The Seymour papers 8 - The Magna Mater

This is the penultimate part of my republication of the writings of Colonel Charles Seymour, an important Irish esotericist of the twentieth century.

November 1937 to April 1938

Part 1

Notwithstanding the scanty nature of the records that have escaped the iconoclastic zeal of past ages, in most of the Mystery systems it is still possible to trace three distinct stages in the training given to initiates. For this we have to thank those modern scholars and archaeologists who have laboured patiently for so many years, and usually with little material gain for themselves.

The comparative study of religion, folklore and myth, as well as the excellent translations of the scriptures of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam that are now available have considerably changed the tone of the opinions expressed by the non-professional religious writers of Europe and America. The modern Christian, with the exception of those still interested in the support of foreign missions and 'heresy hunts', has begun to recognize, with some surprise, the lofty nature of the teaching given in religions which not long ago were contemptuously called 'pagan' or 'heathen'. To know is to understand with sympathy. Only the wilfully or thoughtlessly ignorant, or those whose pockets are adversely affected, today incline towards intolerance, bigotry and persecution in matters religious.

Clues to the nature of the training formerly given in the Mystery schools of Greece, Syria, Chaldea and Egypt are often found in the rituals and disciplines of those Eastern religions still flourishing today after thousands of years.

A little-known German philosopher, Gustav Fechner, set forth in his speculations the basis upon which the practical training of any Mystery school, ancient or modern, is built. Unfortunately, his books are not, as far as I know, available in English. However, William James, an American philosopher and psychologist, has given us a synopsis of Fechner's work in his book A Pluralistic Universe (Chapter 4). As an introduction to the third stage of Mystery training this book is invaluable, and will be used frequently in the following chapter.

The key to the type of training given in the first stage is to be found in the inscription once seen over the Pylon Gates of the Temple at Sais: 'Know Thyself.' This is the first maxim the student must study, and probably the last his brain will concern itself with when he begins to open up the wider consciousness. Sooner or later, the study of this maxim will involve a long course of mental purgation which can be rather painful. However, it has to be faced if the next step is to be taken; and in an organized school the teacher in charge of the neophytes is one who has himself drunk of this bitter cup several times. Also, let it not be forgotten that this experience has to be repeated before each major grade in initiation is taken. It should be clearly understood that this is purely a mental process and has nothing to do with that purging from sin laid down by the priestly administrators of modern herd law.

When seated in meditation, seek to analyse the contents of your consciousness. Try to discover what your mind really contains, and where its content has come from. Then ask yourself the following questions:

Of all this store of knowledge accumulated during many years of study, self-training and careful observation, how much do I really know? How much of this knowledge has come to me unverified from sources outside myself? Have I accepted this knowledge because it appealed to me and fitted in with my scheme of life? In other words, how much knowledge is first-hand, and how much is second-hand?

When used by a trained thinker, this method of self-analysis can cause considerable mental pain. When carrying it out, concentrate your attention upon the great issues of life. Analyse your knowledge of religion and its authority for you. Consider your philosophy of life, and ask yourself upon what rests its validity; what do you consider your mission in life to be? Again, what do you know of life, death, and their meanings? Why do you hold this belief? How much do you know? How much do you believe? In carrying out this process try always to distinguish what is first-hand knowledge and what is second-hand. If you are impartial, you will get a result that may be totally unexpected.

There are a number of good, sound, well-educated people who will not face this ordeal. Speaking generally, it may be said that it is only a 'rogue soul', one of the lost sheep who has wandered into the desert of the Moon-God, who is prepared to do so. The sheep who are safe, warm and fed seldom pass far into the wilderness. For the Moon-God insists on his followers doing their own thinking.

A popular Irish preacher once complained to me that he feared he was losing his grip on his audiences, and this indeed was the case. He thought that his knowledge had lost its freshness for him. What could he do about it? Answering almost without thinking, I gave him the first thing that came into my head. 'Discover how much of your religious knowledge is your own, and how much is just accepted on "authority"'. To my astonishment this, to me, innocent remark produced the following reply, given under obvious emotional stress: 'But that would mean I might lose my faith.'

This man had subconsciously arrived at the first stage of initiation, but was afraid to leave the fold. He was married with a large family and a good living. His word carried weight. With all this at stake, he was not prepared to venture into the domain of the Moon-God. In the circumstances, I think he was right, for the 'rogue' has to leave the herd.

This is the reasoning behind the Prodigal Son, the reason for the harsh words of Jesus about fathers, mothers and possessions. To find the Moon-God in the wilderness you must be mentally naked.

I gave the same words, deliberately this time, to a very promising pupil who after rapid progress had come to a full stop. After a little thought she said, 'I dare not.' Within a few months she had returned to the social fold from which she had temporarily emerged.

In the Mysteries, the second stage is really an extension of the first. It too has a seed phrase which has to be meditated on and then acted upon. Up to this point the student has been in leading strings, first in the sect of his choice, and then in the Outer Court of the Temple. But up to the end of the first stage of 'Know Thyself' he is under authority. But when the first great purgation has been successfully carried out, teachers, books and their influence should have been assessed at their correct value. Now the initiate is ready for the next stage.

Metaphorically the teacher takes the student back to the Outer Court and points to the inscription above the Pylon Gate, 'Know Thyself'. Then he is led back into the Temple through the closed gates and into the first hypostyle hall reserved only for the initiated. There he is shown: 'Know Thyself through Thyself.' It is at this stage that the fruits of that first painful purgation should become apparent. In the hours of silent meditation that are now spent within the Temple walls, the initiate learns that he alone can initiate himself.

Teachers, systems, books, religions and esoteric doctrines are but props that he has leaned on in the past. As he looks back he sees many signposts, but they all point back along the road by which he has come. Beside him stands a post that tells him to know himself through himself, and he remembers the saying: 'The Kingdoms of the Heavens lie within you.' From now on there will be no more signposts to guide him.

In front of him lies a narrow cave-like entrance leading into a darkness in which nothing can be seen. Here is the inner chamber, the unlit sanctuary of the Mysteries. Only the candidate can light that sanctuary, only he can fill it from his own inherent divinity, with the power of the god chosen to indwell it. This is the task hinted at in the phrase 'Know Thyself through Thyself'.

No one but the candidate can carry out this task, though a teacher can encourage and fellow initiates can point out that they have been through that entrance and have seen the light dawning in the darkness and have watched the sun at midnight shining in the Temple of the Mysteries.

