3. The Triangle Of Solomon-b

The primeval sages, when seeking the First of Causes, behold good and evil in the world. They considered shadow and light; they compared winter with spring, age with youth, life with death, and their conclusion was this: The First Cause is beneficent and severe; It gives and takes away life. Then are there two contrary principles, the one good and the other evil, exclaimed the disciples of Manes. No, the two principles of universal equilibrium are not contrary, although contrasted in appearance, for a singular wisdom opposes one to another. Good is on the right, evil on the left; but the supreme excellence is above both, applying evil to the victory of good and good to the amendment of evil. The principle of harmony is in unity, and it is this which imparts such power to the uneven number in Magic. Now, the most perfect of the odd numbers is three, because it is the trilogy of unity. In the trigrams of Fohi, the superior triad is composed of three YANG, or masculine figures, because nothing passive can be admitted into the idea of God, considered as the principle of production in the three worlds. For the same reason, the Christian Trinity by no means permits the personification of the mother, who is shown forth implicitly in that of the Son. For the same reason, also, it is contrary to the laws of hieratic and orthodox symbology to personify the Holy Ghost under the form of a woman. Woman comes forth from man as Nature comes forth from God; so Christ Himself ascends to heaven and assumes the Virgin Mother: we speak of the ascension of the Saviour, and the assumption of the Mother of God. God, considered as Father, has Nature for His daughter; as Son, He has the Virgin for His mother and the Church for His bride; as Holy Spirit, He regenerates and fructifies humanity. Hence, in the trigrams of Fohi, the three inferior YIN correspond to the three superior YANG, for these trigrams constitute a pantacle like that of the two triangles of Solomon, but with a triadic interpretation of the six points of the blazing star. Dogma is only divine inasmuch as it is truly human - that is to say, in so far as it sums up the highest reason of humanity. So also the Master, Whom we term the Man-God, called Himself the Son of Man. Revelation is the expression of belief accepted and formulated by universal reason in the human word, on which account it is said that the divinity is human and the humanity divine in the Man-God., We affirm all this philosophically, not theologically, without infringing in any way on the teaching of the Church, which condemns and must always condemn Magic. Paracelsus and Agrippa did not set up altar against altar but bowed to the ruling religion of their time: to the elect of science, the things of science; to the faithful, the things of faith. In his hymn to the royal Sun, the Emperor Julian gives a theory of the triad which is almost identical with that of the illuminated Swedenborg. The sun of the divine world is the infinite, spiritual and uncreated light, which is verbalized, so to speak, in the philosophical world, and becomes the fountain of souls and of truth; then it incorporates and becomes visible light in the sun of the third world, the central sun of our suns, of which the fixed stars are the ever-living sparks. The Kabalists compare the spirit to a substance which remains fluid in the divine medium and under the influence of the essential light, its exterior, however, becoming solidified, like wax when exposed to air, in the colder realms of reasoning or of visible forms.