of Phallic Worship, however. The latter is merely the distorted shadow of the Truth, and must not be mistaken for the Reality.] Concluding this introductory statement, and inviting you to enter into the study of the Secret Doctrine of the Rosicrucians, let us ask you to carefully consider the following words of an ancient aphorism: "The possession of Knowledge, unaccompanied by a manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals by the miser—a vain and foolish thing. Forget not The Law of Use, in this and all other things."

(14) Again, that the Spring is called "flowery," from its nature; and Night "still," on account of rest; and the Moon" Gorgonian," on account of the face in it; and that the time in which it is necessary to sow is called Aphrodite by the "Theologian." In the same way, too, the Pythagoreans figuratively called the planets the "dogs of Persephone;" and to the sea they applied the metaphorical appellation of "the tears of Kronus." Myriads on myriads of enigmatical utterances by both poets and philosophers are to be found; and there are also whole books which present the mind of the writer veiled, as that of Heraclitus On Nature, who on this very account is called "Obscure." Similar to this book is the Theology of Pherecydes of Syrup; for Euphorion the poet, and the Causes of Callimachus, and the Alexandra of Lycophron, and the like, are proposed as an exercise in exposition to all the grammarians.

(13) Like the Pleromas are the things which came into being from the arrogant thought, which are their (the Pleromas') likenesses, copies, shadows, and phantasms, lacking reason and the light, these which belong to the vain thought, since they are not products of anything. Therefore, their end will be like their beginning: from that which did not exist (they are) to return once again to that which will not be. It is they, however, by themselves who are greater, more powerful, and more honored than the names which are given to them, which are their shadows. In the manner of a reflection are they beautiful. For the face of the copy normally takes its beauty from that of which it is a copy.

(6) The one uprose and down the other fell, Though turning not away their impious lamps, Underneath which each one his muzzle changed. He who was standing drew it tow'rds the temples, And from excess of matter, which came thither, Issued the ears from out the hollow cheeks; What did not backward run and was retained Of that excess made to the face a nose, And the lips thickened far as was befitting. He who lay prostrate thrusts his muzzle forward, And backward draws the ears into his head, In the same manner as the snail its horns; And so the tongue, which was entire and apt For speech before, is cleft, and the bi-forked In the other closes up, and the smoke ceases. The soul, which to a reptile had been changed, Along the valley hissing takes to flight, And after him the other speaking sputters.

(2) But let us leave the arts and consider those works produced by Nature and admitted to be naturally beautiful which the creations of art are charged with imitating, all reasoning life and unreasoning things alike, but especially the consummate among them, where the moulder and maker has subdued the material and given the form he desired. Now what is the beauty here? It has nothing to do with the blood or the menstrual process: either there is also a colour and form apart from all this, or there is nothing unless sheer ugliness or a bare recipient, as it were the mere Matter of beauty.

Whence shone forth the beauty of Helen, battle-sought; or of all those women like in loveliness to Aphrodite; or of Aphrodite herself; or of any human being that has been perfect in beauty; or of any of these gods manifest to sight, or unseen but carrying what would be beauty if we saw?

In all these is it not the Idea, something of that realm but communicated to the produced from within the producer just as in works of art, we held, it is communicated from the arts to their creations? Now we can surely not believe that, while the made thing and the Idea thus impressed upon Matter are beautiful, yet the Idea not so alloyed but resting still with the creator- the Idea primal, immaterial, firmly a unity- is not Beauty.

If material extension were in itself the ground of beauty, then the creating principle, being without extension, could not be beautiful: but beauty cannot be made to depend upon magnitude since, whether in a large object or a small, the one Idea equally moves and forms the mind by its inherent power. A further indication is that as long as the object remains outside us we know nothing of it; it affects us by entry; but only as an Idea can it enter through the eyes which are not of scope to take an extended mass: we are, no doubt, simultaneously possessed of the magnitude which, however, we take in not as mass but by an elaboration upon the presented form.

Then again the principle producing the beauty must be, itself, ugly, neutral or beautiful: ugly, it could not produce the opposite; neutral, why should its product be the one rather than the other? The Nature, then, which creates things so lovely must be itself of a far earlier beauty; we, undisciplined in discernment of the inward, knowing nothing of it, run after the outer, never understanding that it is the inner which stirs us; we are in the case of one who sees his own reflection but not realizing whence it comes goes in pursuit of it.