This is the stage of seeking within the soul for the kingdom, of realizing the truth that no man, god or devil outside one's own imagination can either help or hinder one's progress. At this stage you learn that you and you alone are your own god or devil, and as that god/devil you have got to light unaided the sanctuary light on the altar. The divine power is free to all who can draw upon it and use it. It is neither theological nor ethical.

The lighting of the lamp and the invocation of the divine no-self into the innermost sanctuary of the divine self, which is the initiated you, is the second great purgation. It involves the realization of one's potential divinity. It also leads on to the third sage when the initiate is allowed, if he is able and not afraid, to brush the stardust with his lips from the lotus feet of the Great Isis.

Part 2

'Truth lives for the most part on a credit system. Thoughts and beliefs pass, if nothing challenges them, as banknotes pass, so long as no one refuses them. All this points to direct verification somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a financial system with no cash basis. You accept my verification for one thing, and I yours for another. We trade on each other's truth. But beliefs verified concretely by somebody are the posts of the whole superstructure.'

(Professor W. James, Pragmatism, p. 207.)

The student standing before the Pylon Gate leading to the closely guarded Temple of Initiation - a temple that exists in reality within his own soul - must understand that the principle put out by Professor James above is the foundation of all his training. For every Mystery school it must be possible to verify the truth and adequacy of the system used.

A student accepts the teaching given, as a shopkeeper accepts a five pound note. These teachings do not pretend to be the truth. They are a token of the truth. A five pound note has behind it the Bank of England; the genuine Mystery teachings have behind them the experiences of the initiated gained by the labours of many minds during many a millennium.

But here the analogy ends; for the shopkeeper accepts his note and there is no further need for action on his part. The student, however, as soon as he is qualified, must proceed to verify through personal experience all that he has been taught. For that is the only way of realizing initiation.

The student must become a pragmatist in the sense that William James was one. It is useless to become one by way of philosophical conviction, like a college don. The neophyte is like a motorist passing his test to get a licence … a practising pragmatist.

A Mystery school issues (or should be able to!) a driving licence which will enable the student to fare forth upon the roads that lead to the unseen. A genuine school is not a place for the issuing of weak tea to pale students, and its students should not expect tea, chatter and uplift to be the chief reason for their enrolment. Let it be said here and now: Mystery training in practical inner plane work is difficult, tedious, and not to be taken lightly. A question often asked of a teacher is, 'How am I to get this personal experience?' The answer is always the same. The student must have a clear idea of how much he is prepared to sacrifice in order to realize his purpose. He must be prepared to master one system completely, then give a thorough and prolonged testing. He must fill his mind with the imagery he is told to use, and not go wandering off on his own because it looks more fun! He must stick with one system until he is its master. These three things, plus trust in the teacher, and confidence in himself, will take him to that throne on which is seated the star-crowned, moon-girt Queen of the Subtle Planes.

He is now striving to 'know the self through the self'; he is entering upon the third stage of initiation and this has an objective as well as the subjective aspect. He is seeking to suckle at the star-girt breasts of that great entity known to the Egyptians as Nut, Queen of Heaven.

The techniques by which the mystical process above described is attained will be unfolded gradually, given more by implication than by direct assertion. It aims at developing the picture consciousness and the method is by drawing, in vague outline, word pictures taken from ancient myth. These pictures educe long-buried memories and gently draw them out into full consciousness, as the student fills in the details himself.

This system has the advantage that once concentration and meditation have become easy and natural, it is a simple matter to try it out. For example, spend half a dozen meditations in building up in the imagination the Great Mother as she was just described, and see what your feelings are with regard to her. If this does not appeal to you because it is too vague and shadowy, then try the following.

Think over the symbol of Hermes and see what reaction it will stir within you. Look up just what the symbol stood for in the past, and what it stands for today. What are your emotional reactions? Have you any feeling regarding this caduceus, its history and its meanings? What are your feelings about it and the Lord of Wisdom?

Next examine the symbolism of the Pan, and when you have done that, think upon the Christos in the same way. Notice that if you can personalize these three sets of symbols, or if you can realize that all three are names of and symbols for an office in nature, this will bring you back to Isis, who is Nut the Great Mother, the Bright Fertile Mother of the Qabalists. These things are cosmic aspects of the Soul of the Mother, so they are also aspects of your own soul. They work unseen, and often unrecognized, in your innermost being. When you consider this, consider how you feel about them.

If you cannot manage this, let me suggest a way in which you may start with a clean sheet on your journey to the Great Mother. Picture yourself standing before a dustbin which has its lid closed. See yourself lifting the lid, and throwing into the bin symbolically all your preconceived notions and beliefs concerning these four symbols. Make a clean sweep of the past, and remember what Jesus ben Joseph once said: 'Except ye come as little children, in no wise shall ye enter the Kingdom of

Heaven.'

In order to travel the inner roads you must shed all prejudice. Shed the burden of your 'settled' convictions. The path is too narrow for such bulky burdens. As a little child you must go to the Bright Mother, or give up for this incarnation the vision of Her as recorded in Revelations, for the fruit of the Tree of Life is not the same as that of the Tree of Knowledge.

So many mistake conscious knowledge for the consciousness of Life. Conscious knowledge is the fruit of experience in the physical world. To know the life force you must stand beneath the Tree of Life and pluck its fruit. It grows in gardens set in those moonlit purple-shaded mountain lands which form the antechamber of the Great Mother. And you must pass through that chamber if you want to see her as the Woman Clothed with the Sun.

Fechner taught that this planet is a living organism. It is the outward physical body of a cosmic entity that is intelligent and purposive. It has its own collective unconscious which is wider than that of a man. It is one of those vaster orders of mind that go with the vaster orders of body.

'The earth on which we live has its own collective consciousness,' says Fechner. So must each sun, moon and planet. So the whole solar system must have its own wider consciousness, in which that of our earth must play its part. The entire starry system concurs with this idea, thus the whole system, along with whatever else may be, is the body of that totalized consciousness of the universe men call God. (W. James, A Pluralistic Universe, p. 152.)

As an exercise designed to open up your inner mind, build this picture every day, time and time again. When you can feel and understand it as life, and when it reacts upon you emotionally, then you have taken that first step on the path that will end when you place your head on the breast of the Great Mother, and taste for yourself the cosmic life that incarnates through Her in this physical world.

We are all familiar with the phrase 'Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust'. It exactly describes the relationship between your body and the body of our Mother the Earth. But go further and see if you are ready to acknowledge that your life force is an integral part of her life forces, that your etheric is part of Her etheric.

