MAGICAL STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
SECRETS OF PATHWORKING
by Osborne Phillips

MODULE 7.2

http://www.aurumsolis.co.uk
E-mail: paracletian@tiscali.co.uk

Copyright © 2002 by Leon Barcynski
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
 in any form or by any means 
without prior permission in writing of the author

MSC MODULE 7
Unit 2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
THE 24th PATH: NORMAL WORKING

CORRESPONDENCES
Sephirah of commencement
	Greek name: Niké.
	Hebrew name: Netzach. 
	English name: Victory.
	Aurum Solis Divine Name: ALBAPHALANA.
	Hebrew Divine Name: YHVH TZABAOTH.
	Planetary correspondence: Venus.
	Element: Fire.
	Colour: Green.
Path of the Tree of Life
	Titles: The 24th Path; the Image-making Intelligence.
	Aurum Solis Divine Name: SABAO.
	Hebrew Divine Name: ELOHIM GEBOR.
	Philosophic attribution: Gnostic teachings on the Great Mother.
	Influence: Scorpio (the Scorpion). In Ezekiel’s vision, the Eagle.
	Hebrew letter: Nun (Fish).
	Magical Image: Tarot Arcanum XIII, Death.
	Planetary correspondences: Mars, Pluto
Element of the Path: Water.
	Magical phenomena: Vision of the Dark Mother, the death wish. Visions of the primeval Mother, and of the Mother as Isis, Cybele, the Mater Dolorosa, Kali; finally as the Ocean which is the source of life and of life renewed.
Sephirah of destination
	Greek name: Kalon.
	Hebrew name: Tiphareth.
	English name: Beauty.
	Aurum Solis Divine Name: ONOPHIS.
	Hebrew Divine Name: YHVH ELOAH V’DAATH.
	Planetary correspondence: The Sun. 
	Number: 6.
	Element: Air.
	Magical phenomenon: Assimilation of, and transformation in, the solar light.

PRELIMINARIES
1 – The participants stand in a circle around the altar.
2 – The battery is sounded: a single stroke of bell or gavel.
3 – The director states:
	I proclaim a working of the Twenty-fourth Path of the Tree of Life!
4 – All link hands right over left.
5 – The director proclaims:
	The 24th Path is the Image-making Intelligence, so named because it provides shapes for all created entities which are of a nature allied to its own complex beauty.
6 – The participants visualize a single sphere of white light above the centre of the circle. 
	This sphere grows brighter and more radiant, until the light from it encompasses all participants.
7 – The director proclaims verse XXIV of The Song of Praises:
Nearest the heart of the seas
Watches the Fish, shimmering, nacreous,
Moving with pulse of the tides,
Gliding far down under their turbulence,
Crossing the fathomless caves,
Threading the lost hulls of the argosies –
Shadow inscrutable!
8 – All participants now visualize a wall of white light enclosing their circle and revolving anti-clockwise; then they visualize a wall of blue light, revolving clockwise about their circle and replacing the wall of white light.
9 – After a few moments, all visualization is allowed to fade from consciousness.
10 – The participants unlink hands and seat themselves. They close their eyes and breathe in a steady rhythm, evenly and quietly.
11 – The director now says:
	On the Tree of Life this Path runs from Netzach to Tiphareth in symmetry to the course of the 26th Path from Hod to Tiphareth. This 24th Path is also in its significance a necessary balance and sequel to the other.
	The Song of Praises celebrates for this Path the enigmatic Fish, which symbolises its strange and subtle nature. The Fish is the pictographic interpretation of the Hebrew letter Nun; it is also a variant of the zodiacal symbol of this Path, the Scorpion, brought into harmony with the watery nature of that sign which gives the Path its element.
	The letter Mem, which signifies “the Waters” in the sense of the great Mother-Ocean, does not come into this series of Paths. We do indeed meet with an aspect of that great reality: but here the emphasis is not so much upon the source of Life as upon the shadow of Death that haunts it.
	In the working of the 26th Path, we have looked at the danger perceived by the Qabalistic philosophy, and by many religions, that the rational consciousness might make a wrong choice by clinging to the life of the emotions and instincts, instead of aspiring first to its own spiritual completion by the higher faculties. To make the latter choice will bring the whole pattern of life – including that of the lower self – into full and harmonious realisation.
	Because the rational consciousness (sometimes called the ego consciousness because it is what we most often designate as “I”) has the possibility to bring the whole personality to ruin by making a wrong choice, some thinkers in both East and West have come to the conclusion that not only the Nephesh is evil but also the “ego consciousness” is evil. They rightly perceive that we should choose to be governed by the Higher Self, that is, by our supernal faculties: but they frequently fail to perceive that it is precisely the ego – rational consciousness – that has to make the vital choice. Neither the Nephesh nor the physical body can make it: it has to be the “I” which consciously wills and determines the matter, and which maintains that resolution.
