The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

THE EQUINOX naked Gods; his Ruach by the phantom of dead words—by the duality of the shell and of the fruit of things; and his Neschamah by Tetragrammaton, 2.e., he aspired chiefly to magic powers, not so that they might light him like the flame of a lamp along his road, but that they might consume, like the fire on the altar, his propitiations and sacrifices to a personal God. Thus we find him, as it were, figuring before him a Pentagram and saying: “It is not complete without its top point.” This is undoubtedly correct, but at this time he still failed to realise that when once the Supernal Triad has descended and is resting on the topmost point of the Penta- gram, this being now the point of juncture becomes the most important of all points, and that the lower four are little better than supports, legs and arms to the body whose head now wears the Crown. When the pilgrim realises that the four characteristics of the Sphinx, the four elements, the four letters of the Name, are only answerable in the fifth ; then may it be said that the Ritual has succeeded in its purpose and has initiated him, otherwise that it has failed. It is no good (even if you are the Hierophant himself) pretending to represent mm before you have realised what is meant by mwn. The real knowledge acquired by P. at this time, as we shall find in a subsequent chapter, was gained by his workings with Fras. C.S., V. N. and I. A.; and so ardent was he in his search after knowledge that he even went so far as to invoke Mercury by obtaining access to and copying the 5°=6° Rituals and Knowledges belonging to Fra. F. L., saying to himself: “ All for Knowledge, even life, even honour, All!” 294