THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 8
Summary of the Case.
In this revelation is the basis of the future Aeon. Within
the memory of man we have had the Pagan period, the worship of
Nature, of Isis, of the Mother, of the Past; the Christian
period, the worship of Man, of Osiris, of the Present. The first
period is simple, quiet, easy, and pleasant; the material ignores
the spiritual; the second is of suffering and death: the
spiritual strives to ignore the material. Christianity and all
cognate religions worship death, glorify suffering, deify
corpses. The new Aeon is the worship of the spiritual made one
with the material, of Horus, of the Child, of the Future.
Isis was Liberty; Osiris, bondage; but the new Liberty is
that of Horus. Osiris conquered her because she did not
understand him. Horuse avenges both his Father and his Mother.
This child Horus is a twin, two in one. Horus and Harpocrates
are one, and they are also one with Set or Apophis, the destroyer
of Osiris. It is by the destruction of the principle of death
that they are born. The establishment of this new Aeon, this new
fundamental principle, is the great work now to be accomplished
in the world.
FRATER PERDURABO, to whom this revelation was made with so
many signs and wonders, was himself unconvinced. He struggled
against it for years. Not until the completion of His own
initiation at the end of I909 did he understand how perfectly he
was bound to carry out this work. Again and again He turned
away from it, took it up for a few days or hours, then laid it
aside. He even attempted to destroy its value, to nullify the
result. Again and again the unsleeping might of the Watchers
drove Him back to the work; and it was at the very moment when He
thought Himself to have escaped that He found Himself fixed for
ever with no possibility of again turning aside for the fraction
of second from the Path.
The history of this must one day be told by a more vivid
voice. Properly considered, it is a history of continuous
miracle. Enough if it is now said that in this Law lies the
whole future: it is the Law of Liberty, and those who refuse it
proclaim themselves slaves, and as slaves shall they be chained
and flogged. It is the Law of Love, and those who refuse it
declare themselves to be the children of hate, and their hate
shall return upon them and consume them with its unending
tortures. It is the Law of Life, and those who refuse it shall
be subject to death; and death shall catch them unawares. Even
their life shall be a living death. It is the Law of Light, and
those who refuse it thereby make themselves dark for ever.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law! Refuse
this, and fall under the curse of destiny. Divide will against
itself, the result is impotence and strife, strife-in-vain. The
Law condemns no man. Accept the Law, and everything is lawful.
Refuse the Law, you put yourself beyond its pale. It is the Law
that Jesus Christ, or rather the Gnostic tradition of which the
Christ-legend is a degradation, attempted to teach; but nearly
every word he*1* said was mininterpreted and garbled by his
enemies, particularly by those who called themselves his
disciples. In any case the Aeon was not ready for a Law of
Freedom. Of all his followers only St. Augustine appears to have
got even a glimmer of what he meant.
A further attempt to teach this law was made through Sir Edward
Kelly at the end of the sixteenth century. The bondage of
orthodoxy prevented his words from being heard, or understood.
In many other ways has the spirit of truth striven with man, and
partial shadows of this truth have been the greatest allies of
science and philosophy. Only now has success been attained. A
perfect vehicle was found, and the message enshrined in a
jewelled casket; that is to say, in a book with the injunction
"Change not as much as the style of a letter." This book is
reproduced in facsimile, in order that there shall be no
possibility of corrupting it. Here, then, we have an absolutely
fixed and definite standpoint for the foundation of an universal
religion.
We have the Key to the resolution of all human problems,
both philosophical and practical. If we have seemed to labour
at proof, our love must be the excuse for our infirmity ; for we
know well that which is written in the Book:
"Success is your proof."
We ask no more than one witness; and we call upon Time to
take the Oath, and testify to the Truth of our plea.