PART II
of The Book which is called
THE TABLETS OF AETH OF THE TEN PLANETARY RULERS
PART II
Here beginneth Chapter I of the Second Part of the Book which is called “The Tablets of Aeth,” wherein is transcribed the First Trinity of the Planetary Rulers.
“The human heart is the true temple of God; enter ye into your temples and illumine them with good thoughts. The sacred vessels, they are your hands and your eyes. Do I say that which is agreeable to God–doing good to your neighbors? But, first embellish wherein dwells He, who gave you life.” —-
“How small soever your lamp be, never give away the oil which feeds it, but only the light and flame, which crown it.”
TABLET THE FIRST
The Sun
SYMBOL
A flaming splendor, a center of light, radiating in all directions.
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TABLET THE FIRST
The symbol of all created life, spiritual and material; of all goodness, human or Divine; the center of all thought, from brutal instinct to Deific wisdom; of all creations, from starry systems to man, and from man back again to invisible gas; of all action, from the imperceptible vibrations of nerve energy to the awful destruction of worlds. All creative potency lies within a Sun sphere. Light is life. The planets are but the offspring of light and life. So in this symbol, we read the source of the human Ego, of our own life. We are, as it were, the planets of the spiritual Sun. Our souls are the attributes of the Sun, of the spiritual Ego. Only from the Ego can we receive life eternal and make immortality a fact. Obeying this spiritual life-force, the human monad is but an attribute, a reflection, of the Divine Ego, and if it fails to awake to a consciousness of this union, it withers and dies like a flower plucked from the parent tree of life.
O child of Adam, in reverence and awe do thou meditate upon this Tablet, for it is a thing of beauty, a being of light, life and love, manifesting its creative mission. It is the Vicegerent of God, flaming forth His splendors in the sky.
TABLET THE SECOND
Mercury
SYMBOL
An elephant, kneeling between two square columns; on one an eagle, on the other a vulture.
At the side a boy, with bow and arrows, standing in doubt which to shoot.
Below these a human face, composed of various flowers, whose roots are snakes, a poppy, forming an eye, which winks.
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TABLET THE SECOND
A vision revealing the earthly drama of the microcosm. The elephant represents the highest expression of intelligence, minus the spirit; kneeling between the square columns of matter, i.e., guarded by them. The external mind is sleeping, or, at most, dreaming of the things of the spirit. Above sleeping mind sit the two birds, who represent spirit and matter, each waiting for the slowly preparing feast. The boy, the soul with its weapons, has a choice. Shall it be the sensuality of the flesh that he shall destroy, or the possibilities of the spiritual life on earth. The problem awaits solution. The eagle sits ready to bear aloft the spirit of the sleeper. The vulture hopes for sleep to end in death, that he may live upon the carrion thereof. The flowers of the external mind have for their roots the snakes; and, in a larger sense, the flowers of immortality have the serpent of wisdom for their roots. And the poppy winks. It knows its own power of illusion, and the double significance of the snake; the necessity of evil in the evolution of good. It is the Tablet of Wisdom.
O child of Adam! “Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
TABLET THE THIRD
Venus
SYMBOL
An altar: on it two cups, one full, the other spilled; near them two bleeding hearts, in one a snake, in the other a dagger.
Above–clouds, from which comes a woman’s face, a wreath in the hand, coming out of the cloud; in the wreath an angel, going upwards, with wings outspread.
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TABLET THE THIRD
There is but one altar, but one blood of the sacrament in two cups, but one flesh of the Christ–the Ego–in two hearts, two experiences in love, ecstacy, and pain; two results of experience, the serpent and the dagger, symbolizing wisdom and affliction. Above the altar the divine woman holds the wreath encircling the angel. The angel of immortal life rises from the altar of sacrifice. Some of the wine is spilled as offering. The cup that is filled is raised to “Ra.” To serve at the altar of love is the soul-mission of all, even as Christ served his disciples. Each soul must find its own service, and then the pilgrims of the Sun return to the mansions of the blessed. The great mother-god, Venus, Urania, quivers and thrills as she holds forth her offspring–the angel, the young Eros of life eternal.
O child of Adam, this is the Tablet of Love. Meditate thereon, as the last of the triune God. In this Tablet lies the secret of suffering and pleasure. He who vibrates in pain will quiver in ecstacy. Only those who have agonized in Hell can thrill in Heaven.
PART II
Here beginneth Chapter 2 of the Second Part of the Book which is called “The Tablets of Aeth,” wherein is transcribed the Second Trinity of the Planetary Rulers.
“Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice For a draught of milk; with the Maruts Come hither, O Agni!