	However, this uneasy awareness of our personal autonomy is the youngest of our faculties, and there are circumstances in which its abdication can seem the simplest and best solution to the human problem. Confronted as we are upon this Path with the allure and the menace of the depths, and facing that confrontation entirely from the astral level – entirely from the level of the Nephesh, as we must do before the attainment of Tiphareth – a return to the womb, a cessation of personal volition, can seem a “consummation devoutly to be wished”. Therefore, although we first take this Path “out of order” before the 25th so as to taste of its darker potential, its completion is necessarily deferred until after the 25th has been successfully achieved.
	We must have achieved our right of way through the Gate of the Sun before we can arise from the deeps of this night.
	It is in the Briatic vision of the “Four Living Beings” that the quarter denoted by the sign Scorpio is denoted instead by the soaring Eagle. It is not by obliteration of selfhood but by illumination of vision that we find the Mother as bright sustainer of life rather than as dark destroyer.
	The 32 Paths of Wisdom, while having allusions here that apply also to the Mother’s essential nature in Binah, comprehends also her power of appearing according to the nature and capacity of those who seek her. She is the Image-maker, and her own forms are beyond our power to number.
12 – After a suitable pause for reflection, the director sounds the battery once, and makes the invocation:
	May we be encompassed by the power of the name ALBAPHALANA (or YHVH TZABAOTH) and established in Netzach, Victory.
May the portal of the 24th Path be opened to us, and may we journey thereon in the power of the name SABAO (or ELOHIM GEBOR) to the gate of the Sphere of Tiphareth, Beauty. 
And, in the name ONOPHIS (or YHVH ELOAH V’DAATH), may the gate of Tiphareth be opened to us and may we be firmly established in the wonders of that Sphere.
13 – The battery is sounded once, and the Pathworking commences.

THE WORKING OF THE TWENTY-FOURTH PATH

Oration
1
We are standing in a temple in which our first impression is of light and vitality.
	Seven hanging lamps, suspended at equal distances around the central area of the temple, burn with steady emerald-like points of green flame; while over the central Bomos, the Lamp of the Mysteries sheds its white radiance, illumining the brilliant green covering of the Bomos and the Mystical Tessera which rests upon it. And, pervading and finding expression through all these things is the feeling of serene and beneficent sunshine.
	There is a clear sunlit sky outside, seen through the open doorway which, with the two pillars, Machetes and Nomothetes, is behind us. Yet now a glorious beam of golden light flashes towards us from the far side of the temple, across the Bomos. Passing around the Bomos, we go to seek the source of this inspiring radiance.
	Directly opposite the door of the temple is an alcove, which enshrines a large and beautiful symbol. A large, equal-armed cross, standing upright, forms the lower part of this symbol. The four arms of the cross are of stone; that on the right coloured olive-green, that on the left russet, the lowest arms black and the highest citrine. Surmounting the cross, at a height slightly above our heads, stands a circular frame of malachite enclosing a shining mirror whose diameter is the same as the width of the cross. Placed in this way, the mirror reflects nothing but the brightness outside.
	For some time we contemplate this symbol. It most plainly represents the powers and qualities of the Four Elements surmounted by the pure radiance of the Sun Sphere. But, since the sun in its reality symbolises for us the world of Spirit, a deeper mystery is hinted in the image we are contemplating. For the total image – the equal-armed cross supporting the circle – is the sign of Venus, the planetary power which not only represents the forces of Nature but also signifies Harmony; and here it can betoken especially the great harmony and equilibrium between our higher nature and our lower when they are brought into unity.  
	This suggests a further conclusion. Surely, by sincere aspiration, we can mount naturally and easily through the lower order of things into the higher, and find awaiting us in the spiritual world all the shining reality of which the beauty of the lower worlds is but the darker substructure? We are native to all the worlds – the material world, the astral world, the worlds of mind and spirit – and therefore, surely, we have but to take as our starting-point the sphere of the forces of Nature, in order to go forth and to claim our inheritance?
	Standing before the symbol, we look more attentively into the alcove that contains it. There is a space between the symbol and the wall of the temple. Stepping aside to look into that space, we discover therein a door; the door is slightly ajar, and it leads to the outer world.
2
	We pass through the door, and find ourselves walking upon a path that leads beneath a heavy arch of leafy stems of climbing roses. These stems are laden with buds, but there are no blooms as yet; and as we pass beneath this arch, the sharp thorns catch at us. 
	We leave the shadow of the arch, but do not find ourselves in the expected sunshine. Here is a different region, a place of silver mist: an all-enveloping mist that hides even the ground beneath our feet.
	We tread lightly, silently. Or do we float here, navigating unmeasured deeps of mist with neither bearing nor sounding to direct us? We would go more slowly if we could, halt if we could; yet still our ankles move and we glide onward.
