PART I. Here Beginneth Chapter 3 of the Book Which Is Called "the Tablets

Here beginneth Chapter 3 of the Book which is called "The Tablets of Aeth," wherein is transcribed the Third Quadrant of the Twelve Mansions.

"To know what really exists, one must cultivate silence with ones self, for it is in silence that the eternal and unexpected flowers open, which change their form and color according to the soul in which they grow. Souls are weighed in silence, as gold and silver are weighed in pure water."

"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon turns to ashes; or it prospers, and anon, like snow upon the desert's dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, is gone."

TABLET THE SEVENTH

Libra

SYMBOL

A crowned king, with a scythe raised in the air, looks closely at two boys wrestling beneath him in a field of grain, a red poppy below them.

VII

REFLECTION

TABLET THE SEVENTH

The symbol of Nature's eternal war for the impossible equilibrium between spirit and matter; the symbol, also, of Time, which is but the illusion in which eternity clothes itself; forever putting on and forever putting off new garments of matter. The crowned king is the victorious soul, waiting, with the scythe of Time, to reap the harvest of the world; while incarnated man, as represented in the wrestling youths, is struggling for that which he did not produce, and which only death can reap. The poppy reveals the secret of the illusions of Nature's master-showman. All earthly things are unreal to the spirit, which is the only real thing. Man's effort to hoard and save the things of this world IS INJUSTICE TO OTHERS. The struggle is eternal, and no matter how careful or cunning man is to monopolize either power, truth or wealth, swift-footed time will readjust all things without error.

O child of Adam! "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal."

TABLET THE EIGHTH

Scorpio

SYMBOL

A wide, and plain, on it a skeleton; a dull, grey sky, in which an Eagle soars, full-fed, it seems, from the flesh of the skeleton.

VIII

REFLECTION

TABLET THE EIGHTH

A significant symbol to the seer, showing forth the two ultimates of life and death, of earthly things and sex. Scorpio is both the eagle of the spirit, soaring aloft, well fed with all that is worth carrying away from the earth; and also the scorpion, whose natural home is the desert.

In sex, either way, life is given. Shall it be to your spirit making fat and full your immortal self, or will the other interpretation be yours? And will you leave yourself dead and annihilated, a skeleton, to the Ego, the Divine spirit? For sex is indeed the foundation of all. Raised to the region of Libra, it is power and magnetism. To the bosom it is love; to the brain it is enthusiasm. It is the promethian fire of life, the creative force, giving vigor to whatever region to which it is raised; or, lowered, to be spent with no returns, it debases and renders life a desert of dry bones.

O child of Adam! Reflect on the fall of man from spirit to matter, and combine the wisdom of the serpent with the purity of the dove, and "lest ye partake of the tree of life ye shall surely die."

TABLET THE NINTH

Saggitarius

SYMBOL

A child in a shell, holding in its hand a feathered lance, is drawn by five stars, grouped in an under arc.

REFLECTION

TABLET THE NINTH

The symbol of the conscious soul. The shell is the body, drawn by the five senses--stars--which form an under arc, to represent the world of material things and our relation thereto. The child, armed with the feathered lance, is the soul; riding thus, fully armed, in the shell of the body, it realizes the duality of truth; that all things are changeable; and that each thing is true upon the plane of its manifestation, while an illusion to that which is interior to its life, while the soul is in its dream state. Sagittarius represents conservatism and the permanence of crystallized institutions; but, when the spirit awakes and bursts the shell of matter, the senses, instead of being the guardians and jailors of its environment, become its servants, and the means by which, united as the one Ego, sense-perception, it races o'er the fields of Aeth--a being of life and beauty, shining in the empyrean of God.

O child of Adam! Ever remember that temperament and environment constitute the north and south poles of human possibility, and that ability, combined with opportunity, is the measure of responsibility.