The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE thy head shall be bare.* Thus mayest thou become fitted to receive this, the holiest of the Mysteries. And it is the holiest of the Mysteries because it is the Next Step. And those Mysteries which lie beyond, though they be holier, are not holy unto thee, but only remote. (The sense of this passage seems to be, that the holiness of a thing implies its personal relation with one, just as one cannot blaspheme an unknown god, because one does not know what to say to annoy him. And this explains the perfect inefficiency of those who try to insult the saints; the most violent attacks are very often merely clumsy compliments). Now the Angel is spread completely over the globe, a dewy film of silver upon that luminous blue. And a great voice cries: Behold the Queen of Heaven, how she hath woven her robes from the loom of justice. For as that straight path of the Arrow cleaving the Rainbow became righteousness in her that sitteth in the hall of double truth, so at last is she exalted unto the throne of the High Priestess, the Priestess of the Silver Star, wherein also is thine Angel made manifest. And this is the mystery of the camel that is ten days in the desert, and is not athirst, because he hath within him that water which is the dew distilled from the night of Nuit. Triple is the cord of silver, that it may not be loosed; and three score and half a score and three is the number of the name of my name, for that the ineffable wisdom, that also is of the sphere of the stars, informeth me. Thus am I crowned with the triangle that is about the eye, and therefore is my number three. And in me there is no * This I performed in a sort of cave upon the ridge of a great mountain in the Desert near Bou-Saada at 12-3 p.m. on December 2. 59