This may be difficult until you have learned conscious control of your etheric body. And you learn to control it by thinking about it deliberately and repeatedly over a period of time - a simple but tedious and difficult exercise.

Again, your individualized mind is an integral part of the earth's much wider consciousness. This is the clue to the Earth Memory described by A.E. and the race memory theory of the more prosaic writers on biology and psychology.

Man, along with birds, beasts, reptiles, and the devas that rule over mountains, lakes and storms are, one and all, integral portions of the Earth Mind. We are all part of one another, and each can be made conscious of the other. If you know Greek you will realize what is not apparent in the English translation of the bible how Jesus personalized when he said to the stormy sea 'Siopa, pephimoso', which literally means 'Silence, be thou quiet'. He used the direct address. For he was a Lord of the Elemental Powers who are, as if men, nurslings at the breast of the Great Mother.

Elementals are not as closely imprisoned in the physical body as are men and animals. They are not, as we are, dust of her dust. But they are an integral part of Her Etheric, and Her Soul. They are not without consciousness, and understand a command and fulfil the laws of their being in the wider being of the Mother. Now: close your eyes and open your inner senses; turn your thoughts inwards, and open your inner senses. Do this calmly and trustingly like a child, and in time you will drink consciously of the star milk that flows from the breasts of Nut, who is Isis.

Part 3

The key that opens the door of the Temple of the Magna Mater is imagery, using this term as meaning figurative illustration. If you wish to open this door, you must fashion your own key - it is an ancient teaching that the pupil must fashion his own magical weapons. In this case the key symbolizes a stock of the right kind of images which you must then combine until you have something that is particularly your own. There is no such thing as mass production in the Mysteries. The Mysteries are for the few, something that is often forgotten; for the many there are 'uplifting' societies.

It is unwise in the early stages to concentrate exclusively on one type of imagery, so spread your net wide. The type of image that works best for you depends on the contents of your subconscious mind, and it is usual to spend some time on finding out what these are. Egyptian images suit some, while others prefer Greek or Chaldean. When you are more advanced you can work with almost any system, but there will also be one that will suit you best. At the same time, remember that it takes all kinds to make up a good working system of imagery, and they all tend to explain one another. If you turn to Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 1, Chapter 7, you will discover that the primeval gods of the Egyptian priesthood (but not of the common people) are the same as the primeval deities of the Assyrians. Though not much is known about either system when taken by itself, yet when the four pairs of gods belonging to the Assyrian 'Seven Tablets of Creation' are compared with the Paut (eight gods) of the Lord of Thoth of Hermopolis (i.e. Khemmenu), each system will throw light on the other.

The names of these inner realities vary, but the powers touched by meditation and ritual do not. Nut and Nu are used for their invocation in Egypt; Tiamat and Apzu-Rishtu are the 'calls' by which the primordial male and female powers of the astro-etheric planes of cosmic consciousness are awakened first in the psyche of the invoking worshipper and then in the psyche of the Magna Mater.

Those who are prepared to seek the inner kingdom of the Mother must amass their images by creative reading. That inner kingdom is to be found only in the inner chamber where can be heard the 'sound of gentle stillness' which is the literal translation of the Hebrew phrase given as 'the still small voice' in the account of Elijah's initiation by air, earth and fire on the Holy Mount of Horeb (Kings 19:12) where Moses took his initiation by fire a thousand years before.

Creative reading is something different from ordinary reading. In the former your object is neither reading for pleasure nor for information. You read with the object of filling the subconscious mind with selected images which are then built up and dropped down into the depths of the subconscious. They are placed there with the intention that after germinating for a while they will re-emerge when needed or called up.

You must be careful what images you select when using this method of preparing the mind, because it is very potent. It is a method for opening the unwritten books of the Lord Thoth. The knowledge that was once written on the Tablet of Thrice Greatest Hermes. But you must search for the Thoth within yourself and say - as did the ancient initiates - 'I know thee, Lord Tahuti, and Thou knowest me. I am Thou, and Thou art I.'

The seeker will find this Lord of the Mind of Man enthroned in the deepest abyss of his own essential nature, and in the dark purple depths of Cosmic Immensity, for Tahuti is the Lord of the Abyss beyond all Abysses.

This method of revivifying ancient images with one's own emotions can thoroughly upset the unstable. It is not intended for the pious sentimentalist or for the Western follower of Bhakti Yoga. But once this warning has been given we should add that to those who have counted the cost, there comes a joy and a fullness of life when using these symbol systems rightly, that cannot be described. It must be experienced to be fully understood. Only then can the initiate comprehend the Great Isis and realize, through Nut, the feminine power of Amen-Ra, the saying, 'I have truly loved you, and have longed to give you life.'

The mind can be stored with suitable images by reading the sacred books of all races, and studying the composite pictures, or mandalas, that the priesthoods constructed to enshrine the divine knowledge collected by personal experience. Also by reading poetry and novels written by those who know, for many poets have, through love of beauty, given us fragments of the Mystery of the Unseen. But few novelists have much real inner knowledge, and the popular occult novel is usually untrue and should be avoided.

The Egyptian symbol is the best to start with. Catholic Christianity has little in common with its supposed parent, Judaism - and, like its offspring, Protestantism, is a religion of the herd law. The former enshrines in its devotion to the Queen of Heaven a little of the ancient Mystery lore that gave to the Egyptian world its Morning Star. It is the Catholic devotion to the feminine principle that gives power to its rituals.

The student, in developing and using this method, must not forget to bring to the ancient teachings any knowledge he may have of psychology, for without a fair knowledge of esoteric psychology much of the inner meaning of these Mystery teachings may be missed. Their whole object was to enable the microcosm to take its rightful place in the macrocosm.

As an exercise, study Plate 243 in The Art of Ancient Egypt published by Phaidon Press of Vienna. Do not worry about the hieroglyphs; just take the symbols and let them speak to your inner mind. The picture is the reproduction of a relief inside the coffin of a priest. It shows Nut the Goddess of Heaven in the form of the arched body of a naked woman whose hands and feet touch the ground. Obviously, it is the sky arching over the limits of the horizon. On her body are three sun discs with the double uraeus, the sun at morning, midday and evening. Below on the horizon is a small man with immense outstretched arms drawn in the shape of the hieroglyph for the human Ka.

In the psychology of ancient Egypt the Ka stands for the 'genius' or spiritual double of a man. Looking at this picture we see that the goddess is shown as surrounding the priest's Ka as an oyster shell surrounds the oyster. The goddess forms a magical circle around the priest's spiritual body.