	Nothing here threatens us. We are not cold nor hot, not weary, not menaced by anything. Only, we are lost: lost to sight and hearing, bewildered, troubled. Nothing threatens us. We fear that Nothing. 
 	We are oppressed by the silver mist, by the silence and the lack of form. If we could stand awhile we might consider what course to take; but on what would we establish an opinion, by what reasoning would we decide? Still we move onward, our senses straining for any least impression to engage them. At last, searching through the bland barriers of the mist, they find contact: something that the sight sees not, but seems faintly to taste, something that the hearing hears not, but seems delicately to brush upon. This presence is behind us, unseen, unheard as yet, but menacing, approaching stealthily. We would flee from it because of its mysterious approach. We are drawn to it, because it exists and moves.
	We cannot halt our gliding progress forward, nor, we find, can we hasten it. As if we moved through some sluggish liquid denser than water, we advance only by conforming our pace to its slow yielding. During our first struggles against it, as if we were setting up an opposite vibration in the atmosphere, the mist surrounding us darkens from silver to a lurid deep greenish blue. We have thus made worse our condition for no gain. In the unbroken and seemingly unbreakable silence, it is as if our hearts cry aloud for aid; and even if we were to be answered by that which pursues us, even that would be welcome. 
	The stillness hangs heavy as if none had heard. But now, as slowly we continue to advance, a shaft of white light seems to dart down from the shadow above us to the shadow before us; it darts down, and there remains, gliding slowly onwards so as to maintain constantly the same distance ahead. As we gaze at it, there is a movement within that light. Within the shaft, somewhat above the height of our own heads, a countenance turns to look upon us.
We see no form of a body, and the features are fashioned of the light itself. It is a commanding face, broad at the cheekbones, with aquiline features, eyes deep-set but penetrating, the mouth and chin austere and resolute. Then it turns away again while the shaft of light continues to move steadily before us; but we know, beyond any doubt, that those features of light have truly looked upon us, those deep-set eyes have seen even within our hearts. This luminous being will be our guide.
3
	More confidently now we move upon our way. But the silence is no longer unbroken. Now a brief snatch of speaking, ended before we can begin to understand it, sounds suddenly in the air above us. Vainly we try to recall it, to hear it again in memory well enough to hazard at least a guess as to the words, but we cannot even remember the sound well enough to know if it was a man’s voice or a woman’s. We stumble, and lose time while we struggle in the heavy air. It seems to us that the shaft of white light has moved further away from us. We dismiss the disturbing voice from our consideration, and press steadily on towards the radiance of our guide.
	Now brighter than a star, yet lovely with all the gentle changeful hues of pearl, a burst of light shines forth above us a moment, and is gone. Our eyes seek after it, wonderingly, yet to no avail; and now, perforce, we turn again towards the austere shaft of light that guides us through this region of vapours.
	Again a sound of voices: voices most musical now, uttering unknown words yet sweet to the ear as a soft sound of bells. At the same time a cluster of lights, high above, diffused by the mist, shines briefly upon us with a glow of rose-colour and lilac. Now sound and light are gone, before we could fix attention upon either; but it seems to us as we remember that perhaps beyond the lovely gleam of light we saw for a moment reclining forms, faces that looked down to us. Perhaps they were only shapes of fantasy: we do not know, but we raise our arms to them as a sign in case they may have reality.
	Again we stumble, and now we seem to be falling slowly forward. Soon, indeed, we cannot tell whether we are falling: we seem to be suspended, turning helplessly as we float in a void. Gradually the deep greenish blue shadow that has surrounded us begins to disperse. We are drifting in an atmosphere of milky light in which radiance moves and eddies, as if the mist were at each moment about to part.
	Now all about us, sometimes coming close and sometimes fading, sound again sweet voices, with brief unrecognisable fragments of thrilling music. Away before us, moving steadily onward, we see the shaft of pure white light, the austere presence that guided us through the murky shadows, but at this time we have little heed for it. A world of beauty and light is about to burst upon us, to overwhelm us with its wonder and bliss.
4
	Now, in visions through which we float, we are encompassed with delight. In slow succession we pass through landscapes of stupendous loveliness, palaces adorned with more than earthly splendour, swaying oceans, illimitable cosmic vistas. At one moment we look from sublime and awesome mountain summits, where the wind blows the white dust of eternal snow across the burning cheeks of skies filled with sunrise; at another moment we pass through green secret valleys where water murmurs all around under the heavy bowers and drifts of leafage, and the birds fly securely as in a primal paradise.
	Now we gaze across a plain of gold, where black trees with the sheen of copper in their leaves stand like sentinels placed at random. Upon a hill beyond is a city, where the fortified walls are of white marble and the towers are roofed with blood-red tiles.
