Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice
da Obra
Previous: XII - Zeta, or the Second of the Gods Next:
XIV - Theta, or (Mystically) the Fourth of the Gods
Proem
THE mystery of thine
orbit, O Earth, and the secret of the work of the third day;
2. Which the wise of old knew not,
for the Lord God withheld them.
3. The light is as wisdom, the water
as understanding, and the dry earth as the force and power of things.
4. Phoibos
first, and Hermes next, and last the
1. O Father
Iacchos; thou art Lord of the Body, God manifest in the flesh;
2. Twice born, baptized with fire,
quickened by the spirit, instructed in secret things beneath the earth:
3. Who wearest
the horns of the ram, who ridest upon an ass, whose
symbol is the vine, and the new wine thy blood;
4. Whose Father is the Lord God of
Hosts; whose Mother is the daughter of the King. [M]
5. Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of initiation; for by
means of the body is the soul initiated:
6. By
birth, by marriage, by virginity, by sleep, by waking, and by death:
7. By
fasting and vigil, by dreams and penance, by joy, and by weariness of the flesh.
8. The body is the chamber of ordeal:
therein is the soul of man tried.
9. Thine
initiates, O Master, are they who come out of great tribulation, whose robes are
washed in the blood of the vine.
10. Give me to drink of the wine of
thy cup, that I may live for evermore:
11. And to eat of the bread whose
grain cometh up from the earth, as the corn in the ear.
12. Yea; for the body in which man is
redeemed, is of the earth; it is broken upon the cross; cut down by the sickle;
crushed between grindstones.
13. For by the suffering of the
outer, is the inner set free.
14. Therefore the body which thou givest is meat indeed, and the word of thy blood is drink
indeed.
15. For man shall live by the word of
God.
16. Evoi,
Father Iacchos: bind thy Church to the vine, and her
elect to the choice vine.
17. And let them wash their garments
in wine, and their vesture in the blood of grapes.
18. Evoi, Iacchos: Lord of the body, and of the house whose symbol is
the fig;
19. Whereof the image is the figure
of the matrix, and the leaf as a man’s hand: whose stems bring forth milk.
20. For the Woman is the mother of
the living; and the crown and perfection of humanity.
21. Her body is the highest step in
the ladder of incarnation,
22. Which leadeth
from earth to Heaven; upon which the spirits of God ascend and descend.
23. Thou art not perfected, O soul, that hast not known womanhood.
24. Evoi, Iacchos: for the day cometh wherein thy sons shall eat of
the fruit of the fig: yea, the vine shall yield new grapes; and the fig-tree
shall be no more barren.
25. For the
interpretation of hidden things is at hand; and men shall eat of the precious
fruits of God.
26. They shall eat manna from heaven;
and shall drink of the
27. The Lord
maketh
all things new: He taketh away the letter to establish
the spirit.
28. Then speakest
thou with veiled face, in parable and dark saying: for the time of figs was not
yet.
29. And they who came unto the tree
of life sought fruit thereon and found it not.
30. And from thenceforth until now
hath no man eaten of the fruit of that tree.
31. But now is
the gospel of interpretation come, and the kingdom of the Mother of God.
32. Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of the body; who art crowned with the vine and
with the fig.
33. For as the fig containeth many perfect fruits in itself, so the house of
man containeth many spirits.
34. Within thee, O man, is the universe; the thrones of all the Gods are in thy
temple.
35. I have said unto men, Ye are Gods; ye are all in the image of the Most High.
36. No man can know God unless he
first understand himself.
37. God is nothing that man is not.
38. What man is, that God is
likewise.
39. As God is at the heart of the
outer world, so also is God at the heart of the world within thee.
40. When the God within thee shall be
wholly united to the God without, then shalt thou be
one with the Most High.
41. Thy will shall be God’s will, and
the Son shall be as the Father.
42. Thou art ruler of a world, O man;
thy name is legion; thou hast many under thee.
43. Thou sayest
to this one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come,
and he cometh; and to another, Do this, and he doeth it.
44. What thou
knowest
is told thee from within; what thou workest is worked
from within.
45. When thou
prayest
thou invokest the God within thee; and from the God
within thee thou receivest thy good things.
46. Thy manifestations are inward;
and the spirits which speak unto thee are of thine
own kingdom.
47. And the spirit which is greatest
in thy kingdom, the same is thy Master and thy Lord.