But that the thing we are pursuing is something different and that the beauty is not in the concrete object is manifest from the beauty there is in matters of study, in conduct and custom; briefly in soul or mind. And it is precisely here that the greater beauty lies, perceived whenever you look to the wisdom in a man and delight in it, not wasting attention on the face, which may be hideous, but passing all appearance by and catching only at the inner comeliness, the truly personal; if you are still unmoved and cannot acknowledge beauty under such conditions, then looking to your own inner being you will find no beauty to delight you and it will be futile in that state to seek the greater vision, for you will be questing it through the ugly and impure.

This is why such matters are not spoken of to everyone; you, if you are conscious of beauty within, remember.

(2) Let us, then, go back to the source, and indicate at once the Principle that bestows beauty on material things.

Undoubtedly this Principle exists; it is something that is perceived at the first glance, something which the soul names as from an ancient knowledge and, recognising, welcomes it, enters into unison with it.

But let the soul fall in with the Ugly and at once it shrinks within itself, denies the thing, turns away from it, not accordant, resenting it.

Our interpretation is that the soul- by the very truth of its nature, by its affiliation to the noblest Existents in the hierarchy of Being- when it sees anything of that kin, or any trace of that kinship, thrills with an immediate delight, takes its own to itself, and thus stirs anew to the sense of its nature and of all its affinity.

But, is there any such likeness between the loveliness of this world and the splendours in the Supreme? Such a likeness in the particulars would make the two orders alike: but what is there in common between beauty here and beauty There?

We hold that all the loveliness of this world comes by communion in Ideal-Form.

All shapelessness whose kind admits of pattern and form, as long as it remains outside of Reason and Idea, is ugly by that very isolation from the Divine-Thought. And this is the Absolute Ugly: an ugly thing is something that has not been entirely mastered by pattern, that is by Reason, the Matter not yielding at all points and in all respects to Ideal-Form.

But where the Ideal-Form has entered, it has grouped and coordinated what from a diversity of parts was to become a unity: it has rallied confusion into co-operation: it has made the sum one harmonious coherence: for the Idea is a unity and what it moulds must come to unity as far as multiplicity may.

And on what has thus been compacted to unity, Beauty enthrones itself, giving itself to the parts as to the sum: when it lights on some natural unity, a thing of like parts, then it gives itself to that whole. Thus, for an illustration, there is the beauty, conferred by craftsmanship, of all a house with all its parts, and the beauty which some natural quality may give to a single stone.

This, then, is how the material thing becomes beautiful- by communicating in the thought that flows from the Divine.

(6) O Covetousness, that mortals dost ingulf Beneath thee so, that no one hath the power Of drawing back his eyes from out thy waves! Full fairly blossoms in mankind the will; But the uninterrupted rain converts Into abortive wildings the true plums. Fidelity and innocence are found Only in children; afterwards they both Take flight or e'er the cheeks with down are covered. One, while he prattles still, observes the fasts, Who, when his tongue is loosed, forthwith devours Whatever food under whatever moon; Another, while he prattles, loves and listens Unto his mother, who when speech is perfect Forthwith desires to see her in her grave.

(2) Moreover, the arrangement of virtue according to right reason, and the transgression of it contrary to right reason, produce [in the former case] a tendency to the decorous as the final mark, and [in the latter] the frustration of it. The decorous however, is that which ought to be. But this does not require either addition or ablation; since it is that which it is requisite to be. But of the indecorous there are two species; one of which is excess, and the other defect. And excess indeed, is more, but deficiency is less, than is decorous. Virtue also, is a certain habit of the decorous. Hence it is directly, both a summit and a medium. For thus, things that are decorous are both media and summits. They are media indeed, because they fall between excess and deficiency; but they are summits, because they do not require either addition or ablation. For they are the very things themselves which they ought to be.