	We glide to that city and enter into the topmost fortress. There within the spacious square of the enclosing wall is a garden open to the sky. There, too, is a shining pool whereon white swans float, and beside which peacocks walk and spread their plumes to catch the sparkling drops from the tall jet of a fountain. In this garden upon brightly coloured cushions sit young men and maidens of noble form and feature, some playing musical instruments and some happily conversing. We hear snatches of their talk, and when it is not directly of love it is upon the great themes of beauty, truth and goodness; but always with delight. Then we are borne onwards from that place.
	Everything we might conceive to exist of beauty, of whatever kind, is here disclosed to us, each marvel seeming real and tangible around us until it gives place to the next. There are no bounds, no measure in beauty: a galaxy whose birth we have witnessed in the splendours of space may seem intimate and precious like a cluster of gems to be held in the hand, or we may find ourselves walking softly through the wonderland of a single blossom, not to mar the dewy surface of the luminous living velvet beneath our feet.
	Most lovely and most poignant among all these wonders is the envisioned beauty of living beings human and non-human, earthly and unearthly. Forms known to us, loved by us, appear among the rest, even as they are known to us and yet transfigured: princely, heroic, angelic in their appeal. And continually a delicious haunting music besets us, breaking and changing when we would listen to it, elusive, fitful, incomplete. 	 
	Time after time it seems to us that we about to make that transition which seemed so possible and so easy: to pass from the world of beauty which can be apprehended by the senses, naturally and without effort to the world of spiritual beauty which is of beauty’s essence. Yet the transition does not come. That which we perceive, see, hear, become aware of no matter how intimately, still remains external to us. We do not, cannot, touch it soul to soul, essence to essence. Yet that is our desire, which truly belongs to our highest and most inward nature could we but achieve it. Without that, all the vision of beauty or loveliness of body, soul or mind that surrounds us is frustratingly, heartbreakingly unattainable.  Our contact with it, which should be immortalised, is but transitory. We feel saddened, wearied, cloyed but yet infinitely dissatisfied. We try to turn away, but the thrilling sounds are still about us as we go, although the soft radiance fades swiftly to the darkness of night in which we see only the light of the guiding presence still going before us.
5
	Now we have become aware of another presence accompanying us: other than the visible light of our guide, other than the vanished beings of beauty. Like a slow beginning of warm rain, like the first deepening of shadows towards evening, this presence has impinged scarcely at all upon our consciousness until we give attention to it. We feel certain it is the same which was pursuing us previously, only at this time it is less strange to us and we feel less threatened by it. It is like something familiar from long ago even though forgotten now, something that attracted us perhaps in childhood: the whispering voice of a forbidden playmate, the bitter fragrance and the imagined flavour of bright red berries or of pallid mushrooms. We cannot name this presence, but it is with us almost palpably.
	Our guide pauses and turns to look at us, then goes forward again. As we follow, we find that at the place where that luminous being paused, the level surface underfoot abruptly ends. Now we must make our way upon a bridge: a narrow bridge which trembles and sways beneath our steps. In the darkness we can see neither the depths of the chasm we are crossing nor its further side, but from far below we hear the roaring voice of a torrent. As we advance, we become accustomed to the movement of the bridge, and more boldly but at an unhurried pace we move forward at some distance behind our guide’s bright shaft of light.
	Suddenly, out of the dark sky, a flock of birds assails us: strange fiery birds with glowing blood-red plumage and fetid breath. Raising our arms, we ward off the attacks of beak and claw, but the birds, alternately darting in and retreating, shed from their flapping wings red-hot feathers that sear our skin as they drift against us. These birds, while they attack, continually reiterate a shrill, harsh cry that pierces our ears and pours forth upon us a stench of carrion.
	While we are defending ourselves from these horrible entities, it is impossible for us to move forward upon the narrow, swaying bridge. As we struggle to defend ourselves against our assailants, the movement of the bridge becomes a dangerously increasing rhythmic swing. We look to our guide for aid in this desperate situation, and as we fix our gaze on the bright shaft of light it swiftly moves out a little way to the side of the bridge, it hovers for a moment above the chasm, then, becoming elongated downwards, it descends, flashing, until the foot of the column seems to rest upon the surface of the dark waters rushing far beneath us.
	The message is unmistakeable, and we perceive that longer reflection will add nothing to our resolution. Facing the side of the bridge where the darkness of the chasm is illuminated by our guide’s shaft of white radiance, we choose a moment when the swaying of the bridge impels us forward and then, adding our own impetus to the movement, we plunge headlong down into the dark water. The fiery birds follow us, giving forth more violently than ever their repulsive shrieking and fluttering their wings so that the burning feathers shower upon us; then, as we sink below the surface of the torrent, they dart away and are gone.
6
	We are not in darkness as we move submerged, for the light of our guide goes above us upon the water, and the whole body of shimmering fluid around us is transfused with that radiance.  Even though the light becomes less distinct as the powerful current carries us onward to greater and greater depths, its source remains always above us as our guide constantly watches over our course. 
