THE VISION AND THE VOICE
It is not a question of being unable to get into the Aethyr,
and trying to struggle through; but one is not anywhere
near it.
A voice comes: When thy dust shall strew the earth
whereon She walketh, then mayest thou bear the impress of
Her foot. And thou thinkest to behold Her face!
The Stone is become of the most brilliant whiteness, and
yet, in that whiteness, all the other colours are implicit. The
colour of anything is but its dullness, its obstructiveness.
So is it with these visions. All that they ave is falsity.
Every idea merely marks where the mind of the Seer was
too stupid to receive the light, and therefore reflected it.
Therefore, as the pure light is colourless, so is the pure soul
black.
And this is the Mystery of the incest of CHAOS with his
daughter.
There is nothing whatever visible.
But I asked of an Angel that is at my side if the ceremony
hath been duly performed. And he says: Yes, the Aethyr is
present. It is thou that canst not perceive it, even as I cannot
perceive it, because it is so entirely beyond thy conception that
there is nothing in thy mind on to which it can cast a symbol,
even as the emptiness of space is not heated by the fire of the
sun. And so pure is the light that it preventeth the formation
of images, and therefore have men called it darkness. For
with any lesser light, the mind responds, and makes for itself
divers palaces. It is that which is written: “In my Father's
house there are many mansions ”; and if the house be destroyed,
how much more the mansions that are therein! For this is
the victory of BABALON over the Magician that ensorcelled
151