Remember that the priests thought of Nu, the invisible celestial ocean of primordial life essence, as the source of All that Is, the Father of the Gods, while Nut is his female manifestation. Again, we have the Hindu idea of Shiva and his Shakti, and the Ka of the priest is the Shakta worshipping and rejoicing in his new-found state of relationship with the life-giving influence of the Great Mother of all life. The two jackals beside the wavy lines that stand for Nu give us another hint. They are the guardians that stand by the door of the Temple of the Unseen, the House of Nut.

On a higher level, this picture represents that inner subtler world that surrounds and sustains this physical world as the earth's atmosphere surrounds and sustains a hovering hawk. Nut is the Ka and soul of this great Universal Mother. Nu is the unmanifested hidden ego of the Great Entity man calls Nature.

On a lower level, Nut is the inner, more subtle instrument of consciousness whereby man becomes aware of his own inner states as well as that of the higher Nut, of which he is an individual yet integral factor. These are the 'Archai' of the true Gnostic. Man lives physically, emotionally and mentally within the higher Nut, as a foetus lives within its mother's womb. But man as a cosmic ego is in, and with, Nu the Archetype of the Unmanifest; the Great Temple that is in the Wat guarded by Anubis of the north and Anubis of the South, is Nut, the Shakti of Nu; and the priest's Ka is Shakta the initiated worshipper, dead yet alive in and through Nut.

If a student will take any picture of the ancient gods and use it in the manner outlined above, that picture will start to live for him. With constant use, it will become magnetized for and by him, and thus will become his link with the Unseen Realities of which Nu and Nut are the Egyptian personifications. But remember that the magnetizing of such a picture is an emotional experience, and a mandala is not a mandala until it has become so magnetized.

As you work in this way, try to recapture the spirit of these Ancient Mysteries by remembering that for the them the universe - that is, Nut - was alive. This must soak into the mind until it becomes as real as hunger before a meal.

The stellar universe is alive, directed by will and controlled by intelligence. In many ways it is analogous to man's life, will and intelligence, but on a vaster scale. Within the collective within the latter are planetary spirits. Man, beasts, birds and intelligences of universes are the lesser ones of solar systems, and devas all go towards the making up of the collective intelligence that is Nut in her role of Magna Mater. This ancient teaching finds its best modern expression in Fechner's conception of a great reservoir in which all the consciousnesses of the lesser entities are pooled and yet remain as individualized portions of Nut.

Having realized this within your innermost being, construct a hidden and secret mandala embodying the truths faintly and dimly shadowed forth in the last paragraph. Make of it your own magnetizing instrument.

Part 4

In Algernon Blackwood's novel The Centaur (Chapter 13), there is the record of an experience gained while standing between the Portals of the Gates of Horn and Ivory, which because it ends in failure is extremely instructive. Let a student note that failures, constant failures, if carefully meditated upon, can become milestones on the road to success. Some achieve success almost without effort, yet their present success is often the fruit of failures, and meditation upon the same in lives now long past and forgotten. So never despair. Carry on in faith, for faith means confidence in the technique you are using.

Once you have tasted the freedom of the Proto-world, which the Germans call the Urwelt, or - as the Egyptian Initiate would have said - drunk of the star milk that flows from the breasts of Nut, then that nostalgia, which is the lost subconscious knowledge of one's polarity with the Real and Inner, will vanish. Many men and women have rushed into matrimony through mistaking the call of the Proto-world for the natural longings of the senses.

It was the peace of the Magna Mater which they sought, but not being made free of her Temple, they found only the discord of unharmonized wedlock. If you have ever cried as did O'Malley in The Centaur, 'Oh that I could be with him where he is now, in that place of eternal youth and companionship,' then you know what is meant by nostalgia.

There is a 'Beloved' who is beyond time and space as known to physical consciousness, and The Centaur has been the means of opening the Gate of Horn and Ivory to many who have felt the call of the 'Beloved' in the Urwelt, but did not recognize it at first. But once they passed through that gate which is called 'The Eye of the Needle', they found the gift of Isis which is serenity even in the midst of conflict - a serenity that comes from the depths of man's inner being. Because it comes from within and not from without, the gift is very potent.

The terror of a great freedom caught him, a freedom most awfully remote from the small personal existence he knew today ... for it suggested, with awe and wonder, the kind of primitive utterance that was before speech or … language, when emotions were too vague and mighty to be caught by words, but when beings, close to the heart of their Great Mother, expressed the feelings, enormous and complex, of the greater life they shared with Her, projections of the very Earth herself... with a crash in his brain, O'Malley stopped. These thoughts, he realised, were not his own. (The Centaur, p. 94.)

There are many who know well how nature, when we are in the wild places, comes stealthily nearer with a riot of silent beauty. Through closed eyes in green beechwoods, feelings steal upon us that bring an awareness of some vital essence of the place that discharges itself into the receptive human soul. Something that recharges the human battery that modern town life causes to run down. There is a tingling at the nape and a prickling in the thumbs. Then a glow as from a great inner fire warms one's being. A deep sense of the greatness and goodness of nature's vast life steals over one, and the pagan who knows this feeling says, 'This place is divine. Here the Old Ones are still with us.'

How accurately Blackwood describes the 'crash in the brain', which comes with a sudden and unexpected return from the bright hinterland beyond the inner horizon, where strange roads go down. There is the awful sense of some lost loveliness that comes with the opening of the physical eyes, and how drab and drear are the things that meet the eyes that have been sealed, and then unsealed by the Mystery techniques.

The more one meditates, especially in a place set apart for the purpose, the clearer and stronger becomes the state where shines the sun at midnight. These pitiful attempts to describe things seen and felt in one state of consciousness in terms of another and dimmer state are totally inadequate. There is, however, no other way of conveying the 'things not seen' unless you are prepared to go through the Gate of the Eye of the Needle. It can be done, is done, often. But a student who is still a beast of burden cannot pass through this narrow gate that leads to the Inner Planes. One must go through the long period of purgation in order to loose from one's back the immense burden of second-hand knowledge that the blind teachers of blind faiths have slung upon the shoulders of those they are supposed to educate in the essentials of religion.

Jesus as a Lord of the Elemental Powers had much to say about priesthoods that lay burdens upon the laity and lift not a finger to ease them. The modern priest will talk about his 'sure and certain hope' and then persecute all who try to turn this feebleness of hope into the power of certainty.

