THE CRY OF THE TWENTY AND NINTH AIRE OR AETHYR,
WHICH IS CALLED RII
The sky appears covered with stars of gold; the background is of green.
But the impression is also of darkness.
An immense eagle-angel is before me. His wings seem to hide all the
Heaven.
He cried aloud saying: The Voice of the Lord upon the Waters: the
Terror of God upon Mankind. The voice of the Lord maketh the Skies to
tremble: the Stars are troubled: the Aires fall. The First Voice
Speaketh and saith: Cursed, cursed be the Earth, for her iniquity is
great. Oh Lord! Let Thy Mercy be lost in the great Deep! Open thine
eyes of Flame and Light, O God, upon the wicked! Lighten thine Eyes! The
Clamour of Thy Voice, let it smite down the Mountains!
Let us not see it! Cover we our eyes, lest we see the End of Man.
Close we our ears, lest we hear the cry of Woman.
Let none speak of it: let none write it: I, I am troubled, my eyes are
moist with dews of terror: surely the Bitterness of Death is past.
And I turned me to the South and lo! a great lion as wounded and
perplexed.
He cried: I have conquered! Let the Sons of Earth keep silence; for my
Name is become as That of Death!
When will men learn the Mysteries of Creation?
How much more those of the Dissolution (and the Pang of Fire)?
I turned me to the West and there was a great Bull; White with horns of
White and Black and Gold. His mouth was scarlet and his eyes as Sapphire
stones. With a great sword he shore the skies asunder, and amid the
silver flashes of the steel grew lightnings and deep clouds of Indigo.
He spake: It is finished! My mother hath unveiled herself!
My sister hath violated herself! The life of things hath disclosed its
Mystery.
The work of the Moon is done! Motion is ended for ever!
Clipped are the eagle's wings: but my Shoulders have not lost their
strength.
I heard a Great Voice from above crying: Thou liest! For the Volatile
hath indeed fixed itself; but it hath arisen above thy sight. The World
is desert: but the Abodes of the House of my Father are peopled; and His
Throne is crusted over with white Brilliant Stars, a lustre of bright
gems.
In the North is a Man upon a Great Horse, having a Scourge and Balances
in his hand (or a long spear glitters at his back or in his hand). He is
clothed in black velvet and his face is stern and terrible.
He spake saying: I have judged! It is the end: the gate of the
beginning. Look in the Beneath and thou shalt see a new world!
I looked and saw a great abyss and a dark funnel of whirling waters or
fixed airs, wherein were cities and monsters and trees and atoms and
mountains and little flames (being souls) and all the material of an
universe.
And all are sucked down one by one, as necessity hath ordained. For
below is a glittering jewelled globe of gold and azure, set in a World of
Stars.
And there came a Voice from the Abyss, saying: "Thou seest the Current
of Destiny! Canst thou change one atom in its path? I am Destiny. Dost
thou think to control me? for who can move my course?"
And there falleth a thunderbolt therein: a catastrophe of explosion:
and all is shattered. And I saw above me a Vast Arm reach down, dark and
terrible, and a voice cried: I AM ETERNITY.
And a great mingled cry arose: "No! no! no! All is changed; all is
confounded; naught is ordered: the white is stained with blood: the black
is kissed of the Christ! Return! Return! It is a new chaos that thou
findest here: chaos for thee: for us it is the skeleton of a New Truth!"
I said: Tell me this truth: for I have conjured ye by the Mighty Names
of God, the which ye cannot but obey.
The voice said:
Light is consumed as a child in the Womb of its Mother to develop
itself anew. But pain and sorrow infinite, and darkness are invoked. For
this child riseth up within his Mother and doth crucify himself within her
bosom. He extendeth his arms in the arms of his Mother and the Light
becometh fivefold. *
Lux in Luce,
Christus in Cruce;
Deo Duce
Sempiterno.
And be the glory for ever and ever unto the Most High God, Amen!
Then I returned within my body, giving glory unto the Lord of Light and
of the Darkness. In Saecula Saeculorum. Amen!
(On composing myself to sleep, I was shewn an extremely brilliant
HB:Dalet in the Character of the Passing of the River, in an egg of white
light. And I take this as the best of Omens. The letter was extremely
vivid and indeed apparently physical. Almost a Dhyana.)
"November 17, 1900, Die."
* The LVX Cross hidden in the Svastika is probably the Arcanum
here connoted.
Svastika itself adds to 231 = 0 + 1 + 2 + ... + 21, the 21
Keys. The cubical Svastika regarded as composed of this LVX
Cross and the arms has a total of 78 Faces --- Tarot and Mezla.
A NOTE
Concerning the thirty Aethyrs:
The Visions of the 29th and 30th Aethyrs were given to me in Mexico in
August, 1900, and I am now (23.11.9) trying to get the rest. It is to be
remarked that the last three aethyrs have ten angels attributed to them,
and
they therefore represent the ten Sephiroth. Yet these ten form but one, a
Malkuth-pendant to the next three, and so on, each set being, as it were,
absorbed in the higher. The last set consists, therefore, of the first
three
aethyrs with the remaining twenty-seven as their Malkuth. And the letters
of
the first three aethyrs are the key-sigils of the most exalted
interpretation
of the Sephiroth.
I is therefore Kether;
L, Chokmah and Binah;
A, Chesed;
N, Geburah;
R, Tiphereth;
Z, Netzach;
N, Hod;
O, Jesod.
The geomantic correspondences of the Enochian alphabet form a sublime
commentary.
Note that the total angels of the aethyrs are 91, the numeration of
Amen.