The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE that which is within is like unto that which is without. And there is no furniture, and there are no symbols. Light. streams from every side upon the pastos. This light is that blue of Horus which we know, but being refined it is brilliance. For the light of Horus only appears blue because of the imperfection of our eyes. But though the light pours from the pastos, yet the pastos remains perfectly dark, so that it is invisible. It hath no form: only, at a certain point in the chamber, the light is beaten back. I lie prostrate upon the ground before this mystery. Its splendour is impossible to describe. I can only say that its splendour is so great that my heart stops with the terror and the wonder and the rapture of it. I am almost mad. A million insane images chase each other through my brain. . . . A voice comes: (it is my own voice—I did not know it). “When thou shalt know me, O thou empty God, my little flame shall utterly expire in thy great N.O.X.” There is no answer. . . . (20 minutes. O. V.)... . And now, after so long a while, the Angel* lifts me, and takes me from the room, and sets me in a little chamber where is another Angel like a fair youth in shining garments, who makes me partake of the sacraments; bread, that is labour; and fire, that is wit; and a rose, that is sin; and wine, that is death. And all about us isa great company of angels in many- coloured robes, rose and spring-green, and sky-blue, and pale gold, and silver, and lilac, solemnly chanting without words. It is music wonderful beyond all that can be thought. And now we go out of the chamber; on the right is a pylon, and the right figure is Isis, and the left figure * No angel has been mentioned. The Seer was lost to being. 53