48. Let thy Master be the Christ of
God, whose Father is the Lord Iacchos. [N]
49. And Christ shall be thy lover and
the saviour of thy body; [O] O yea, He shall be thy Lord God, and thou shalt
adore Him.
50. But if thou wilt not, then a
stronger than thou art shall bind thee, and spoil thine
house and thy goods.
51. An uncleanly temple shalt thou be; the hold of all manner of strife and evil
beasts.
52. For a
man’s foes are of his own household.
53. But scourge thou thence the
money-changers and the merchants, lest the house of thy prayer become unto thee
a den of thieves.
54. Evoi,
Father Iacchos: Lord of the thyrsos
and of the pinecone.
55. As are the involutions of the
leaves of the cone, so is the spiral of generation, – the progress and
passing-through of the soul,
56. From
the lower to the higher; from the coarse to the fine; from the base to the apex;
57. From
the outer to the inner; yea, from the dust of the ground to the throne of the
Most High.
58. Evoi,
Io
Nysæe: God of the garden and of the tree bearing
fruit.
59. The dry land is thine, and all the beauty of earth; the vineyard, the
garland, and the valleys of corn.
60. The forests, the secrets of the
springs; the hidden wells, and the treasures of the caverns.
61. The harvest, the dance, and the
festival; the snows of winter, and the icy winds of death.
62. Yea, Lord
Iacchos; who girdest destruction with promise
and graftest comeliness upon ruin.
63. As the
green ivy covereth the blasted tree, and the waste
places of earth where no grass groweth;
64. So thy touch
giveth
life and hope and meaning to decay.
65. Whoso
understandeth
thy mysteries, O Lord of the Ivy, hath overcome Death and the fear thereof.
66. Evoi,
Father Iacchos, Lord God of
67. Upon
whose walls, are the forms of every creature: of every beast of the earth, and
of every fowl of the air;
68. The lynx, and the lion, and the
bull: the ibis and the serpent: the scorpion and every flying thing.
69. And the columns thereof are human
shapes; having the heads of eagles and the hoofs of the ox.
70. All these are of thy kingdom:
they are the chambers of ordeal, and the houses of the initiation of the soul.
71. For the soul
passeth
from form to form; and the mansions of her pilgrimage are manifold.
72. Thou callest
her from the deep, and from the secret places of the earth; from the dust of the
ground, and from the herb of the field.
73. Thou coverest
her nakedness with an apron of fig-leaves; thou clothest
her with the skins of beasts. (1)
74. Thou art from of old, O soul of
man; yea, thou art from the everlasting. (1)
75. Thou puttest
off thy bodies as raiment; and as vesture dost thou fold them up.
76. They perish, but thou remainest: the wind rendeth and scattereth them; and the place of them shall no more be
known.
77. For the wind is the Spirit of God
in man, which bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it shall go.
78. Even so is the spirit of man,
which cometh from afar off and tarrieth not, but passeth away to a place thou knowest
not.
79. Evoi, Iacchos, Lord of the Sphinx: who linkest
the lowest to the highest; the loins of the wild beast to the head and breast of
the woman.
80. Thou holdest
the chalice of divination: all the forms of nature are reflected therein.
81. Thou turnest
man to destruction: then thou sayest, Come again, ye
children of my hand.
82. Yea, blessed and holy art thou, O
Master of Earth: Lord of the cross and the tree of salvation.
83. Vine of God, whose blood redeemeth; bread of heaven, broken on the altar of death.
84. There is corn in
85. For in the kingdom of the body
thou shalt eat the bread of thine
initiation.
86. But beware lest thou become
subject to the flesh, and a bond-slave in the land of thy sojourn.
87. Serve not the idols of
88. For they will bow thy neck to
their yoke; they will bitterly oppress the Israel of God.
89. An evil time shall come upon
thee; and the Lord shall smite
90. Thy body shall be broken on the
wheel of God; thy flesh shall see trouble and the worm.
91. Thy house shall be smitten with
grievous plagues, blood, and pestilence, and great darkness; fire shall devour
thy goods; and thou shalt be a prey to the locust and
creeping thing.
92. Thy glory shall be brought known
to the dust; hail and storm shall smite thine
harvest; yea, thy beloved and thy firstborn shall the hand of the Lord destroy;
93. Until the body let the soul go
free; that she may serve the Lord God.
94. Arise in the night, O soul, and
fly, lest thou be consumed in
95. The angel of the understanding
shall know thee for his elect, if thou offer unto God a reasonable faith.
96. Savour
thy reason with learning, with labour, and with
obedience.
