(3) I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending:

(45) In this kindling of the light, in the stars and elements, the birth of nature did not thereupon wholly transmute or change itself into the holy meekness, as it was before the time of the wrath, so that the birth of nature be now altogether holy and pure: No, but it stands in its sharpest, most austere, and most anxious birth, wherein the wrath of God incessantly springeth up like hellish fire.

(56) The Light of Nature shows us now (in the Love of God) quite another Throne, which God the Father with his Son Jesus Christ has established; the same is the eternal Throne in [or of] Grace, where our Soul may be new regenerated, and not in the antichristian Throne; that is nothing else but the Throne of Babel the Confusion, where he may continue to be the Ape of Christ upon Earth with his brave Hood; where of late we saw a young Lad, [Disciple, or Scholar,] who plucked the Pearl from his a Hatband, and his Hatband broke; and then he became as another earthly Man, and none saluted [reverenced or regarded] him. The Difference [or Distinction] between the Virgin Mary, and her Son JESUS CHRIST. The Earnest and true Gate of Christian Religion; and of the Articles of Belief, earnestly to be considered for the Sake of Man's Salvation, and because of the Inventions and Opinions of Heretics and Schismatics, forged by the confused Babel of Antichrist. The high and deep Gate of the Aurora and Day-spring in the Root of the Lily.

(37) Therefore, according to our Knowledge, we will set down an Explanation of the Fall of Man, which is very perfectly manifested, and appears in the Light of the Day, and i convinces us. And we have no Need of the Fooleries of the Antichrist, who with the Blood and Death of Christ does but seek his own Covetousness, Pride, and Voluptuousness, and draws the Vail of Moses before our Eyes, that we should not see through the Tables that were graven through [through] Joshua or Jesus, into the promised Land of Paradise; that he may only sit and ride upon his horrible and devouring Beast of Covetousness and Pride, which [Beast] is become so very great and strong, that it shadows the Circuit of the Earth, and rules so wonderfully over Mountains and Valleys, with his Fierceness; which [Beast] yet shall be broken by the Lily without Hands. At which the [People or] Nations shall wonder, and say; How art thou, O terrible and great Might [and Power,] founded upon so weak and loose a Ground!

(64) Only thou must not think that the angelical kingdom with its creatures was so rolled, wheeled and turned round about, as now the stars are, which are only powers, and in regard of the birth or geniture of this world are thus wheeled or turned about, whose birth or geniture stands in the moving, boiling anguish in evil and good, in corruption and redemption, till the end of this enumeration, or till the last day. Now observe:

(47) I here set down this description of the birth or geniture of man's life, to the end that the original of the stars and planets may be the better conceived. In the description of the creation of man thou wilt find all, more fundamentally and deeply, what the beginning of man is. Now observe:

(42) Now if any Body would come into the Garden, he must press in through the Sword of Death; though indeed Christ has broken the Sword, so that now we can much easier enter in with our Souls, yet there is a Sword before it still; but he that finds the Way right, him it does not cut very much, for it is blunt, and it is bent; and if the Soul goes but into the Gate into the Center, then it is presently helped by the noble Champion Christ; for he has gotten the Sword into his Hands. He is the slain Lamb of the House of Israel, in the Revelation of John, which took the Book of the first Principle, out of the Hand of the Ancient [of Days] who sat upon the Throne, with his four and twenty Elders, which [Book] had seven Seals, or seven Spirits of the Birth of God, and opened them; where the Elders fell down before him, and worshipped the Lamb that was slain, and gave Praise and Honour to him which sat upon the Throne, because the Champion of the House of Israel had overcome. The seven golden Candlesticks are his Humanity, the seven Stars are his Deity, as the divine i Birth in itself stands in a sevenfold Form, as it is explained in the Beginning of this Book, in the first four Chapters.

(9) For the holy Element continually longs, [or groans] through the four Elements, to be released from the Vanity of the four Elements; in like Manner also the Qualifying [or Influence] of the grim [Constellations or] Stars [labours;] and therefore it drives Man to seek such wonderful Forms [or Ways,] that the eternal Wonders of God might be manifested, which (in the Breaking of the World) shall stand all (in the P Figure) in the Shadow.

