THE VISION AND THE VOICE
The Angel re-appears.
The blackness gathers about, so thick, so clinging, so
penetrating, so oppressive, that all the other darkness that I
have ever conceived would be like bright light beside it.
His voice comes in a whisper: O thou that art master of
the fifty gates of Understanding, is not my mother a black
woman? O thou that art master of the Pentagram, is not the
egg of spirit a black egg? Here abideth terror, and the blind
ache of the Soul, and lo! even I, who am the sole light, a
spark shut up, stand in the sign of Apophis and Typhon.
I am the snake that devoureth the spirit of man with the
lust of light. I am the sightless storm in the night that
wrappeth the world about with desolation. Chaos is my name,
and thick darkness. Know thou that the darkness of the earth
is ruddy, and the darkness of the air is grey, but the darkness
of the soul is utter blackness.
The egg of the spirit is a basilisk egg, and the gates of the
understanding are fifty, that is the sign of the Scorpion. The
pillars about the neophyte are crowned with flame, and the
vault of the Adepts is lighted by the Rose. And in the abyss
is the eye of the hawk. But upon the great sea shall the
Master of the Temple find neither star nor moon.
And I was about to answer him: “ The light is within me.”
But before I could frame the words, he answered me with the
great word that is the Key of the Abyss. And he said: Thou
hast entered the night; dost thou yet lust for day? Sorrow is
my name, and affliction. I am girt about with tribulation.
Here still hangs the Crucified One, and here the Mother
weeps over the children that she hath not borne. Sterility is
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