The Vision and the Voice

THE EQUINOX there are three; the desire of light, the desire of life, the desire of love. (And the thorns are thoughts, and the whips are regrets, and the wine is ease, or perhaps unsteadiness, especially in ecstasy, and the spear is attachment.) And now there dawns the scene of the Crucifixion; but the Crucified One is an enormous bat, and for the two thieves are two little children. It is night, and the night is full of hideous things and howlings. And an angel cometh forth, and saith: Be wary, for if thou change so much as the style of a letter, the holy word is blasphemed. But enter into the mountain of the Caverns, for that this (how much more then that Calvary which mocks it, as his ape mocks Thoth?) is but the empty shell of the mystery of ZEN. Verily, I say unto thee, many are the adepts that have looked upon the back parts of my father, and cried, “our eyes fail before the glory of thy countenance.” And with that he gives the sign of the rending of the veil, and tears down the vision. And behold! whirling columns of fiery light, seventy-two. Upon them is supported a mountain of pure crystal. The mountain is a cone, the angle of the apex being sixty degrees. And within the crystal is a pyramid of ruby, like unto the great pyramid of Gizeh. I am entered in by the little door thereof, and I am come into the chamber of the king, which is fashioned like unto the vault of the adepts, or rather it is fitting to say that the vault of the adepts is a vile imitation of it. For there are four sides to the chamber, which with the roof and the floor and the chamber itself makes seven. So also is the pastos seven, for 52