THE EQUINOX This was the way in which he would divine the forth- coming year. He did various things of a quite ordinary nature with an intense magical intention. He had asked a disciple to write him a message to be opened at midnight. The disciple, being a fool, wrote a foolish message, but none the less inspired. The diary continues thus— “Sought accidental symbols while looking for a black woman to represent Binah” (to which he was aspiring). “Entered by chance, firstly, Queen’s Hotel [can this refer to Binah?] and Leicester.” (Leicester was the town whose hospitality had temporarily relieved him of his thorn in the flesh. Permanent relief followed in the course of the year.) He did not see any black woman, but a woman came to him and asked for alms, telling her sad story—which was that she had been a servant who was now a fertilized free- woman with a young male child. He took this as a symbol of Binah in her form of Aima, the Rejoicing Mother. Further, she was dressed in grey, the colour of Chokmah, which he took to imply that she was the right kind of Mother, being covered by the Father. There is no record of any importance in the diary until the Vernal Equinox, when the “Word of the Equinox,” which is given out by the Masters to govern the events of the six months, was Perdurabo; and we find, in fact, that during this six months were some of the most important events of our history, those which finished Perdurabo. On June 15, he was at his Sacred House, and there con- ferred the Initiation of Neophyte upon his first probationer. The event of June 28 is so important that a little pre- 96