(3) But they also depict them under the likeness of men, on account of the intellectual faculty, and their having powers of looking upwards, and their straight and erect form, and their innate faculty of ruling and guiding, and whilst being least, in physical strength as compared with the other powers of irrational creatures, yet ruling over all by their superior power of mind, and by their dominion in consequence of rational science, and their innate unslavishness and indomitableness of soul. It is possible, then, I think, to find within each of the many parts of our body harmonious images of the Heavenly Powers, by affirming that the powers of vision denote the most transparent elevation towards the Divine lights, and again, the tender, and liquid, and not repellent, but sensitive, and pure, and unfolded, reception, free from all passion, of the supremely Divine illuminations. Now the discriminating powers of the nostrils denote the being able to receive, as far as attainable, the sweet-smelling largess beyond conception, and to distinguish accurately things which are not such, and to entirely reject. The powers of the ears denote the participation and conscious reception of the supremely Divine inspiration. The powers of taste denote the fulness of the intelligible nourishments, and the reception of the Divine and nourishing streams. The powers of touch denote the skilful discrimination of that which is suitable or injurious. The eyelids and eyebrows denote the guarding of the conceptions which see God. The figures of manhood and youth denote the perpetual bloom and vigour of life. The teeth denote the dividing of the nourishing perfection given to us; for each intellectual Being divides and multiplies, by a provident faculty, the unified conception given to it by the more Divine for the proportionate elevation of the inferior. The shoulders and elbows, and further, the hands, denote the power of making, and operating, and accomplishing. The heart again is a symbol of the Godlike life, dispersing its own life-giving power to the objects of its forethought, as beseems the good. The chest again denotes the invincible and protective faculty of the life-giving distribution, as being placed above the heart. The back, the holding together the whole productive powers of life. The feet denote the moving and quickness, and skilfulness of the perpetual movement advancing towards Divine things. Wherefore also the Word of God arranged the feet of the holy Minds under their wings; for the wing displays the elevating quickness and the heavenly progress towards higher things, and the superiority to every grovelling thing by reason of the ascending, and the lightness of the wings denotes their being in no respect earthly, but undefiledly and lightly raised to the sublime; and the naked and unshod denotes the unfettered, agile, and unrestrained, and free from all external superfluity, and assimilation to the Divine simplicity, as far as attainable.

(5) Sometimes an animal, when covered, struggles So that his impulse needs must be apparent, By reason of the wrappage following it; And in like manner the primeval soul Made clear to me athwart its covering How jubilant it was to give me pleasure. Then breathed: "Without thy uttering it to me, Thine inclination better I discern Than thou whatever thing is surest to thee; For I behold it in the truthful mirror, That of Himself all things parhelion makes, And none makes Him parhelion of itself. Thou fain wouldst hear how long ago God placed me Within the lofty garden, where this Lady Unto so long a stairway thee disposed. And how long to mine eyes it was a pleasure, And of the great disdain the proper cause, And the language that I used and that I made. Now, son of mine, the tasting of the tree Not in itself was cause of so great exile, But solely the o'erstepping of the bounds. There, whence thy Lady moved Virgilius, Four thousand and three hundred and two circuits Made by the sun, this Council I desired;

(13) The characteristic activities are not hindered by outer events but merely adapt themselves, remaining always fine, and perhaps all the finer for dealing with the actual. When he has to handle particular cases and things, he may not be able to put his vision into act without searching and thinking, but the one greatest principle is ever present to him, like a part of his being- most of all present, should he be even a victim in the much-talked-of Bull of Phalaris. No doubt, despite all that has been said, it is idle to pretend that this is an agreeable lodging; but what cries in the Bull is the thing that feels the torture; in the Sage there is something else as well, The Self-Gathered which, as long as it holds itself by main force within itself, can never be robbed of the vision of the All-Good.

(4) The beings of the thought which is outside are humble; they preserve the representation of the pleromatic, especially because of the sharing in the names by which they are beautiful.

(13) The adherents of Basilides are in the habit of calling the passions appendages: saying that these are in essence certain spirits attached to the rational soul, through some original perturbation and confusion; and that, again, other bastard and heterogeneous natures of spirits grow on to them, like that of the wolf, the ape, the lion, the goat, whose properties showing themselves around the soul, they say, assimilate the lusts of the soul to the likeness of the animals. For they imitate the actions of those whose properties they bear. And not only are they associated with the impulses and perceptions of the irrational animals, but they affect the motions and the beauties of plants, on account of their bearing also the properties of plants attached to them. They have also the properties of a particular state, as the hardness of steel. But against this dogma we shall argue subsequently, when we treat of the soul. At present this only needs to be pointed out, that man, according to Basilides, preserves the appearance of a wooden horse, according to the poetic myth, embracing as he does in one body a host of such different spirits. Accordingly, Basilides' son himself, Isidorus, in his book, About the Soul attached to us, while agreeing in the dogma, as if condemning himself, writes in these words:

(84) When God had thus gently incorporated it, or compacted it together, then it found and felt itself to be mighty and powerful, and saw that it had or possessed a body more beautiful than the figures were, that were without, distinct from it; thereupon it became high minded, and elevated itself in its body, and would be more severe and eager than the Salitter was, which was without, distinct from its body.