They who know the great sky, the Visve Devas without guile; with those Maruts Come hither, O Agni!
They who are brilliant, of awful shape, Powerful, and devourers of foes; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!
They who in heaven are enthroned as gods, In the light of the firmament; with the Maruts Come hither, O Agni!”
“Let us meditate on the adorable light of the Divine Rulers. May it guide our intellects.”
TABLET THE FOURTH
The Moon
SYMBOL
NIGHT
A wonderful spider’s-web;
The web glitters in the faint moonlight against a dark background of blue; moon invisible; on the outside of web a star, in the center a spot of light, underneath a coffin filled with stones.
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TABLET THE FOURTH
The web of life has caught the monad of the soul and thus incarnated the universe, for each soul incarnates its universe at birth, each one’s world being different, and peculiar unto himself. At the first breath, the young child polarizes his relations to stars and earth, and it is the affinity and repulsion which make his life experience. And the stars weave the web in their lines of sextile, square and trine, of opposition and conjunction, thus enveloping the monad in the Circle of Necessity.
Outside the star of the spirit, the Ego, shines clear, free from the entanglements of the web and unaffected by the magnetic glamour of the Moon. And lo! the coffin is filled with stones, a symbol of death and the Moon, which is but a casket of stones. Therefore, little monad, caught in the tangle of the web of life and the glamour of earthly things, take heart, for, beyond all, is the star of your being. Call down the law of that star into yourself, and the web is broken and waves its tattered shreds in the breeze. The moonlight, the reflected light, pales as the Star-Sun of your being rises, and the moonlight of Earth gives place to the Sun-spheres of Ra.
O child of Adam! The beginning of sorrow is the dawn of spiritual life. The wise man rules the stars; the fools of Earth obey.
TABLET THE FIFTH
Mars
SYMBOL
An immense helmet on pedestal, across which a streak of lightning flashes; beside it a naked child painting pictures on the helmet; beneath, a broken sword.
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TABLET THE FIFTH
Can greater irony be shown than in this astral symbol. Mars is externally represented as a fierce warrior, awful to behold; the reality, a little child, painting toy pictures on the helmet, too big for his curly head. The lesson in this is indeed, that the pen is mightier than the sword; that the big and blustering helmet will become a plaything for the child. Soon, that the sword of bloodshed, rape, and ruin, will be broken and war relegated to the past, looked at, but, as pictures, painted with hideous reality by the childhood of the race.
The symbol also reveals the great executive forces of humanity, the child. The soul can paint, execute its ideas, its hopes and its fears in any color–the lurid red of blood, the black of ignorance and crime, or in the living light of beauty. All the same, it is the childhood of man painting its ideals in the material world.
O child of Adam, curb the anger of Mars, that thy painting may set the dove at liberty. Let the magic of thy soul transform the savage of the desert into the angel of mercy.
TABLET THE SIXTH
Jupiter
SYMBOL
A cave in the mountain side; a face like the sphinx comes out of the cave, there is a blackness behind it; it looks with upturned head to a light that is way beyond; it is a face that means something awful, a godlike defiance to the things that are.
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TABLET THE SIXTH
Again we are impressed with the contrast of internal and external things. Jupiter, the symbol of authority, conservatism, church, and state, and the stability of human institutions, and the things that are, as the things that are the best. But oh, how widely different the internal, the real Jupiter, that governing power of the spirit that hurls defiance at unjust authority, the cruelty and tyranny of the world. The soul sees the light beyond, and, emerging from the dark chasm of matter, knows the battle that must be fought against wrong. It is the awful–yea, terrible–symbol of defiance to gods and men who oppose its onward, upward march to the shining goal of light. Make way, then! Make way! For Earth has given birth to her giant son–the Spirit. For, listen closely, my friend, to the axiom of Immortality. What is soul? Not the spirit, mind you; not the deathless Ego, of which you at present, perchance, know absolutely nothing. Soul is mere memory; a scavenger in earthly states; and a gleaner, a hired help, in the fields of heaven; and to become immortal, there must be something more than soul as the result. It must take such a vital interest in its Lord’s work that, finally it becomes too valuable to lose, and must be taken into partnership, so to say. The Ego–Lord– has found a valued servant, a trusted steward, after much seeking, and at once adopts it as its very own. And so the soul becomes heir to the heavenly estate and receives the immortal, vital principle of spiritual union, and awakes from the son of Earth a God-like being, free from the shackles of Time–a dweller in eternity. The soul must awake and realize the Deific atom around which it revolves before it is too late. Unless this is so, the seed of immortal life, sown in matter by the Ego, has not germinated, and it returns unfruitful and dies–it is an abortion. Many, many seeds never germinate. Many good orthodox, but animal-like lives, live, move, and die,–yes, die in very truth. Would to God I could make all mankind realize this awful, inconceivable privilege of life, that, Jupiter-like, they would turn and face the light.
