The Equinox (Volume I, Number VIII)

THE TEMPLE OF SOLOMON THE KING Oct. 31. This account is almost unintelligible as it stands; so I edit it. He appears to have made the old “Preliminary Invocation.” Result rather like Yoga; he gets at once into Pratyahara and then makes Samyama on the Augoeides. " Invoked twice~terrible agony.” And then this note. ”Barbarous names. Supreme test (i.e. to use words which he does not under— stand), for a man who is really praying cannot bring himself to say a ridiculous thing to his God, even on the latter's mandate.” (From this it appears as if the Augoeides had told Fra. P. the real meaning of Zoroaster’s injunction: “Change not barbarous names of evocation; for they are names divine, having in the sacred rites a power ineffable.”) ”I shall go," continues Fra. P., “and recite ` From Greenland's Icy Mountains’ (the most ridiculous thing that occurred to his mind)—if with faith, Samadhil » . . "No faith, I suppose. Time after time I feel the sickening pangs of dissolution; physi- cally I nearly faint; but I don‘t get over the bar. . . . I am sick, sick] ”I retire in disorder pursued by dog-faced demons of all kinds. “Once again I nearly got there—all went brilliance—but not quite” Again, “There is nothing but dog-faced demons after I get to bed; but there is always 45