(4) It is, then, possible to frame in one's mind good contemplations from everything, and to depict, from things material, the aforesaid dissimilar similitudes, both for the intelligible and the intelligent; since the intelligent hold in a different fashion things which are attributed to things sensible differently. For instance, appetite, in the irrational creatures, takes its rise in the passions, and their movement, which takes the form of appetite, is full of all kinds of unreasonableness. But with regard to the intelligent, we must think of the appetite in another fashion, as denoting, according to my judgment, their manly style, and their determined persistence in their Godlike and unchangeable steadfastness. In like manner we say, with regard to the irrational creatures, that lust is a certain uncircumspect and earthly passionate attachment, arising incontinently from an innate movement, or intimacy in things subject to change, and the irrational supremacy of the bodily desire, which drives the whole organism towards the object of sensual inclination. But when we attribute "lust" to spiritual beings, by clothing them with dissimilar similitudes, we must think that it is a Divine love of the immaterial, above expression and thought, and the inflexible and determined longing for the supernally pure and passionless contemplation, and for the really perpetual and intelligible fellowship in that pure and most exalted splendour, and in the abiding and beautifying comeliness. And 'incontinence' we may take for the persistent and inflexible, which nothing can repulse, on account of the pure and changeless love for the Divine beauty, and the whole tendency towards the really desired. But with regard to the irrational living beings, or soulless matter, we appropriately call their irrationality and want of sensible perception a deprivation of reason and sensible perception. And with regard to the immaterial and intelligent beings, we reverently acknowledge their superiority, as supermundane beings, over our discursive and bodily reason, and the material perception of the senses which is alien to the incorporeal Minds. It is, then, permissible to depict forms, which are not discordant, to the celestial beings, even from portions of matter which are the least honourable, since even it, having had its beginning from the Essentially Beautiful, has throughout the whole range of matter some echoes of the intellectual comeliness; and it is possible through these to be led to the immaterial archetypes--things most similar being taken, as has been said, dissimilarly, and the identities being denned, not in the same way, but harmoniously, and appropriately, as regards the intellectual and sensible beings.

(8) It is likewise said, that the Pythagoreans frequently inquired and doubted why we accustom boys to take their food in an orderly and commensurate manner, and show them that order and symmetry are beautiful; but that the contraries to these, disorder and incommensuration, are base; and that he who is given to wine and is insatiable, is held in great disgrace. For if no one of these is useful to us when we have arrived at the age of virility, it was in vain that we were accustomed, when boys, to an order of this kind. And there is also the same reason concerning the other manners [to which we are accustomed when boys]. This, therefore, is not seen to happen in other animals which are disciplined by men; but immediately from the first, a whelp and a colt are accustomed to, and learn those things which it is requisite for them to do when they have arrived at the perfection of their nature.

And universally, it is said that the Pythagoreans exhorted both those they happened to meet, and their familiars, to avoid pleasure as a thing that required the greatest caution. For nothing so much deceives us, or precipitates us into error, as this passion. In short, as it seems, they contended that we should never do any thing with a view to pleasure as the end. For this scope is, for the most part, indecorous and noxious. But they asserted, that especially looking to the beautiful and decorous, we should do whatever is to be done. And that in the second place we should look to the advantageous and the useful. These things, however, require no casual judgment.

(101) And in this motion it grows unctuous or fat, and luscious or luxuriant; it increaseth and spreadeth itself, and the highest depth generateth itself very joyfully out of or from the heart of the spirit, just as if it would begin an angelical triumph, and present or shew forth itself infinitely in divine power and form, according to the right of the Deity: and thereby the body getteth its greatest strength and power, and the body coloureth or tinctureth itself with the highest degree, and getteth its true beauty, excellency and virtue.

(44) And so now there is a vehement Desire in the Creatures. The Spirit of the Male seeks the loving Child in the Female, and the Female in the Male; for the Irrationality of the Body in the unreasonable Creatures knows not what it does; the Body would not, if it had Reason, move so eagerly towards Propagation; neither does it know any Thing of the Impregnation [or Conception,] only its Spirit does so burn and desire after the Child of Love, that it seeks Love, (which yet is paradisical) and it cannot comprehend it; but it makes a P Semination only, wherein there is again a Center to the Birth. And thus is the Original of both Sexes, and their Propagation; yet it does not attain the paradisical Child of Love, but it is a vehement Hunger, and so the Propagation is acted with great Earnestness.