(15) The following quotations from a celebrated occultist may prove of interest to the student in connection with the particular subjects considered in the present chapter: "At the half-way point of the fourth round here the polar point of the whole seven-world period is passed. From this point outwards the spiritual ego begins its real struggle with body and mind to manifest its transcendental powers. In the fifth round the struggle continues, but the transcendental faculties are largely developed, though the struggle between these on the one hand with physical intellect and propensity is fiercer than ever, for the intellect of the fifth round as well as its spirituality is an advance on that of the fourth. In the sixth round humanity attains a degree of perfection both of body and soul, of intellect and spirituality, which ordinary mortals of the present epoch will not readily realize in their imaginations. The most supreme combinations of wisdom, goodness, and transcendental enlightenment which the world has ever seen or thought of will represent the ordinary type of manhood. Those faculties which now, in the rare efflorescence of a generation, enable some extraordinarily gifted persons to explore the mysteries of Nature and gather the knowledge of which some crumbs are now being offered to the ordinary world, will then be the common appanage of all. As to what the seventh round will be like, the most communicative occult teachers are solemnly silent. Mankind in the seventh round will be something altogether too Godlike for mankind in the fourth round to forecast its attributes." "The earth, while at present inhabited by fourth-round humanity—by the wave of human life on its fourth journey round the circle of the worlds—nevertheless contains some few persons, few in relation to the total number, who properly speaking belong to the fifth round. Now, in the sense of the term at present employed, it must not be supposed that by any miraculous process any individual unit has actually travelled round the whole chain of worlds once more often than his compeers. Under the law by which the tide-wave of humanity progresses, it will be seen that this is impossible. Humanity has not yet paid its fifth visit even to the planet next in advance of our own. But individual monads may outstrip their companions as regards their individual development, and so become exactly as mankind generally will be when the fifth round has been fully evolved. A man born as an ordinary fourth round man may, by processes of occult training, convert himself into a man having all the attributes of a fifth-round man, and so become what we may call an artificial fifth rounder."

(4) ¶I shall always be grateful that Lunsford P. Yandell made this little volume known to me years ago. He explained that a friend of his, a businessman, Arthur Hinds, sensed the importance of bringing the words of Jesus together in chronological form so that the full sweep and completeness of the immortal message might more effectively be felt and comprehended. These laymen had a keen consciousness of the ineffable power of the words of Jesus and, in a desire to relate them more widely to busy modern people, arranged them in this convenient and readable form. For many years this book has been made available through the literature sales organization of the Marble Collegiate Church. The thousands who have read the book, through our recommendation, have reported that it has brought great spiritual blessing to them. I commend this new edition to all who desire the creative touch of Christ upon their lives.

(1) On the chieftainship of men and animals and every single thing it says in revelation, that first of the human species Gâyômard was produced, brilliant and white, with eyes which looked out for the great one, him who was here the Zaratûstrôtûm (chief high-priest); the chieftainship of all things was from Zaratûst.

(22) And we find greater Mysteries yet in Evidence of the horrible Fall; for after that the four Elements had thus set themselves every one in a several Region, then they made themselves Lords over the Spirit of the Soul, which was generated out of the Essences, and they have taken it into their Power, and qualify with it. The Fire, viz. the mightiest of them, has taken it into its Region [or Jurisdiction] in the Heart; and there it must mkeep, and the Blossom and Light thereof goes out of the Heart, and moves upon the Heart, as the kindled Light of a Candle, where the Candle resembles the fleshly Heart, with the Essences out of which the Light shines. And the Fire has set itself over the Essences, and continually reaches after the Light, and it supposes that it has the Virgin, viz. the divine Virtue [or Power.]

(5) Necessarily, then, the first leaders of our Hierarchy, after having been filled themselves with the sacred gift, from the superessential Godhead, and sent, by the supremely Divine Goodness, to extend the same gift successively, and, as godly, earnestly desiring themselves the elevation and deification of those after them, presented to us--by their written and unwritten revelations--in accordance with their sacred injunctions, things supercelestial, by sensible images, the enfolded, by variety and multitude, and things Divine, by things human, and things immaterial, by things material, and the superessential, by things belonging to us. Nor did they do this merely on account of the unhallowed, to whom it is not permitted even to touch the symbols, but because our Hierarchy is, as I said, a kind of symbol adapted to our condition, which needs things sensible, for our more Divine elevation from these to things intelligible. Nevertheless the reasons of the symbols have been revealed to the Divine initiators, which it is not permitted to explain to those who are yet being initiated, knowing that the Lawgivers of things divinely transmitted deliberately arranged the Hierarchy in well-established and unconfused ranks, and in proportionate and sacred distributions of that which was convenient to each, according to fitness. Wherefore trusting in thy sacred promises (for it is a pious duty to recall them to thy recollection) -- that, since every Hierarchical sacred word is of binding force, thou wilt not communicate to any other but those Godlike initiators of the same rank with thyself, and wilt persuade them to promise, according to hierarchical regulation, to touch pure things purely, and to communicate the mysteries of God to the godly alone, and things perfect to those capable of perfection, and things altogether most holy to the holy, I have entrusted this Divine gift to thee, in addition to many other Hierarchical gifts.

