THE EQUINOX
Vv
“For this Paternal Intellect, which comprehendeth the
Intelligibles and adorneth things ineffable, hath sowed symbols
through the World.”
“Comprehending that Intelligible with extended Mind; for
the Intelligible is the flower of Mind.”
“A similar fire flashingly extending through the rushings of
air, or a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a Voice, or
even a flashing Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying
aloud. Also there is the vision of the fire-flashing Courser of
Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on the shoulders of the
Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked, or shooting
with the bow shafts of Light and standing on the shoulders of
the horse; then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou shalt
unite all these symbols into the Form of a Lion.”—-ZOROASTER.
The most important of the psychological results of my
experiments seem to me to lie in(a). I devoted much pains to
obtaining this effect alone by taking only the minutest doses, by
preparing myself physically and mentally for the experiment,
and by seeking in every possible way to intensify and prolong
the effect.
Simple impressions in normal consciousness are resolved
by hashish into a concatenation of hieroglyphs of a purely
symbolic type.
Just as we represent a horse by the five letters h-o-r-s-e,
none of which has in itself the smallest relation to a horse, so
an even simpler concept such as the letter A seems resolved
into a set of pictures, a fairly large number, possibly a constant
number, of them. These glyphs are perceived together, just
as the skilled reader reads h-o-r-s-e as a single word, not letter
by letter. These pictorial glyphs, letters as it were of the
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