97. Let the rod of thy desire be in
thy right hand; put the sandals of Hermes on thy feet; and gird thy loins with
strength.
98. Then shalt
thou pass through the waters of cleansing, which is the first death in the body.
99. The waters shall be a wall unto
thee on thy right hand and on thy left.
100. And Hermes the redeemer shall go
before thee; for he is thy cloud of darkness by day,
and thy pillar of fire by night.
101. All the horsemen of
102. These shall pursue thee, O soul, that fliest; and shall seek
to bring thee back into bondage.
103. Fly for thy life; fear not the
deep; stretch out thy rod over the sea; and lift thy desire unto God.
104. Thou hast learnt wisdom in
105. Thou hast enriched thyself in
the body; but the body shall not hold thee; neither shall the waters of the deep
swallow thee up.
106. Thou shalt
wash thy robes in the sea of regeneration; the blood of atonement shall redeem
thee to God.
107. This is thy chrism and
anointing, O soul; this is the first death; thou art the
108. Who hath redeemed thee from the
dominion of the body, and hath called thee from the grave, and from the house of
bondage,
109. Unto
the way of the Cross, and to the path in the midst of the wilderness;
110. Where are the adder and the
serpent, the mirage and the burning sand.
111. For the feet of the saint are
set in the way of the desert.
112. But be thou of good courage, and
fail thou not; then shall thy raiment endure, and thy sandals shall not wax old
upon thee.
113. And thy desire shall heal thy
diseases; it shall bring streams for thee out of the stony rock; it shall lead
thee to
114. Evoi,
Father Iacchos, Jehovah-Nissi;
Lord of the garden and of the vineyard;
115. Initiator and lawgiver; God of
the cloud and of the mount.
116. Evoi,
Father Iacchos; out of
Hymns to the Elemental Divinities (1)
(α)
To Hephaistos
1. The spirits of the elements bear
thee company, Lord Iacchos, whose wheels encompass thy
planet, who hold the four corners thereof.
2. Hephaistos
the Fire-King, whose symbol is the red lion, Lord of the serpent, the flame, and
of the secret parts of the earth;
3. Whose veins are full of fire,
whose breath is destruction and burning, whose finger maketh
the hills to smoke.
4. Ah! Beware how thou invoke him; as
a lion he devoureth; he rendeth
and swalloweth as a furious beast of prey.
5. He purifieth
and layeth waste; the land is as the Garden of Eden
before him, and behind him a desolate wilderness.
6. He commandeth
the inmost zone of things; his hammer is the lightning, and his anvil the
loadstone.
7. He maketh
all bodies therewith, he fuseth and deviseth; whether in the small or in the great, whether in
the outer or in the inner, before Demeter is Hephaistos.
8. He endoweth
all metals with power, and fashioneth all manner of
precious amulets.
9. The gold of the womb of earth is
his, the mercury, and the iron of the mine, the sulphur,
the onyx, and the crystal.
10. All his galleries are luminous
with mirrors of fire, wherein are manifold and wondrous images: the glory of
princes, the wealth of nations, yea, the splendour of all the kingdoms of the world.
11. He blindeth
and deludeth the eyes of men; he
encompasseth
the foolish with illusions, and smiteth the feeble
with madness.
12. Even Lucifer, Lord of the
13. Serve not the
fire nor the crystal, and be not undone by their sorcery.
14. For the spirits of lust and
illusion obey the crystal, and they who love the light of it shall fall under
the dominion of Lucifer.
15. Be thou master of the fire, and
command it; let not the cloven tongue of the serpent beguile thee; neither
barter thy liberty for the fruit of enchantment.
16. For the
fire shall be quenched by the water, and the water shall be resolved into
spirit.
17. But if the fire
consume thy soul, it shall be scattered abroad as ashes, and return to
the dust of the earth.
18. For it
is fire that tries every man’s work, and purifies the substance of all souls.
19. By fire is the initiate baptized,
by fire the oblation is salted; and the flame shall devour the dross of the
crucible.
20. That which
endureth
unto the end, the same shall be saved.
21. Therefore be praised, Hephaistos, thou and thy wheel; be praised, O searching and
purgatorial Fire!
1. And thou, Demeter, fair
Earth-Mother, whose bosom the patient ox treadeth,
whose hands are full of plenty and blessing.
2. Angel of the crucible, guardian of
the dead, who makest and unmakest,
who combinest and dissolvest,
who bringest forth life out of death, and transformest all bodies.