	Soon it appears that however wide may have been the torrent into which we plunged, we have now been swept into a far greater expanse of rushing water. Huge boulders are piled beneath us, their surfaces polished so smooth by the immemorial current that their dark colours seem almost translucent as the light strikes upon them: the obscure brownish grey of flint, the angry red-brown of jasper, marble of mottled green and brown and black, the inscrutable green of obsidian, slatey blues of other rocks. 
	And now a predator appears stealthily out of the further shadows. It moves serpent-like, curving from side to side, then pauses to watch from the outer edge of the faint circle of light that contains us. This entity has its own greenish glow of luminescence, in which we see it clearly: with its body coloured a mottled dark red above and pale nacreous blue below, it has its head shaped into a narrow snout in which, at each side of the ferocious armoury of teeth, a long, incurved ivory fang projects downwards from the upper jaw. A spiny scarlet fin, like a crest, extends through the midline of the skull down the backbone. Despite its generally serpentine form this entity has several fishlike fins, but its tail lashing from side to side as it swims is not fishlike: it ends in a tapering point from which now and again the tip of a quivering steel-blue barb appears. The unchanging yellow eyes that watch us from the sides of the head are bright with a cold intelligence greater and quicker than that of either fish or serpent.
	As this monster looks at us, its green luminescence becomes brighter and stronger, and the spines of the scarlet crest rise more erect. We want to escape at once from its threatening presence, but at first we are at a loss how to do so. When we maintain our position or simply drift with the current, it does the same. When we actively move away from it, it begins to close in on us. To move faster is to speed its pursuit. We have to beware not only of the powerful fanged jaws, but also of the whip-like tail that from time to time lashes suddenly sideways and forward, protruding its vicious and certainly poison-dealing stiletto. We move this way and that, frantically conscious that our movements are too slow to outdistance such an opponent, but hoping at least to evade it. A deep gully, which runs away to our left among the boulders below, catches our attention: we impel ourselves downwards as we strive to reach this gully. But our pursuer divines our intention and, throwing off ripples of green phosphorescence that shimmer away like flakes of pale emerald, it moves swiftly in a graceful zigzag to intercept us before we reach the desired gully. We abandon that hope of escape, and turn again to the course of the current.
As we are carried onward we see, to our right, arising from the depths, a group of great rocks set almost vertically, as if tilted up by some subsidence in the underlying bed. This formation appears to offer us a refuge, and quickly as we are able, we turn our course towards it. Again, however, our pursuer moves more swiftly; and a streak of green light flashing through the water gives us warning that we cannot reach that stronghold. Once more we allow the course of the current to guide us. 
	We resolve to move downwards through the water, so that the wilderness of boulders may afford us some protection. The boulders will impede our progress and we know not what other foes may lurk among them, but at least that voracious fanged snout cannot dart forward upon us here, nor can the lethal dart of the tail make its lashing sidelong swing to strike at us. The monster follows us at a distance, and we strive desperately with all our faculties to hasten our descent.
	At the depth we have reached, the white radiance sent forth by our guide is hardly visible to us; but suddenly among the boulders there appears a bright gleam as of sunshine. It is made up of every faint ray transmitted from above, every straying glimmer of light and phosphorescence in the waters, garnered, reflected and magnified among wonderful objects of gold and gems that lie scattered here. As we make our way among the boulders, in one deep crevice and another we behold more of these gleaming splendours, revealed at the very limits of our power to discern them. It seems to us that the monster has impelled us to discover these things and to look upon them. Sometimes, too, a slight variation in the strong current will cause some of these hidden treasures to stir and shift, and momentarily a jewelled cup, a ring or some other object will be mysteriously lifted and turned about as if for our particular notice, and will then sink again into obscurity. In spite of the fascination of these marvellous things, however, we do not linger, for whenever we glance back we see our pursuer still inexorably following behind and above us.
7
	Now as we move deeper we find ourselves in the irresistible grip of a flow more powerful than that which carried us along at a higher level. Almost in darkness we are swept onwards, battered by rocks as we are borne from one narrow channel to another, our limbs tossed violently this way and that. We have no knowledge of where we may be in this world of waters, nor whither we are bound; until, unexpectedly, our movement changes to a swift, smooth course that seems to cradle us in a haven of peace.
	It comes to us that we are very weary of the violence and harshness of this journey. As if in a dream, we recall vividly the fair forms and colours, the sweet and thrilling sounds of the earlier part of this Path, when we were almost, but not quite, able to transfer ourselves into the blissful world of spiritual loveliness. From that point, through no choice save the necessity of each moment we have descended further and further from those shining heights.