You have to be able to use your religion for yourself and by yourself in a practical way before you can help those weaker than yourself. Jesus said, 'I am come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.' And he gave the technique of the Upper Chamber to His followers, in order that they might be able to pass the narrow gate into the Greater Light, and on to the slopes of the Hill of Vision. The imagery used by this great teacher who meditated at night in the lonely purple hills above the moon-silvered Lake of Galilee is the same as the pagans of His time and ours.

Use the creative reading technique to educe the meaning of these words: 'But O'Malley rolled into his own berth without undressing, sleep far from his eyes. He had heard the Gates of Horn and Ivory swing softly upon their opening hinges, and the glimpse he caught of the garden beyond made any question of sleep impossible. Again he saw those shapes of cloud and wind flying over the long hills.' (The Centaur, p. 88.)

Once this gate is behind you and you stand on the garden-like slopes beyond, there comes a sense of vastness and freedom. You see the vision of life and feel yet more life on the long, blue mountain ranges where the devas and their electromagnetic auras tell of one and the same thing - exhilarating life.

Those who have stood on the extreme tip of a ten thousand foot crag and looked across the blue rain-washed landscape of the monsoon-swept Himalayas will know what is being hinted at here in this halting imagery of the earth plane.

Those who have done so under these conditions and who have then found themselves consciously enfolded within the living etheric body of the deva ruling over such a place will know something that truly is, yet can never be fully described. But the genius of Algernon Blackwood has almost caught it in the following lines:

The narrow space of that little cabin was charged already to the brim, filled with some overpowering loveliness of wild and simple things. The beauty of the stars and wind and flowers, the terror of the seas and mountains; strange radiant forms of gods and heroes, nymphs, fauns and satyrs; the fierce sunshine of some unspoilt Golden Age ... it was the Urwelt calling. (The Centaur, p. 95.)

This is the type of imagery with which the student, by means of creative reading, must fill his mind before he can exchange old images for new. Only after years of teaching does one realize what an extraordinary effect the 'rational' methods of education have had upon the mental make-up of those educated within the last forty years. Thought is almost entirely conducted in words and phrases. This is alright so long as it is just the conscious mind that is being used, though the wide use of memory systems which depend on imagery show that its deficiencies are recognized. But in art and the creative sciences imagery is all-important, for the artist has to create out of the old a new and splendid system of his own.

One quick and easy way to train the image-making faculty is to blindfold yourself and then, trusting to your memory, move about the room changing the position of small articles on shelves, bookcases, etc. Another is to make an image of yourself walking over to a table, then change, in the imagination, the things on the table. If you keep a record of your successes and failures, in a very short time your subconscious mind will become quite expert at image building. It must never be forgotten that the motive power of the subconscious mind is stirred by imagery and not by reason or words.

It is imagery and not conscious reasoning that makes the connection between the objective macrocosmic powers and the subjective microcosmic power that is man. It has been said that the linking of these two types of power cannot be carried out in the heart of a city, but it is necessary to go out into the country to worship the powers of the Great Mother.

This is an erroneous supposition. Provided you have a mind well supplied with the correct imagery it is easier to tune into the elemental powers of nature in the silence of your own room than to touch the same powers in the dim light of a midge-haunted wood. You go to the woods to collect the feel and imagery of the place. Then you store it until it is needed.

It is, however, the attitude of worship, adoration and devotion for the Great Mother that really links the microcosmic imagery to the macrocosmic reality. To slip into the swiftly flowing tide of experience best attempted by the beginner in the silence of his ecstasy that comes with the knowledge of the Goddess is an own room, working under prepared and protected conditions. In the woods he is at the mercy of the forces that function in that place, unless he is of a high degree of experience.

You can work in the open and reap there a rich harvest by opening the sluice gates of your soul to the ebb and flow of the cosmic tides. But this worship of the outer world should be looked on as a preparation for the moment when the priest and priestess, standing before the empty shrine, deliberately fill that emptiness with the presences that are called forth by invocation and the correct use of the creative imagination from the Urwelt, i.e. the antechamber of the great moon deities, Isis, Osiris, Khensu and Tahuti. A sound technique for using the imagery given here is a winged steed or a magic carpet that will bear you far and wide to a realm where time and space as we know them do not exist.

Your body may rest in the comfortable stillness of deep meditation in a dingy flat in some great city. But by the use of such techniques the bonds that bind and fetter the far wandering soul can be eased sufficiently to enable it to range once more through past ages and scenes.

The great civilizations of the past are housed in the wide halls of memory that form the mansions of the Great Moon Mother. You can walk in their temples, and go about the sacred tasks that once were yours.

You can take a broken and dismantled shrine, that has virtually disappeared from the physical world, and by your adoration and loving labour rebuild it. You can go there night after night when the right tides are flowing and as priest and priestess cause the thrown-down double cube to stand upright, the sacred light to burn again upon the altar, the broken pillars and sacred symbols in the temple garden to become whole once more. Even the shrubs and flowers that once bloomed there will return to life as you pour into their inner plane forms your own power of creative imagery. This is union with the Magna Mater.

It is worship in the ancient way of the dedicated priest or priestess that works such miracles. It has been taught that where two or three are gathered together for the worship of a Holy Name, there the Great Powers are awakened. The solitary mystic can do much to awaken ancient memories, but if he remains solitary he remains barren and his reawakened powers will perish with the body. It takes at least two and really three to bring the living fire back upon the altar. It can be done as Shakti and Shaktas, the goddess and her two priests, one of which is the initiated priest who is permanently on the Inner Levels; the latter directs the power and holds the balance of the scales marked 'Here' and 'Yonder'.

When both priest and priestess are in their earthly sanctuary, then the two halves and four quarters are in polarized function as Shiva, Shakti and the two Shaktas. Thus are the ancient altars served and their lamps kept burning.

Fanatics who think that they honour the One God by defiling another's conception of Him may destroy the walls, break the altar and extinguish the lamp; but those children of the Mother who, in the past, have held the right of entry into Her sanctuary can rebuild it all again. Once Her priest, always Her priest; once Her priestess, always Her priestess. Such, when their memory returns, the Mother will welcome back to the innermost shrine. Service is their right of entry. There are many initiations and many Mysteries, but the road is closed unless you serve Her.

Part 5

'Qui vit sans folie n'est si sage qu'il croit,' said La Rochefoucauld. The ways to the sanctuary of the Great Mother are many, but all have this in common: they lie along roads that wind below the horizon of full working consciousness. So the first task in hand is the crossing of that horizon. This latter, visible to the physical eye, is an imaginary line beyond which sight does not function, and it draws away as you approach it. The invisible line of the horizon of waking consciousness is also an imaginary line that recedes if approached through the reasoning faculties. But by using deep meditation it is as easy to reach and cross that line in the waking state as it is in your nightly sleep.

