Introductionh

This living speech is the condemnation of the wicked, and hence they seek to destroy it; but it is they only who die, and the Word of Truth remains to judge their memory! Orpheus may have been rent by bacchantes; Socrates may have quaffed the poisoned cup; Jesus and His apostles have perished in the utmost tortures; John Hus, Jerome of Prague, and innumerable others, have been burned; St. Bartholomew and the massacres of September may have had in turn their victims; Cossacks, knouts and Siberian deserts are still at the disposal of the Russian Emperor; but the spirit of Orpheus, of Socrates, of Jesus and of all martyrs will live for ever in the midst their dead persecutors, will stand erect amidst decaying institutions and collapsing empires. It is this Divine Spirit, the Spirit of the only Son of God, which St. John represents in his Apocalypse, standing between golden candlesticks, because He is the centre of all lights; having seven stars in His hand, like the seed of a new heaven; and sending down speech upon the earth under the symbol of a two-edged sword. When the wise in their discouragement sleep through the night of doubt, the Spirit of Christ is erect and vigilant. When the nations, weary of the labour which emancipates them, lie down and dream over their chains, the Spirit of Christ is erect and protesting. When the blind partisans of sterilized religions cast themselves in the dust of old temples, the Spirit of Christ is erect and praying. When the strong become weak, when virtues are corrupted, when all things bend and sink down in search of a shameful pasture, the Spirit of Christ is erect, gazing up to heaven and awaiting the hour of His Father. Christ signifies priest and king by excellence. The Christ-initiator of modern times came to form new priests and new kings by science and, above all, by charity. The ancient Magi were priests and kings, and the Saviour's advent was proclaimed to them by a star. This star was the magical Pentagram, having a sacred letter at each point. It is the symbol of intelligence which rules by unity of force over the four elementary potencies; it is the Pentagram of the Magi, the Blazing Star of the Children of Hiram, the prototype of equilibrated light. Towards each of its points a beam of light ascends, and from each a beam goes forth; it represents the Grand and Supreme Athanor of Nature, which is the body of man. The magnetic influence issues in two rays from the head, from either hand and either foot. The positive ray is balanced by the negative. The head corresponds with the two feet, each hand with a hand and foot, each of the two feet with the head and one hand. This ruling sign of equilibrated light represents the spirit of order and harmony; it is the sign of the omnipotence of the Magus, and hence, when broken or incorrectly drawn, it represents astral intoxication, abnormal and ill-regulated projections of Astral Light and therefore bewitchments, perversity, madness-all that, in a word, which the Magi term the Signature of Lucifer. There is another signature which also symbolizes the Mysteries of Light, namely, the Sign of Solomon, whose talismans bear on one side the impression of his seal which we have given in our “Doctrine,” and on the other the following signature which is the hieroglyphic theory of the composition of magnets and represents the circulatory law of the lightning. Rebellious spirits are enchained by the exhibition of the five-pointed Blazing Star or the Seal of Solomon, because each gives them proof of their folly and threatens them with a sovereign power capable of tormenting them by their recall to order.