XIV

TEMPERANCE----LA TEMPERANCE

If you desire long life and health avoid all excesses, carry nothing to extremes. Once more preserve the equilibrium; you must neither abandon yourself to the benignities of Chesed, nor restrict yourself to the rigours of Geburah.

So when you have passed beyond the mortal sphere by the allurements of ecstasy, return to yourself, seek repose and enjoy the pleasures which life supplies for the wise, but do not indulge too freely.

If you feel fatigued by the tempting fascination of a prolonged fast, then take food and drink; but if you have loss of appetite from generous diet, then fast by all means. If you are feeling the seductiveness of womankind, seek relief from women.

You must learn to overcome all passions, and conquer all tendencies to folly. But let there be no misunderstanding. To vanquish an enemy there must be no running away: true victory can only follow meeting him face to face, joining in a struggle, and so showing your command over him.

It is related of Paracelsus that he became intoxicated daily, and sobered himself by violent exercise; thus he was found strong as a man with sangfroid, and yet possessing all the animation of alcoholic stimulation.

You should repose for as long a period as is expended in the preparations for and in the actual operations of magic; spend the hours of rest upon the bosom of Mother Nature, and in the chaste embrace of Nature's sweet restorer, Sleep.

Pass alternately from the triangle to the circle, and from the circle to the triangle.

Temperate the wine with wter, and rectify the water with wine. Wine is the emblem of Truth; yet it is not well to pour out either, in pure form, to ordinary men and women; some dilution with water is very desirable. Know that the Luminous Septenary has as its enemies, and as obstacles, but acting also in some ways as auxiliaries, a Dark Septenary of averse forces.

If a man abuses the high forces of the Septenary of Powers, his errors form the Seven Capital Sins.

Give but little wine to the one who easily gets intoxicated; and, in like manner, give but little occult instruction to those who make light of it, who abuse instead of use, and so change truth into error.

Notes

The Fourteenth Tarot Trump, named Temperance, shows the Angel of Occult Wisdom and Power holding a goblet in each hand, and pouring from one into the other the two essences whose union form the Elixer of Life.

Levi in his Rituel assigns to this card the meanings of the heaven of the Sun, temperatures, seasons, motions, and the chances and changes of life.

P. Christian remarks that the figure represents the genius of the Sun; in the Divine World, the perpetual alterations of life; in the Intellectual World, the creation of ideas which constitute the moral life; and the Physical World, the combinations of natural forces.

XV

SATAN---THE DEVIL---LE DIABLE

Come hither now and let us consider without fear this great one, the bugbear of the Christian creed, this ghost of Ahriman, the monstrous androgynous sphynx of Mendes; it is the synthesis of unbalanced forces---a Demon.

The Devil is truly Blind Force. If you help the blind, you may be served by him; if you let the blind lead, you are lost.

Each element and every number has its demon, because each element and every number enshrines a force which ignorance may put to evil purposes. The same sword by which you defend your father, may also slay him.

Know then that the demonic force of each entity must be conquered by knowledge and good purpose. Avoid darkness where demonic power prefers to manifest; fight it in broad daylight, and fearlessly. The Devil, one day, desiring to stop the progress of an adept, broke one wheel of his chariot; but this true adept compelled the Devil to curl himself up on the wheel and act for the time as its tire, and so drove on, reaching his destination even sooner than he would have done if the Devil had let him alone.

Meditate deeply on this old allegorical epigram, Aude et Tace, and when you have seized its occult sense, tell no other of your success.

The symbolic representation of the Devil shows a multiple, disharmonious and anarchic sort of sphynx, typical of confusion and disorder. Note this maxim:----A devil is a magnetic current consisting of a concourse of blind and perverse wills.

When certain superstitious mystics relegated intelligence and reason to the Devil, they reversed the Absolute. That is to say, they chose as their God him who was truly the Devil, and they attributed the malice of Satan to the True God.

There is no child with even ordinary sense who is not more learned than the Devil.

The Devil is even of lower grade than the beings of the Elements. He is doubtless more powerful, but he is as blind as poor Samson became. But to enable the Devil to pull down the pillars of a temple, you would have to lead him to the pillars and say to him, There they are.

No true Magician ever made any attempt to evoke the Devil, for he knows where the Devil is always to be found; but he may order the Devil to work----and the Devil obeys.

In Black Magic, the Devil means the employment of the Grand Magical Agent for a wicked purpose by a perverted Will.

Notes

The Fifteenth Tarot Trump is said by Levi to be the only one that Etteilla understood. This Etteilla was an illumine hairdresser who published a work on the Tarot, making grave alterations of the designs collected by Court de Gebelin, a much more reliable authority. His true name was Alliette.

The card shows an altar upon which stands a demon in human form, to which are added horns, long goat ears, and bat-like wings; he holds a torch in his left hand; two smaller demons, one male the other female, stand on the ground beside the altar. Some authors say the figure is that of Baphomet, the idol which the Knight Templars were said to worship.

Christian alleges that this demon represents the Typhon of Egypt, the genius of misfortune; and as related to the three worlds it refers to Predestination, Mystery, and Fatality.

XVI

THE TOWER----LA MAISON DE DIEU

Do you know why the Fiery Sword of Samael is stretched over the Garden of Delight, which was the cradle of our race?

Do you know why the Deluge was ordered to efface from the earth every vestige of the race of the giants?

Do you know why the Temple of Solomon was destroyed?

These events have been necessary because the Great Arcanum of the Knowledge of Good and of Evil has been revealed.

Angels have fallen because they have attempted to divulge this Great Secret. It is the secret of Life, and when its first word is betrayed, that word becomes fatal. If the Devil himself were to utter that Word, he would die.

This Word will destroy each one who speaks it, and every one who hears it spoken. If it were spoken aloud in the hearing of the people of a town, that town would be given over to Anathema. If that Word were to be whispered beneath the dome of a Temple, then within three days the Temple doors would fly open, a Voice would utter a cry, the divine indweller would depart, and the building would fall in ruins. No refugee could be found for one who revealed it; if he mounted to the topmost part of a tower the lightning-flash would strike him, if he tried to hide himself in the caverns of the earth, a torrent would whirl him away; if he sought refuge in the house of a friend he would be betrayed; if in the arms of the wife of his bosom, she would desert him in affright.

In his passion of despair he would renounce his science and knowledge, and, condemning himself to the same blindness as did OEdipus, would shriek out----"I have profaned the bed of my mother."

Happy is the man who solves the Enigma of the Sphynx, but wretched is he who retails the answer to another.

He who has solved the secret and guards its secrecy is as the "King of Earth"; he disdains mere riches, is inaccessible to any suffering or fear from destiny, he could await with a smile the crash of worlds. This secret is, moreover, profaned and falsified by its mere revelation, and never yet has a just or true idea came from its betrayal. Those who possess it have found it. Those who pronounce it for others to hear have lost it----already.

Notes

The Tarot Trump numbered 16, and called Le Maison de Dieu upon cards made on the Continent, is commonly known in this country as the Tower of Babel. It represents a tower struck by lightning; two men are seen falling headlong; these are said to be intended for Nimrod and his chief minister.

Levi assigns several meanings to this card; weakness, changes, subversions, and the heaven of Luna.

Christian explains this card as meaning the punishment of pride, the ruin of such as impiously attempt to penetrate the secrets of divinity, and on the human plane, the occasional reverses of fortune.