It takes a long time to learn this technique; some take months and even years to cross it consciously. It took the writer many years to achieve the first conscious crossing. But once mastered, this technique can still the mind at will, and the crossover can be made in moments.

Success or failure depends on the use of your creative imagination. All horizons are imaginary, be they physical, astral or mental; none can be crossed except by the use of images. But do not confuse imagination with the fantastic. The former is real on its own plane, the latter is not. The human imagination is a divine thing, a Pegasus that can carry you up and through the subtle planes to wherever you wish to go. But uncontrolled fantasy is a disease of the mind. Controlled imagination is a clue to the phenomenon of genius.

Let us use this faculty and make our conscious way along the strange road that lies below the horizon that lies within the soul of each one of us.

Picture clearly a steep, dark limestone cliff in the face of which is a cave. In many religions the source of their power is sought in a cave or dark place such as an underground stable. Mithras, Jesus and Dionysus were all said to have been born in such places. A temple of the Mysteries was also placed below ground whenever possible for good practical reasons.

The entrance to the cave is small, narrow and low. A single stunted tree, a thorn covered with white blossom, rises on a ledge just above the cave mouth. You cannot climb the cliff. You can only advance by way of the cave.

In India, Buddhist sanctuaries are cut into the living rock of certain hills facing west. At sunset, the dark sanctuary is aflame with the light of the setting sun. Every detail of the Buddha's image can be seen by one who sits within and a little to one side. If you stand in a doorway, the shrine will remain dark. You must go right on, and into the darkness, if you are to see the Buddha in the light. Get this picture clear, because it is the symbol of a great truth, and an important step in the preliminary technique of this kind of work. If you are to see the light dawning in the darkness of the shrine, you yourself must be in the shrine and in the dark. You must cross far beyond the threshold to be able to see the divine light that fills what is known as the Moon Cave. The picture is a statement of inner as well as outer phenomena.

The Moon Cave exists only within your own soul and you must sit in the imagination in that cave which is the shrine of the Moon-God, the source of Moon Wisdom, and you must go through it to reach the sanctuary of the Magna Mater. Build this picture often and with care.

In certain lights, generally when there is stormy weather about, and in tropical countries, the moon can appear to change colour, first appearing as a huge green moonstone, one moment white, the next shot through with dull red, blue, green and yellow streaks. It changes so rapidly you may think your eyes are playing tricks. Now build the second picture. See the moon as an immense globe glowing like a moonstone, changing in hue and brightness. Imagine it growing larger and larger until it seems to fill all space; and see your own tiny figure seated in meditation at its centre. Now only you and the moon exist; all else has vanished. You are now like a moon initiate meditating in the Moon Cave. You are now potential moon wisdom, a potential source of moon power, an image and a likeness of Thoth the Egyptian Lord of Wisdom and the Moon sphere. See yourself in this way, clad as a priest of Thoth wearing the horned moon, carrying the crook and flail, and seated at the centre of a glowing sphere.

When you can do this thoroughly, you will find that much of the instruction given in Chapters 5 and 6 of Iamblichus' Egyptian Mysteries will take on a new and more intelligible meaning. If you are persevering and fortunate, the gods themselves may visit you in the Moon Cave.

Do not expect to do all this at once. It means patient work for a long time before the imagery will really live for you. In the early stages, the value of the exercise lies in the concentration it demands and in the exercise it gives to your will-power when you slog at it day after day. These exercises are like those used in physical training. It is the daily grind joyfully done for the sheer love of the task that does the building. Rejoice in the trouble you are taking and see it as progress along the way. Now you are ready for the next part. But not too soon, it is so easy to construct an image that looks alright, but which will not hold power without leaking - a dangerous state of affairs.

The next stage is the acquiring of power. Shiva must have his Shakti or the universe will be stillborn. The thinker must have his image clearly formed or his words will be without power. You must now build an instrument for conserving power within yourself. You have built the cave of the Moon-God. This gave you potential wisdom. Now you must build the Cave of Power within that Moon Cave which is the cave of wisdom. Power without wisdom and understanding always brings destruction. Only those who fear power can hope to use it well.

Build a replica of the great Moon Cave of Thoth and place it within your own aura. This replica built around yourself will enable you to capture, hold and concentrate the positive moon powers of the Great Mother and he who serves Her, Thoth, Lord of Wisdom. This image will help you to turn potential into actual. It will also act as a safety valve when you are under pressure. This is the reason why the images must be built again and again with clarity of thought and intensity of will-power. Realization of what this can mean will come quickly when you begin practical work.

By repeatedly building this mental picture in your mind of the cave of power with yourself sitting within, you will slowly build your own instrument for touching the powers of the unseen. And do not forget, it is as necessary to be able to repel unwanted power as to attract that which is wanted.

All this is symbolism, not a statement of fact or physical happening, so you are merely trying to awaken by imagery the powers of your subconscious mind. These inner powers will then put you into contact with the soul of Mother Earth. The vast moonstone that glows in your imagination is a talisman that will persuade your subconscious mind to play its part. Earth and the moon are considered in the Mysteries to share the same etheric. The moon is positive and the earth negative. In man the subconscious mind relates to the moon sphere. It is a vast reservoir of psychic power which must be carefully handled. Hence the imagery of the small moon sphere. You can control the smaller sphere fairly easily once you have personalized it, and made it a living part of your being. If you build it with care you will be able to increase and decrease its power flow with the moon tides. Every force that flows into the aura of the earth sphere from the immensities of outer space directly affects man's aura.

This opalescent globe becomes in time as much your sphere of sensation with regard to the inner planes, as your skin is the sphere of sensation for your physical body. You can train this aura to become aware on all levels. You can open all your inner senses, and by doing so you learn to act consciously in the non-material spheres of this universe. You are trying to gain control of your inner senses, and to aid you in this you have just been given a series of word pictures which to many will appear to be pure fantasy.

For you these pictures need not remain fantasy. You can 'rise from earth's centre through the Seventh Gate' if you are prepared to spend time and effort in building them until they build themselves within you of their own accord. These exercises are not easy to do, but it is a joy to watch them come alive in your mind with each passing day.

To rise through the Seventh Gate, you must link these exercises as soon as possible to one or other of the Mystery systems. Turn back to page 204, where you will find the description of Nut; re-read this, and if possible look at the picture from which it was taken. Then take another step in your training.

