The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE All this while the Adepts have been chanting as it were an oratorio for seven instruments. And this oratorio hath one dominant theme of rapture. Yet it applieth to every detail of the universe as well as to the whole. And herein is Choronzon brought utterly to ruin, that all his work is against his will, not only in the whole, but in every part thereof, even as a fly that walketh upon a beryl-stone. And the tablet blazeth ever brighter till it filleth the whole Aire. And behold! there is one God therein, and the letters of the stars in his crown, Orion, and the Pleiades, and Alde- baran, and Alpha Centauri, and Cor Leonis, and Cor Scorpionis, and Spica, and the pole-star, and Hercules, and Regulus, and Aquila, and the Ram’s Eye. And upon a map of the stars shalt thou draw the sigil of that name; and because also some of the letters are alike, thou shalt know that the stars also have tribes and nations. The letter of a star is but the totem thereof. And the letter repre- senteth not the whole nature of the star, but each star must be known by itself in the wisdom of him that hath the Cyno- cephalus in leash. And this pertaineth unto the grade of a Magus,—and that is beyond thine. (All this is communicated not by voice, or by writing; and there is no form in the stone, but only the brilliance of the Table. And now I am withdrawn from all that, but the Rosy Cross of 49 petals is set upright upon the summit of a pyramid, and all is dark, because of the exceeding light behind.) And there cometh a voice: The fly cried unto the ox, ‘Beware! Strengthen thyself. Set thy feet firmly upon the earth, for it is my purpose to alight between thy shoulders, 69