The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

THE EQUINOX PHUR and MERCURY with the alchemical powers of the seven planets; precipitating the SALT from the four ele- ments—Subtilis, Aqua, Lux, Terra; and mingling Flatus, Ignis, Aqua, and Terra, smote them with the cross of Hidden Mystery, and cried: “ Fiat Lux!” Youth strides on with hasty step, and by the summer of this year—1898—we find P. deep in consultation with the mystics, and drinking from the white chalice of mystery with St. John, Boehme, Tauler, Eckart, Molinos, Levi, and Blake: “Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden’d air, Hungry clouds swag on the deep.” Insatiable, he still pressed on, hungering for the knowledge of things outside; and in his struggle for the million he misses the unit, and heaps up chaos in the outer darkness of Illusion. From the cloudless skies of Mysticism he rushes down into the infernal darkness on winged thoughts: “ The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into the western sea,” and we find him now in the Goetic king- doms of sorcery, witchcraft, and infernal necromancy. The bats flit by us as we listen to his frenzied cries for light and knowledge: “The Spiritual Guide,” and “The Cherubic Wanderer” are set aside for “ The Arbatel” and “ The Seven Mysterious Orisons.” A hurried turning of many pages, the burning of many candles, and then—the Key of Solomon for a time is put away, with the Grimoires and the rituals, the talismans, and the Virgin parchments; the ancient books of the Qabalah lie open before him ; a flash of brilliant fire, like a silver fish leaping from out the black waters of the sea into 236