On the portico of the Great Temple of Isis on the Island of Phile, there is a sculpture which can be used to make a link with the Egyptian Mysteries. It can also be used to develop the system hinted at in this chapter. The sculpture consists of two nude figures of Nut with a smaller female figure enclosed within the others.

The first and largest is Nut. She is bent so as to form three sides of a square, and the ground on which she rests her fingers and feet forms the fourth side. On her body are the three winged discs mentioned earlier. The next figure is in the same attitude, but smaller, and she has two tiny female figures holding two boats, one at each end of the torso. It may be that these boats are moon boats. The third figure is within the second figure, and shows a woman (or it could be a man) with the back of her head and neck flat on the ground. The body and legs are curled over the face so that the back of the head touches the toes. The arms are outspread in opposite directions with the fingertips of the left hand touching the feet of the largest figure, and those of the right hand touching the fingers of the second figure.

Notice that the third figure is the reverse of the other two. It is contracted whilst they are extended. It faces up; they look down. Its back touches the earth; theirs forms the sky.

What this symbol meant to the man who designed it we can only guess at. Some think it refers to Osiris and his two mothers; some think it symbolizes the soul of man within the greater soul of the Mother Goddess, which in turn forms part of the still greater soul of the Solar Deity. This latter may be the best explanation for such ideas were widespread at the time. It probably had many meanings, as the priest who used it passed up through the ranks of the priesthood.

So far as the student is concerned, he would do well to take a pencil and attempt to draw this picture, even if just the barest outline. It will then link with the word pictures that have been given and will provide him with a powerful mandala. A mandala built in this manner is the key that Omar Khayyam was unable to find. It will not only unlock the door that barred his way, but it will enable you to see through that veil past which he could not see. That door is within your own soul and you must forge your own key to it.

The veil which blinded Omar, and his translator Fitzgerald, is only opaque for those whose eyes are dulled by excessive devotion to earthly wisdom. The dull clod lying in the winter-sown cornfield is soon covered by the green veil of nature. For the initiate this veil becomes translucent. Pass through it, and you I will arrive at the state of consciousness that will enable you to read and understand the following verses.

But leave the Wise to wrangle, and be with me.

The quarrel of the Universe let be:

And, in the corner of some hubbub croucht,

Make game of that which makes as much of thee.

For in and out, above, about, below,

'Tis nothing but a magic lantern show

Played in a box whose candle is the Sun,

Round which we phantom figures come and go.

You begin with the phantom figures it is true, but if you will try, and give time and effort to the tasks that have been set before you, then the Great Ones of the Night of Time will, for you, cause Khephra to rise as Horus of the Horizon, and then the inner horizon will be left behind you.

Part 6

In fancy this tireless child thought of leaping from crest to crest of the long blue waves of hills. Why could he not do it? He imagined the run and the mad gathering of power for the leap, and in the very act of imagining he had left the body behind. What had happened? The air in which he floated was vibrant with timeless melody, a sound as beautiful and universal as the light. Where was he? The Earth was vanishing, swallowed up in a brightness as fiery as the sun; mountains and crags were fading from vision as if consumed by the ecstasy of the fire. A moment more and he would have passed from the illusion of boyhood. He was reaching up to some immeasurable power which was himself when consciousness faded. When he awoke again he heard voices speaking above him.

'It is time to waken him. The seer cannot be held to the eyes, the being cannot be held to the body.'

He looked up. He saw a figure thrice the height of mortals, a body gleaming as if made of gold and silver air. It was winged with flame above the brows. The eyes which looked upon him were still as if they had gazed only upon eternities. The boy cried, and knew not why he uttered the words: 'I know you, Shepherd of the Starry Flocks. What soul do you now draw from the Abyss?'

(A.E., The Avatars, p. 31.)

Here is an experience with two aspects, not very uncommon. To many come these visions of the Children of the Great Mother. They are real for the seer with a reality that remains long after the actual happenings. The author can remember clearly such a vision and still feels the emotion that it generated many years ago. The lofty Himalayan crag upon which it happened can still be seen, but the happenings of that day have gone. The experience gave a fleeting but potent glimpse of the Great Mother and Her Children, for there are many shepherds and many starry flocks just within the Veil covering more or less densely the earth's surface.

The second aspect is that of leaping the gulf between this world and the next. Always there is the effort and the leap, then a sense of timelessness and stillness as one touches the Beyond. Once you have had such an experience the question of its reality or non-reality will not worry you. It will enable you to project your consciousness from Here to Yonder as did the ancient initiates.

It is important to make clear that no attempt has been made to teach the student anything new, or to give him any fresh knowledge. Many Christian writers have disparagingly pointed out that in the rites of the Ancient Mysteries the appeal was to the eye, the imagination and the emotions, and not to the intellect, which shows how completely the main purpose of the Mysteries and Mystery drama has been misunderstood by non-initiated Christian writers. (See Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity.)

The main purpose was not, as Angus has stated, to induce the initiate through the substitution of personality (by hallucination or suggestion) to experience his identification with Deity. Angus is making a very wild guess, for he himself has written: 'An awful obligation to perpetual secrecy as to what was said and transacted behind closed doors in the initiation proper was imposed. An obligation so scrupulously carried out that through the centuries not one account of the secrets of the Holy of Holies of the Mysteries has come down to gratify the curiosity of the historian.' (p. 78.)

Many writers build theories upon nescience. This is unwise, for definite nescience is only the state of not knowing. It can know nothing except that it 'knows nothing'. Do not be hypnotized by the authority that enhaloes a great master of ignorance, who in the name of science says: 'I do not know, therefore you cannot know, it does not exist.' Remember the Age of Pisces is past, the fishy age of blind obedience to blind leaders. The new Age is that of Aquarius, the free man. Seek your own freedom by thinking for yourself and refuse to carry the burdens that have come down to us from the past of other people's psychopathologies and repressions.

In developing your imagination and storing your mind with potent imagery, try books written by modern men and women of vision, those who are the prophets of the new age. Quarry from them rough imagery, then refashion it for your own special needs. Let it sink deep into your inner self until it becomes the still small voice of your higher self. Above all, accept no dogmas, and trust no religion or sect that maintains any form of dogma, for such is death to spiritual evolution.

For the purposes of creative reading use above all A.E., the prophet of the Celtic races. His works are of special value, for he goes right to the heart sanctuary of the group minds of these Islands. Like Blackwood he writes from first-hand experience. Neither of these authors gives you a rehash of other men's writings. If they write about the great nature-spirits that can be seen in the valleys of lonely Connemara, or upon the green and purple heather-covered mountains of the Highlands, you may be sure they write about something they have seen with their own eyes.