	Now in the dim light we perceive that we are being carried helplessly forward and down towards the brink of a gaping pit. The monster has followed us thus far, but now with a final glint from its cold eyes it turns away and leaves us. We, held fast in the current, are powerless even to struggle. As we reach the brink, the pit below us appears to be the crater of an extinct and long submerged volcano, a portal to unimaginable depths. Again, however, even here, there comes to us the certainty that we are not alone. Again we are aware of that unnameable presence, known from aforetime: a presence comforting and yet alluring, filling us with that sweet desire of what appears inevitable, which is so often called a sense of destiny. How it sings to us, calls to us!
	In fascination we look down into the rushing depths of the pit. Their further distance is filled with a dark, intense green-blue, mysteriously reflected within itself to an infinite degree. In the heart of that most profound colour is a remote circular space of ultimate blackness. We are falling towards it with what feels like a lethargic slowness, and with exactly the same slowness the blackness sinks to yet further depths.
	Gradually as we gaze into that blackness the contours of a face appear to us, even as they might appear when a dark surface is used for scrying. It is the face of a woman: a face neither young nor old, but immovably calm and strong. The darkness against which we see that face appears suited to its natural complexion. The sorrow and wisdom of all the ages, as well as their voluptuous joy, are in those deep eyes set wide apart beneath their heavy brow; the high cheekbones, aquiline features and firm chin are those of a woman accustomed to rule, a matriarch whether noblewoman, peasant or prophetess. And even though we have not seen this face before, we recognise her. This is she whose unseen presence has haunted us for so long on this Path. We cannot turn away. The intense magnetism of those eyes draws us, calls to us irresistibly, so that we reach out our arms to her as to a mother. All our yearning is towards that face, forgetting totally in what fatal ambience we behold it.
	O the bliss of encounter with this mystery, of mingling our being with it! Would not oblivion therein be the ultimate ecstasy?
8
We welcome the profound sweetness of this surrender. Receive us, O Mother!
	With arms outstretched we plunge headlong, helplessly, into the unfathomable pit. The torrent engulfs us: the alluring countenance vanishes, and in its stead our field of vision is filled with an infinity of streaming particles of every colour, which appear to spring from the central depths, lengthening into twisted ribbon shapes as they rush towards and past us. They grow stronger and more violent: mighty streams of blue, green and scarlet light which thunder and shriek as they pass, as if menacing us with buffets of physical impact. Through this tempestuous chaos we feel ourselves falling, falling for a time that seems interminable. Then gradually the tumult and the rising streams of many-coloured brightness diminish, until we are left in utter darkness and silence.
	We seem to be falling no more: but in all this, where is she whom we seek, and why do we see her face no longer?
	After another interval a small, steady glow of light, warm in hue but too faint at first to have any recognisable character, appears before us. We have no means to judge in what direction we are looking: but our attention remains fixed upon this luminescence which swiftly grows in size and brightness to become a long oval of delicate bronze-coloured light with a more intense inner region of ivory whiteness.
	Subtle, isolated snatches come to our ears, of a music that is not in itself coherent but of which only scattered notes and phrases reach us. At the same time a warm breeze stirs fitfully in our direction, bearing a fragrance which as it comes and goes reminds us now of citrus, now of roses, now of pine woods beneath the sun and, occasionally, even of the fresh bitter tang of the ocean. These sounds and odours strike upon our stunned senses, awakening them to a new intensity of awareness. We seek to press forward upon our quest, but we are unable to move.
	A rhythmic piping, consisting only of three notes continuously interwoven, sounds as if from a great distance. At first it seems childish: but then its very simplicity, together with the sense of vast remoteness that it conveys, produces a strange fascination. As this sound holds our imagination, the soft light before us partly resolves itself into a misty shape, human, female, nude, but still phantasmal. This figure faces us, but the head is bowed and the thick hair falls forward, hiding the features. The arms are unseen as if the hands were clasped behind the back, and the whole body is curved forwards so that the full breasts and wide hips entirely dominate our view of it. We try to see more clearly, we wonder whether the figure will move: but instead it dissolves again into the oval area of light, and at the same time the strange piping changes back to the fitful many-toned phrases of music which we previously heard. The awesome vision has vanished as if we had never beheld it, even while we are still seeking its place in the context of our conscious mind.
	For that which we have glimpsed is an image whose spiritual meaning is scarcely accessible to us at this distance of time: it is that image of the Mother which human hands in Neolithic times fashioned in fragments of stone or bone, or represented in even more stylised form in sacred and secret shrines. We can venerate the archetypal simplicity of the concept, but yet the psychic language of the culture in which it developed is strange to us: we cannot enter into the full emotional significance of such an image. We would desire to open our hearts to that which we have beheld, because assuredly it relates to her whom we seek: but, O Mother, extend your arms to us in love and guidance! – O Mother, show us your face! 
	The warm breeze stirs around us again, vibrant as a wind of early spring. The changeful music is like the song of birds mingled with the shimmering sound of gongs: the oval of bronze-coloured light expands and contracts, now seeming to come close as if to overwhelm us, now receding so as to seem an incalculable distance away. Now it expands to a vast extent.
