The Star in the West

170 THE STAR IN THE WEST and Light , beneficent and malevolent as the ancient gods of Babylonia . The unique Athanor of philosophic and moral alchemy was the transmutation of darkness into light . “ Quand l'homme grandit Dieu s'éleve " ; - it was but a reconstruction of the same idea as held in Exodus , xxxiii , Moses was unable to look at God face to face ; it was also the same idea as held by Charles Darwin -- the theory of Evolution . The growth of the protoplast into man , of evil into good . Khephra , god of the morning emerging from the black thunders of night . Above us flames the Zodiac , the sign of the Balance lies between Virgo and Scorpio , the eagle is the emblem of good , the scorpion of evil , the eagle winged serpent of Good and Evil ; and it is with this doctrine of Good and Evil that we shall now deal . As there was darkness before dobe formed the light , and as knowledge is the outcome of ignorance , so is also virtue the outcome of vice . ERITIS SICUT DEUS , SCIENTES BONUM ET MALUM . It was Satan , the Lucifer of Milton , the Devil of Blake , and the Serpent of Genesis , who was the author of Wisdom .? And the serpent said unto the woman , Ye shall not surely die : For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof , then your eyes shall be opened , and ye shall be as gods , knowing good and evil .- Gen . iii, 4, 5. It was only by casting off God , and breaking away from the essentially bestial quality of unreason , that man paradoxically assumed Godhood . Eliphas Lévi .חישמsame asשחנ