Both men have seen and felt and experienced the things they describe. Both have the gift of vivid imagery that enables them to pass on what they have seen, if only in reduced terms. A.E. once told me that he had seen these forms of the Children of the Great Mother long before he wrote about or painted them. He was soaked with their influence. He wrote:

He had journeyed on and on over an earth rich with lakes and woods, misty with light, over mountains that in the evening sun seemed to ascend in flame. They were calling to him to become one with them. It was then that he first felt that their beauty was transparent. Some Being, remote yet intimate, peered at him from the depths of Air. The apparitions of light, cloud, mountain and wood underwent a transfiguration into life of a vaster remoter self or overself to his own being. (The Avatars, p. 2.)

Here A.E. is writing about that fountain out of Hecate, Ireland. Fechner not many years earlier had touched upon the same sources of power in middle Europe:

On a certain morning I went out for a walk. The fields were green, the birds sang, and here and there a man appeared; a light as of transfiguration lay on all things. It was only a little bit of earth, one moment of her existence, yet my look embraced her more and more. It seemed to me that not only was she beautiful, but that she was an angel in very fact. So rich and flower-like, yet going around in the skies so firmly and at one with herself, turning her whole living face to Heaven and carrying me with her into that Heaven. I asked myself how the opinions of men could ever have spun themselves away from life so far as to deem the earth just a dry clod, and seek for angels in the emptiness in the sky. But such an experience as this passes for fantastic among those who have not felt her kiss. The earth is a globular body that may be found in mineralogical cabinets. (James, A Pluralistic Universe, Chapter 4, 'Concerning Fechner'.)

All the world is a fountain out of Hecate for those who have the vision of the Mysteries. The vision may come in a beechwood on the flint-strewn Chilterns, or on the craggy cliffs of Devon and Cornwall, on the Tor at Glastonbury or in foggy London, no matter. Using what has been taught to you in these chapters you can recover all the power and ecstasy of first experience. With practice you can build in a crowded city a 'fountain out of Hecate' so strong that even modern civilization cannot orphan you out of the Magna Mater. In that fountain you can bathe in the living waters of life.

Much of A.E.'s work was done in dirty Dublin. Yet how many his writings rendered capable of self-initiation into a nature mysticism it is impossible even to guess at. But many drank at his 'fountain' and found the waters pure and clear. For Hecate is the World Soul, the Mother of Souls, the Wheel of Ever Becoming. A study of A.E.'s writing will show that he was well aware of the Chaldean Oracles and drew much of his symbolism from them. In memories hidden deep from us mortals in the bosom of the Great his essay 'The Architecture of Dream' he tells us that he touched world interpenetrating ours where another sun is glowing, and Mother, and how he did it: 'Sometimes I even speculate on a other stars are shining over other woods, mountains, rivers, and another race of beings.' (Ibid, p. 96.) This is a mental picture which brought him much because he knew how to use it. There is no reason why, if you read it with care, you should not use it in a like manner. Or take, as did Elijah, A.E., and many others, the initiation into earth, water, fire and air when you are on the 'High Places'.

Such books as these are worthy of deep study through creative reading. They will throw much light on the subject of imagery, as you read them in the quiet of your room. Close your eyes and try to see those Shining Ones as did A.E. and Blackwood. Feel with them the flaming glories they knew at first hand and strive to realize with your own picture consciousness what this indescribable beauty must have meant to them. Be in sympathy with them, for sympathy in the sense of feeling with is the gate of understanding, which is the seventh gate that leads to the Throne of Binah and Saturn.

Let us return again to The Centaur:

And watching him O'Malley felt that this loosening portion of himself... began to grow and spread. Within some ancient fold of earth's dream consciousness they both lay caught. In some mighty dream of Her Planetary Spirit, dim, immense, slow-moving, they played their parts of wonder. He was conscious of a sudden wild inclination to use his own arms and legs in a way he had never known before, but which felt familiar. The balance and adjustment of his physical frame sought to shift and alter; neck and shoulders surged forward, there came a prickling in the loins, a rising of the back, a thrusting up and outwards of the chest. He felt that something grew within him with a power that sought to impel or drive him in advance and out across the world at a terrific gait. His hearing became intensely acute. While his body moved ordinarily, he knew that a part of him that was not body moved ... otherwise. That he neither walked nor ran, nor stepped upon two feet, but ... galloped. The motion proclaimed his kin with the flying shapes upon the hill, he cantered... the experience lasted but a minute, this swift, free motion of the escaping Double.

If Sagittarius is the sign rising on the ascendant at your birth, if you have been haunted by dreams of a glorious galloping freedom, of chasing across wide sweeping purple hills lighted only by a star-crowned darkness, if you have felt in moments of ecstasy that you were not a man on a horse, but a manhorse, then you too have entered the realms of the Soul of the Great Mother.

Blackwood has given many a soul whose waking life is a weary grind, the power to know something of the glory of the silver stars, the winds of night and the fierce joy of galloping free upon the world's wide way.

Build the Mystery sign of Mutable Fire, ruled by Jupiter, the thunderbolt-hurling god of the wide spaces. The gifts of the gods to Sagittarians include high spirits, a love of the outdoors, restlessness, and a love of travelling to far-off places, physically and astrally....

Such imagery will open for you the gate leading to the Garden of the Temple of the Mother. You may stay in this garden and in it dwell her astral star-bright children. But if you wish to see and serve the gods, then you must push deeper into the centre of the garden until you come to an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, the roadway of the gods.

In front of you, you will see a high Pylon Gate in which is a narrow door. As you stand in front of it a priest of Horus and a priest of Anpu will appear. They are you, and you are they, for are you not the guardian of your own inner door? Ask these priests for the Word that will admit you to Her Temple. Ask permission to knock upon the door. Here you may wear the sacred dress, and dance the sacred dances, be able to say: 'I have seen the empty sanctuary.'

There is no power outside yourself that can make you stay without the Pylon Gate if you want the Mysteries with all your heart. In his book Suggestion and Auto-Suggestion Baudouin writes: 'Still more slowly comes the recognition that in reflective auto-suggestion scientifically applied, we have the faith that can move a mountain.'

In worlds that are mental or even spiritual as well as in this physical world, Baudouin's dictum holds good. Reflective auto-suggestion scientifically applied during the course of your creative reading will take you, guided by Anubis Within who Opens the Way, through the narrow door into the Outer Court of the Temple set within the garden lying deep within an ancient fold of the dream consciousness of the Magna Mater, and also of yourself.