The Heart of the Master

S∴S∴ and this is, being interpreted, “The Great White Brotherhood.” Below was written: With Us Two Thousand Years is as One Day. Then my Instructor showed me that the Brotherhood send forth one of their fellows every two thousand years, bringing one Word to serve Mankind as a new Formula of Magick, that it may take one further step on the long road that leadeth to Perfection. Also, twice in that period, that is, at intervals of a little more than three, and a little less than seven, centuries, they send a lesser prophet to prepare the Way of the next Word, and to maintain or to restore the virtue of the Word then current. And on the unfurled portion of the chart I read the names of certain of these Brethren, and the Words as one was uttered after the other. But some I could not read, because the characters were strange. These: FU-HSI. After a great space (with few names and those illegible) LAO-TZE, GAUTAMA, ZERDUSHT, PYTHAGORAS, DIONYSUS, OSIRIS. These were sent forth at the same time—and Dionysus under several diverse forms—to enlighten Six Great Civilizations, about to be drawn together by the opening up of communications over the planet by the expansion of the Roman Power. After these there stood almost alone the name: APOLLON. But above that extract, the whole width of the chart, the word I A O. Then came a blackness over the whole map, for at one time the Brotherhood had been nigh utterly destroyed by a Great Sorcery of the Black Lodge, and the darkening of all Counsel, and the confusion of all Truth. I saw only one glimmer bare legible: PLOTINUS. And at the end of the darkness, amid many names which I could not read, JACOBUS BURGUNDUS MOLENSIS. for his name was in letters of fire. Did not the Order of the Temple prepare the Renaissance by fusing the Mysteries of the East and West? Then there burst out on a sudden a whiteness on the chart, as if the stain had been expunged (albeit not wholly by the sweep of steel) and this word writ in curving characters scimitar-sharp