The Vision and the Voice

THE VISION AND THE VOICE All the Aire behind him is gold, but it opens as it were a veil. There are two terrible black giants, wrestling in mortal hatred. And there is a little bird upon a bush, and the bird flaps its wings. Thereat the strength of the giants snaps, and they fall in heaps to the earth, as though all their bones were suddenly broken. And now waves of light roll through the Aethyr, as if they were playing. Therefore suddenly I am in a garden, upon a terrace of a great castle, that is upon a rocky mountain. In the garden are fountains and many flowers. There are girls also in the garden, tall, slim, delicate and pale. And nowI see that the flowers are the girls, for they change from one to another; so varied, and lucent, and harmonious is all this garden, that it seems like a great opal. A voice comes: This water which thou seest is called the water of death. But NEMO hath filled therefrom our springs. And I said: Who is NEMO? And the voice answered: A dolphin’s tooth, and a ram’s horns, and the hand of a man that is hanged, and the phallus of a goat. (By this I understand that nun is explained by shin, and hé by resh, and mem by yod, and ayin by tau. NEMO is therefore called 165=11 x15; and is in himself g10=91 Amen x 10; and 13 x 70=The One Eye, 4chad Ayin.) And now there cometh an Angel into the garden, but he hath not any of the attributes of the former Angels, for he is like a young man, dressed in white linen robes. And he saith: No man hath beheld the face of my Father. Therefore he that hath beheld it is called NEMO. And know thou that every man that is called NEMO hath a garden that he tendeth. And every garden that is and flourisheth hath 77