(1) HERE we shall not be acceptable to the Antichrist, much less to his stout Horse [or stately Beast.] But seeing it thus appears to us in the Wonder, we will describe it for a Memorial to ourselves, and behold how the Beginning and End of every Thing is, that we also (in our Combat) may labour in the Gate of the Deep: although it is plain that we have nothing else to expect, in this World, for this Revelation [or Manifestation,] from Antichrist and his Beast, but Scorn, [Contempt,] Disgrace, and Danger of our temporal Life, yet we comfort ourselves with the eternal Conquest in our Saviour Christ, wherein we have to expect our great Recompense, the Glimpse of which appears to us here, a in the great Wonder; for which Cause we will proceed, and not look upon this World, but esteem that which is to come greater than all.

(32) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

(2) Thus distant round the point a circle of fire So swiftly whirled, that it would have surpassed Whatever motion soonest girds the world; And this was by another circumcinct, That by a third, the third then by a fourth, By a fifth the fourth, and then by a sixth the fifth; The seventh followed thereupon in width So ample now, that Juno's messenger Entire would be too narrow to contain it. Even so the eighth and ninth; and every one More slowly moved, according as it was In number distant farther from the first. And that one had its flame most crystalline From which less distant was the stainless spark, I think because more with its truth imbued. My Lady, who in my anxiety Beheld me much perplexed, said: "From that point Dependent is the heaven and nature all. Behold that circle most conjoined to it, And know thou, that its motion is so swift Through burning love whereby it is spurred on." And I to her: "If the world were arranged In the order which I see in yonder wheels, What's set before me would have satisfied me;

(49) In thinking of Man, we must remember that primitive human beings—little removed from the apes—are as much Man as is the highest individual of the race today, or as will be his still higher descendant of tomorrow. And we must not forget that the Plane of Human Consciousness is closely linked to, and blended with, the Plane of Animal Consciousness, at one of its sides. The best scientific, and the best occult teaching hold that the man and the ape descended from some common ancestral form in the long ages past; the common ancestor was the trunk from which the Man branch sprung on one side and the ape branch sprung on the other.

(1) It is necessary then, as I think, first to set forth what we think is the purpose of every Hierarchy, and what benefit each one confers upon its followers; and next to celebrate the Heavenly Hierarchies according to their revelation in the Oracles; then following these Oracles, to say in what sacred forms the holy writings of the Oracles depict the celestial orders, and to what sort of simplicity we must be carried through the representations; in order that we also may not, like the vulgar, irreverently think that the heavenly and Godlike minds are certain many-footed and many-faced creatures, or moulded to the brutishness of oxen, or the savage form of lions, and fashioned like the hooked beaks of eagles, or the feathery down of birds, and should imagine that there are certain wheels of fire above the heaven, or material thrones upon which the Godhead may recline, or certain many-coloured horses, and spear-bearing leaders of the host, and whatever else was transmitted by the Oracles to us under multifarious symbols of sacred imagery. And indeed, the Word of God artlessly makes use of poetic representations of sacred things, respecting the shapeless minds, out of regard to our intelligence, so to speak, consulting a mode of education proper and natural to it, and moulding the inspired writings for it.

(6) I in that place was Peter Damiano; And Peter the Sinner was I in the house Of Our Lady on the Adriatic shore. Little of mortal life remained to me, When I was called and dragged forth to the hat Which shifteth evermore from bad to worse. Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted, Taking the food of any hostelry. Now some one to support them on each side The modern shepherds need, and some to lead them, So heavy are they, and to hold their trains. They cover up their palfreys with their cloaks, So that two beasts go underneath one skin; O Patience, that dost tolerate so much!" At this voice saw I many little flames From step to step descending and revolving, And every revolution made them fairer. Round about this one came they and stood still, And a cry uttered of so loud a sound, It here could find no parallel, nor I Distinguished it, the thunder so o'ercame me.

(4) "And Yew and the guard of the veil of the Great Light, and the receiver of Light and the two great guides and the great Sabaōth, the Good, will be kings in the first saviour of the first Voice of the Treasury of the Light, [the saviour] who will be in the region of those who have received the first mystery of the First Mystery. For in sooth Yew and the guard of the region of those of the Right and Melchisedec, the great receiver of the Light, and the two great guides have come forth out of the purified and utterly pure light of the first Tree up to the fifth. "Yew in sooth is the overseer of the Light, who hath come forth first out of the pure light of the first Tree; on the other hand the guard of the veil of those of the Right hath come forth out of the second Tree; and the two guides again have come forth out of the pure and utterly purified light of the third and fourth Trees of the Treasury of the Light; Melchisedec again hath come forth out of the fifth Tree; on the other hand Sabaōth, the Good, whom I have called my father, hath come forth out of Yew, the overseer of the Light. "These six then by command of the First Mystery the last Helper hath caused to be in the region of those of the Right, for the economy of the ingathering of the upper light out of the æons of the rulers and out of the worlds and all races in them,--of every one of whom I will tell you the employment over which he hath been set in the expansion of the universe. Because, therefore, of the importance of the employment over which they have been set, they will be fellow-kings in the first [saviour] of the first Voice of the Treasury of the Light, who will be in the region of the souls of those who have received the first mystery of the First Mystery.