172
THE STAR IN THE WEST
Now
hear
another
:
he
has
written
all
the
old false
hoods .
And now
hear
the reason : He conversed
with
Angels
who
are
all
religious
,
and
conversed
not with
the Devils
who
all
hate religion
Goethe
,
in
Faust
,
also
depicted
this
same moral
idea
,
and most
religions
have experienced
this unity
of
Virtue and Vice
;
the early Christians applauded
it,
and even now
in
Christian Churches
is
still sung the
beautiful
hymn
:
Nearer
,
my God
,
to
thee
,
Nearer
to
thee
,
E'en
though
it
be
a
cross
That raiseth
me
!
Still
all
my song shall
be
Nearer
,
my God
,
to
thee
,
Nearer
to
thee
.
To raise oneself through the vicious
and the virtuous
,
to
reside
,
as
Adonis did
,
six months
with Proserpine
,
and
six with Venus
,
to
be
as
day and night
,
winter
and
summer
,
is
no
easy
path
to
tread
;
and
if
it
be
necessary for the initiate
to
gaze
on
the back
parts
of
Jahveh
,
it
is,
however
,
most certainly not
necessary
for
him
to
kiss
the
hind
quarters
of
the
goat
of
Mendes
,
or
to
revel
in
the
secret
orgies
of
the
Agapae
;
for the tempting
of
man
is
but the temper
ing
of
the metal
.'
The flower
which
springs from
the dunghill assimi
lates into itself particles
of
matter
,
transforming them
into
the ruby
of
the
poppy
and
the
sapphire
of
the
cornflower
;
so
with
us
,
it
is
synthetically that we rise
,
and not analytically
.
Blake grasped
this idea and
so
did Joseph
de
Maistre
.
The Arcanum
of
Solomon
is
1
Yet the virtue
of
one man may
be
the vice
of
another
.