	Once again we see a figure within the light, but now the vision is immense, and awe-inspiring in its dimensions. This time there stands before us the figure of a woman completely draped in richly embroidered robes, a veil upon her dark hair; but her eyes are hidden in the shadow of the veil, and she does not look upon us. Now the vision shifts and is changed, and her robe is of the finely pleated linen of Egypt. Her gaze is upon a young child clasped in her arms, and still she does not look upon us.
	She sets the child down beside her, and suddenly he is a youth grown almost to manhood. She wears a golden crown and he a shepherd’s cap, but as each regards the other her features and his are identical, are one. Then he sinks down as in death, and she takes the crown from her head and laments as a woman distraught. The birds are mute: the strident insistent clangour of the gongs is deafening. She bends over his body. Swiftly now it is the corpse of a grown man, now it is a skeleton, now it is gone.
	The gongs cease: we hear only the gentle rhythm of a single drum, like a heart beat. The Mother rises up, swaying in a slow dance of change and renewal. She lifts her graceful arms, and at once they are innumerable. Her infinity of fluttering hands cover the skies, then become remote and shining like stars. Momentarily they shed a pearly light upon us, and then they vanish away. We are left in empty darkness: but the sound of the drum continues.
	O Mother, wise in the intricate ways of joy and of sorrow, where shall we find you?
	The soft bronze light is all about us now, although for some time we see nothing clearly in it: we drift without volition through tendrils of faint mist. Fleeting images of her whom we seek, in many forms, appear insubstantially before us and vanish away: now we glimpse her in a chariot drawn by cats or lions, now she herself appears in feline form, now she is a she-bear protecting her cub, or a wild mare speeding afar over misty plains. These shapes are but as garments worn by her at one time and another as she may choose to figure forth something of her purposes, and each vanishes in its turn.
	The tones of a stringed instrument, varying between entreaty and determination, are added to the gentle insistence of the drum, and a rich oriental sweetness fills the air. Now the mist dissolves as a scene becomes clear before us.
9
	We find ourselves before a huge temple, built of massive blocks, whose entire surface, from the foundation to the pinnacle, is carved over with figures, emblems and leafy scrollwork in intricate profusion. A wide doorway into this temple stands open, and we attempt, in the drifting and dreamlike manner in which we are progressing, to enter the building. 
	Some unseen influence, however, prevents us from doing so, and the elaborate sculpture of the wall catches our attention as in a maze. We follow with our power of vision the convolutions of one branch of the leafy scrollwork, and find that the onward movement of our glance is checked as we examine stem growing out of stem, detail out of detail of ornament. At last we are contemplating a cluster of tiny but exquisitely carved flowers, whose petals are perfect in every vein and contour.
	All at once, in one of these minute blossoms we behold a figure enthroned. Indeed, by what standard can we say these flowers are small, or large, or of any size? Here we behold her whom we seek, majestic and powerful as if we saw her seated above the rainbow and sending a manifestation of herself through the worlds in each of its seven rays. We would do reverence to our Mother as she sits enthroned within the sculptured flower, but as we gaze the light quivers, and ten thousand such blossoms meet our eyes. Nor, now, are they sculptured. The temple has disappeared, and the blossoms are true blossoms, living and growing – red, yellow, white, purple – while the song of the birds rises triumphantly to silence every other music. Then that sound too fades away.
	O, Mother of us all: are we to seek you through all that lives? And if in this way we find you, how can your regard be upon us, how can you hold out to us your strong and gracious arms?
	While we stand bewildered, a tinge of blue appears in all that we see. Rapidly the colour spreads, until the flowers and foliage shine with every hue from pale sky blue to deep sapphire, and even the light that surrounds us becomes blue. The intensity of its colour increases until the leaves and flowers disappear in it, seeming to melt away as ice melts in water. A total silence enfolds us, and the deeper blue shadows of the distance grow more mysterious.
	This intensely blue ambience is both peaceful and stimulating. We find in it a quality of her whom we seek, and without resistance we await what is to follow.
	A gentle and caressing pressure holds us on every side, and, as we entrust ourselves to it, slowly and steadily we are lifted upwards in its embrace.
	Higher and higher we rise through the marvellous blueness. Now it becomes filled with ripples and sparkles of brighter luminosity that are charged with an energy and vitality of their own. We catch fleeting glimpses, scattered among the sparkles, of shapes in vivid changeful colours: delicate shapes which might equally be living things or abstractions, long spirals, plant-like forms, radial patterns, cell-like mosaics and innumerable variations on these types. All flash forth in beauty and are gone before we can consider them. At the same time, however, there is infused into us a great and potent joy: it is not death, but life, which holds and constrains us! Still we rise, and our joy becomes ecstasy: until with a sudden swirl we are thrust upwards to break the surface of the blueness. 
	For a moment the impact of the transition bewilders us, but swiftly we begin to contemplate the new environment in which we find ourselves.