O child of Adam! “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.”
PART II
Here beginneth Chapter 3 of the Second Part of the Book which is called “The Tablets of Aeth,” wherein the Third, and last, Trinity of the Planetary Rulers is faithfully transcribed.
“Thou hast entered the immeasurable regions. I am the Dweller of the Threshold. What wouldst thou with me? * * * Dost thou fear me? Am I not thy beloved? Is it not for me that thou bast rendered up the delights of thy race? Wouldst thou be wise? Mine is the wisdom of the countless ages. Kiss me, my mortal lover.”
“Thus man pursues his weary calling, And wrings the hard life from the sky, While happiness unseen is falling Down from God’s bosom silently.”
TABLET THE SEVENTH
Saturn
SYMBOL
A human figure with a scepter of power, a being of light crowned with flames.
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TABLET THE SEVENTH
In the external we remember Saturn as an old man, and as a skeleton with a scythe–as Time, in fact. But see, O immortal soul, the real Saturn, as the Angel of Life, having from time gathered the experiences which crown him with light, holding the rod of power; the Christ born in the manger of Capricorn, the Goat–life born of death; the conqueror of evil. He throws off the mask of age, and divine youth beams on us. He doffs the mantle of rags, and royal splendors clothe him. He lifts the hood, and behold the crown. He raises the crutch, and lo! the rod of power. He drops the scythe of death for the jewel of eternal life.
“Om Mani Padme Um.” (Oh the jewel in the lotus.)
O child of Adam! Meditate on the transmutations of life. Behold the earthly miracle of the caterpillar and the butterfly, of the toiling mortal and the transcendent God!
TABLET THE EIGHTH
Uranus
SYMBOL
A human eye, from which darts lightning upon an ocean of matter.
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TABLET THE EIGHTH
The state of soul and spirit–penetration; the wonderful power of soul-perception, which sheds its light on all visible things, receiving their images and interpreting them into the spirit, the all-seer–what does it not convey? The perception that can see deep into your soul and see, as it were, the yet unborn thought; that can distinguish the motive of action; that judges the realities of your soul. Such is the Astral Uranian. For with us all, are three planes of mind: The drift plane, the intellectual, and the spiritual, or internal plane; and thought- reading can be on one or all of these different states. But only the Uranian seer can read the inmost mind, and so really know the possibilities of your spirit.
Imagine an image of soft wax, covered with a sensitive skin. All impressions on the skin shape the plastic wax, but go no deeper– do not reach the soul. You can separate these impressions from your real self, when calm and alone, and look upon emotion as a surface play. But the tragedies of life strike deep. They affect the soul, and go to the center of being. “Verbum sap.”
O child of Adam! Watch the tempest of life closely. The Ego may sit calm amidst the storm, but, if that be stirred–BEWARE! The God acts; the soul alone watches.
TABLET THE NINTH
Neptune
A Winged Globe.
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TABLET THE NINTH
An unknown quantity, a hope of progression, ideal love, and all true mental and spiritual ideals; aspiration to become that which we feel to be noble and true; the symbol of the monad, the soul which, receiving its life from the Sun–the Ego–is constantly revealing new forces and potencies of that God-life. Each soul’s Ego is its maker and God. The Ego is like the Deific potency of the universe, unlimited in potential power, but limited by its monad as to what will be evolved from its awful depth of being. Deity progresses through its expressions of the cosmos. The Ego, your God, finds progressive expression through you, through your soul. That soul is not immortal that becomes separated from its Ego–its God. So, soul, spread your spiritual wings and soar upward.
O child of Adam! Know these three things: Eternity is the creator of the universal life; universal life creates the world, and the world is the creator of time. And of these, the Universe is Life, and the World is Mind, and Time is the Soul. The sum total of all is Experience. And this is individual, conscious life–“Jacta est alea” (the die is cast)–the wings are spread.
TABLET THE TENTH
The Cypher – the unknown
SYMBOL
A Shining Nebulae; within it a dot, aimlessly wandering around an unknown center.
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TABLET THE TENTH
The unknown in very truth. It is everything–it is also nothing. Inconceivable visions arise within the mental universe, but nothing assumes definite form. It is all that is past. It is likewise everything that the future has in store. Amen.
O child of Adam! “Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or loose the bands of Orion?”