The Vision and the Voice

THE EQUINOX beak of the other has devoured the corpse. Therefore is my flag white, because I have left nothing upon the earth alive. I have feasted myself on the blood of the saints, but I am not suspected of men to be their enemy, for my fleece is white and warm, and my teeth are not the teeth of one that teareth flesh; and mine eyes are mild, and they know me not the chief of the lying spirits that the Father of all sent forth from before his face in the beginning. (His attribution is salt; the wolf mercury, and the raven sulphur.) Now the lamb grows small again, there is again nothing but the wheel, and the hand that whirleth it. And I said: “ By the word of power, double in the voice of the Master; by the word that is seven, and one in seven; and by the great and terrible word 210, I beseech thee, O my Lord, to grant me the vision of thy glory.” And all the rays of the wheel stream out at me, and I am blasted and blinded with the light. Iam caught up into the wheel. I am one with the wheel. Iam greater than the wheel. In the midst of a myriad lightnings I stand, and I behold his face. (Iam thrown violently back on to the earth every second, so that I cannot quite concentrate.) All one gets is a liquid flame of pale gold. But its radiant force keeps hurling me back. And I say: By the word and the will, by the penance and the prayer, let me behold thy face. (I cannot explain this, there is confusion of personalities.) I who speak to you, see what I tell you; but I, who see him, cannot communicate it to me, who speak to you. If one could gaze upon the sun at noon, that might be like 44