The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE EQUINOX The Kerux, however, at once bars the way, as the Candidate is still unpurified. Thereupon the Goddesses of the Scales purify and consecrate him. This is the first consecration. ‘But even as there be four pillars at the extremities of a sphere when the ten Sephiroth are projected therein; so also are there four separate consecrations of the Candidate.” The reception and consecration takes place in the black portion of Malkuth ; when it is finished the Candidate is conducted to the foot of the altar, the citrine portion of Malkuth, and the part receiving the impact of the Middle Pillar. The Hierophant then says to the Candidate: ‘Child of Earth! wherefore hast thou come to request admission to this Order ?” The Hegemon answers for the Candidate: “ My soul is wandering in the Darkness seeking for the light of Occult Knowledge, and I believe that in this Order the Know- ledge of that Light may be obtained.” Whereupon the Hierophant asks the Candidate whether he is willing “in the presence of this assembly to take a great and solemn obligation to keep inviolate the secrets and mysteries of our Order?” To which the Candidate himself replies: “I am.” The Hierophant now advances between the Pillars as if thus asserting that the Judgment is concluded: “And he advanceth by the invisible station of Harpocrates unto that of the Evil Triad ; so that as Arouerist * he standeth upon the Opposer.” He thus cometh to the East of the Altar, interposing between the place of the Evil Triad and that of the Candidate. At the same time the Hiereus advanceth on the Candidate’s left, and the Hegemon standeth at his right, as formulating about him the symbol of the Triad, before he be permitted to place his right hand in the centre of the White Triangle of the Three Supernals on the Altar. And he first kneeleth in adoration of that symbol, as if the natural man abnegated his will before that of the Divine Consciousness. The Hierophant now orders the Candidate to kneel (in the midst of the triad Arouerist, Horus and Themis), to place his left hand in that of the initiator, and his right hand upon the white triangle as symbolising his active aspiration towards his Higher Soul. The Candidate then bows his head, and the Hierophant gives one knock with his sceptre ; affirming that the symbol of submission into the Higher is now complete. Only at that moment doth the colossal image of Thotht Metatron cease from the sign of the enterer: and giveth instead the sign of the silence: permitting the first real descent of the Genius of the Candidate, who descendeth into the invisible station of Harpocrates as witness unto the obligation. All then rise and the Candidate repeats the Obligation after the Hierophant. In it * He is Osiris when throned ; when he moves he assumes the form of Arouerist. t Thoth is one of the Invisible officers. 254