	We are standing upon the surface of a wide expanse of intensely blue water. Above us, a jet black sky is so thickly gemmed with stars as to give a light almost as bright as day. The gentle, almost imperceptible rise and fall of the blue water, in which this diamantine starlight is reflected, stretches as far into the distance as we can see: only in one direction is another object visible. At a distance from us a massive and glittering structure, which itself flashes blue in the starlight, rises sharply from the waters.
	Gliding easily over the luminous blue surface, we move towards the edifice. As we draw nearer, we see that it rests upon five square tiers of black onyx that rise in steps from the surface of the water. Four massive columns of translucent crystal stand at the corners of the uppermost platform: the height of each column is the same as the distance that separates it from its neighbours, so that the four frame an open-sided cube. Upon these columns, and fashioned of the same translucent crystal, all gleaming pale blue in the reflected watery light, there rests a pyramidal roof.
10
	We mount the five onyx steps to the level floor of the edifice, and pause.
So lustrous is this floor that the light of the stars is palely reflected there: but in its centre, an elaborately wrought symbol claims our attention.
	This is an extensive inlaid star of gold, at the centre of which is a large burnished disc. From this disc there extend eight equal rays, long and tapering, but each strongly curved in the form of a reversed S shape, so that the star has the appearance of revolving in a sun-wise direction: and each of these long rays has its surface adorned with an intricate raised pattern of circles and ellipses, as if the burnished central disc in whirling on its axis were shaping the course of a host of lesser luminaries to its motion.
	We approach this golden symbol and stand at the centre of its burnished disc. At the corners of the spacious area surrounding the star, the huge crystalline columns rise high above us. We are at the point of balance of mighty forces. We begin to feel a powerful sense of centring within ourselves, a settling and ordering of our faculties in orientation to an inner point. We look before us over the luminous blue waters, while the starlight turns to yellow fire in the golden symbol at our feet.
	Suddenly the star in whose centre we stand begins shining with a brighter golden light. No longer is its lustre a reflection from without: now the star has become luminous, emitting brightness of itself. As its radiance continues to increase it seems to stand forth from the onyx floor as if from a midnight heaven of its own. Soon we gaze down at it with wonder that our feet can rest upon it, it is so truly transformed to pure light. Even more luminous it becomes, brilliant as the noonday sun. Its effulgence blazes forth on all sides, turning the translucent columns and roof to shimmering luminescence, and passing through them as easily as through the open spaces.
	In the increasing radiance of this mystical light, the gently swelling surface of the water turns from blue to a bright sheet of molten gold. The light grows even more intense, spreads further yet: it paints the sky with bright hues of sunrise, with rose purple, gold, green and cerulean blue. The stars fade from sight, all save one: the beautiful Morning Star hangs like a silver lamp in the glowing heavens, even though the only visible dawning is that of the brilliant star in which we stand. We gaze down into the incandescent fire about our feet, and marvel that our eyes are not dazzled: we can gaze into that blazing whiteness as the eagle gazes into the sun.
	All at once we realise how it is that we can do so: both inwardly and outwardly we ourselves have become as luminous as the effulgent light whereon we gaze. Without our observing the wondrous change, the whole of our being has taken illumination from that golden fire. Now, too, we realise that the spiritual equilibrium in which we are poised is no longer a balance of tensions: it is an entire unity. We are radiant, vibrant with power, blissful in this extended dimension of being. Each of us is the reality of that Star upon whose representation we stand. All our faculties are gathered to move in harmonious response to the central splendour, even as the design of the symbol prefigured: and in that harmony is both power and peace. 

Peroration
	We have come through the darkness of the deeps and the shadow of Death, into the radiance of day and of a light that is other than the light of the external sun.
	This golden star in whose central disc we stand is eight-rayed. It is both eight-rayed and indicative of motion, of action. In its balance of forces, in its solar splendour and power of interior regeneration, we find a symbol of the reality of life.
	For no life, of whatever degree, is static. It is through that very faculty of change that is represented to the eye of understanding, even by the path of Death itself, that the life of the lower self comes nearest to the life of the spirit. The life of pure spirit is pure dynamism. Flame, starlight, the pearl, the diamond, all the symbols for spiritual life show this essential quality of inner movement, of vibrant lustre: the quality of perpetually becoming, perpetual newness, rebirth. And all birth is of the Mother.
	Thus the power of the Mother is ever with us, whether it is seen as menacing, seductive or saving: not only to bring us through the births of our lower evolution, when the limitations of the material world can be seen as fetters, but also in those higher births in which pure spiritual force is moulded to lofty forms and purposes. In the pattern of our own being, and in the pattern of the cosmos, the power of the Mother carries us onward through birth and rebirth: and that power will ever more fully be with us in the bliss of that limitless Becoming to which all existences ultimately aspire.

	Battery: 3-5-3