The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE It is not a question of being unable to get into the Aethyr, and trying to struggle through; but one is not anywhere near it. A voice comes: When thy dust shall strew the earth whereon She walketh, then mayest thou bear the impress of Her foot. And thou thinkest to behold Her face! The Stone is become of the most brilliant whiteness, and yet, in that whiteness, all the other colours are implicit. The colour of anything is but its dullness, its obstructiveness. So is it with these visions. All that they ave is falsity. Every idea merely marks where the mind of the Seer was too stupid to receive the light, and therefore reflected it. Therefore, as the pure light is colourless, so is the pure soul black. And this is the Mystery of the incest of CHAOS with his daughter. There is nothing whatever visible. But I asked of an Angel that is at my side if the ceremony hath been duly performed. And he says: Yes, the Aethyr is present. It is thou that canst not perceive it, even as I cannot perceive it, because it is so entirely beyond thy conception that there is nothing in thy mind on to which it can cast a symbol, even as the emptiness of space is not heated by the fire of the sun. And so pure is the light that it preventeth the formation of images, and therefore have men called it darkness. For with any lesser light, the mind responds, and makes for itself divers palaces. It is that which is written: “In my Father's house there are many mansions ”; and if the house be destroyed, how much more the mansions that are therein! For this is the victory of BABALON over the Magician that ensorcelled 151