3. They are sown as seed in thy
furrows; they are buried
therein, as the droppings of the ripened
ear; from thy womb they came forth, and to thee they return, O Mother of birth
and of sleep!
4. Who makest
the volatile to be fixed, and the real to be apparent, whether in the great or
the small, whether in the outer or the inner.
5. Who yokest
the cattle of the field to thy plough, for thy dominion is of the field, O
daughter of Time; thou bindest not the sons of the air
and the sea.
6. But to the gross thou art gross,
and to the subtle thou art subtle.
7. Be praised, Demeter, cunning and
multiform alchemist; be praised, – thou and thy wheel, O fruitful Spirit of
Earth!
1. And Poseidon, Lord of the Deep,
Master of the substance of all creatures, who weareth
the face of an angel, for he is the Father of Souls. [P]
2. His brow is dark with storms, his
voice is as the thunder of cataracts in the mountains; he is subtle, and swift,
and strong; he is mightier than all the children of earth.
3. All things are of the sea-salt,
for without salt matter is not, whether of the outer or of the inner, whether of
the small or of the great.
4. Behold the manifold waves of the
sea, which rise and sink, which break and are lost, and follow each other
continually; even as these are the transmutations of the soul.
5. For the soul is one substance, as
is the water of the deep, whose waves thou canst not number, neither tell their
shapes, for the form of them passeth away; even as
these are the incarnations of the soul.
6. And the secret of Thetis is the mystery of the Metamorphosis.
7. Out of the sea the horse ariseth; strength and intelligence are begotten of the deep.
8. She is the mother of Avatârs, and her cup is the chalice of bitterness: whoso
drinketh thereof shall taste of power and knowledge, and of tears of
salt.
9. Be thou praised, O Poseidon, thou
and thy wheel; be praised, O chrism of the soul, mighty and variable Spirit of
the Sea!
1. And thou, Athena, blue-eyed
virgin, Mistress of the Air, eagle-headed, who givest
to all bodies the breath of life:
2. Immaculate mother of the word of
prophecy, symbol of the holy essence, goddess of the ægis
and of the spear:
3. Spirit of the whirlwind, secret
breather of wisdom, fortifier of the soul, inspirer of armies:
4. Shining maid, by whose spear we
vanquish, for interior wisdom thrusteth all things
through; by whose shield we are covered, for interior purity preserveth from all contagion.
5. By thine
aid, O Athena, strong and undefiled, by thine aid the
hero overcometh in the battle.
6. By thine
aid, O armed and winged wisdom, thy servant shall smite the lust of the world.
7.
Upon
whose beauty, whoso looketh, is changed into stone;
who feedeth upon the souls of men. [Q]
S. Be praised, O Athena, thou and thy
wheel; be praised in the great and the small, in the outer and the inner,
invisible and immaculate Spirit of Life!
These are the four great Genii, which
are the angels of the Earth, the spirits of the elements of the macrocosm and
the microcosm.
These are the fourfold Sphinx of the
four states, – of the flesh, of the intermediary, of the human, and of the
divine.
Of the house of bondage in the
Of the ark of the
covenant in the wilderness;
Of the gate and the tree of
Of the celestial
chariot and the throne of Adonai.
And the wheels of their fourfold
kingdom encircle the whole earth; and are full within and without of the eyes of
life. [R]
(153:1)
I.e.
The intellect and the intuition.
(154:1) The theme of this hymn, which was
recollected, in sleep, early in March 1881, is the Mystic Exodus, or flight of
the Soul from the power of the body, wherein Egypt stands for the body; Israel
for the soul; the corn in Egypt for the nourishment, experiences, discipline,
and so forth requisite for the soul’s sustenance and education; Hermes is the
understanding of divine things; and Iacchos, whose
other name, Dionysos, identifies him with the Jehovah
Nissi of the Hebrews, is the Divine Spirit of the planet, and “Father” of
the man regenerate (see Life
of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, pp. 438-441; vol.
ii, 1, 132). S.H.H.
(157:1) For
implication of “coats of skin,” see Part I, No. VI.
(158:1) Meaning that her substance is
everlasting, being that of God, which is not the case with matter, which is but
a temporary condition and specialised mode of
substance. E.M.
(158:1) Received early in March 1881 (Life
of Anna Kingsford, vol. i, p. 438).
Índice Geral das Seções Índice da Seção Atual Índice da Obra Previous: XII - Zeta, or the Second of the Gods Next: XIV - Theta, or (Mystically) the Fourth of the Gods