Israel Regardie - The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic.pdf

VOLUME SEVEN
The 23rd Key of the Tarot is referred, as you are aware, to the Elemental sign of
Water, and in this diagram the drowned giant is depicted reposing on the rocky bed of the
ocean with the rainbow at his feet, corresponding to that which has been sunk below the
phenomenal world by a sacrifice eternally preordained, which, in one of its aspects at least, is
the necessary limitation suffered by the Divine Nature in the act of becoming manifest. The
Divine, in a word, is drowned in the waters of natural life; and that which in this respect
obtains in the external world, obtains also for humanity, wherein the Divine Spark, beyond
all plummets of the sense, all reach of the logical understanding, is immersed in the waters of
the material existence. In both cases, the symbol with which we are dealing corresponds to the
legend of our Founder, sleeping in the centre of the Tomb, which is encircled by the
Rainbow, as in the Sanctuary of Israel there was the abiding Presence of the Shekinah. We
must remember, moreover, that the ocean of phenomenal life supports on its surface the
mystical Ark of Noah, which, in one of its aspects, is the Vessel of Correspondences, wherein
the types of all things were collected from the wreckage of the old initiations for transmission
through a new era. In another sense, which is intimately connected with the first, the Ark is
the body of man, the ship of humanity, poised on the waters of the world which conceal the
divine within them. It is man, collective and individual, man in possession of his senses and
also enclosed by his senses. There is that within him which, during this his time of probation
is put to sleep as deeply as the symbolical Giant. His originally great nature is restricted in the
body after the manner of God in creation. There is yet another aspect in which we may regard
the Ark, for by many issues the great symbols open upon the Infinite which they show forth,
though it is after the manner of a reversed glass minutely. It is that namely, which for a time
suspends the soul's communication with the external that she may receive the influx of the
Divine. It is the house of deep contemplation, of fixed, well-directed thought, by which our
exit is found fora time, even from thought itself, to the world of true experience. The ceremony
of the 6-5 Grade symbolises this indrawn state, in which connection I would ask you to
remember that in the roof of the Ark of old there was a window through which the Dove
passed and repassed, now in frustrated flight, because many wings are beaters at the Golden
Gates; now bearing the olive-branch of peace which for us signifies the suspension of the life
of the senses. But, in fine, there came an hour when the dove returned no more, because the
aspiration and outreaching of the soul at length attains its term. Beloved brother, we have
dwelt at great length upon the import of certain symbols, for albeit the work of detachment
may operate scarcely less in suspension from the world, yet it is through many types that we
pass ultimately behind the veils.
I have therefore something to say to you of Mercury, which the Alchemists in their
secret language, tell us is coagulated by its interior sulphur, this operation being the
conjunction of their Sun and Moon, or the marriage of Adam and Eve. Now, this can be
understood mystically, because they say also that herein is the union of Heaven and Earth, by
which you will see that all systems of symbolism, however apparently divergent, meet in the
ultimate identity of their one object. It is affirmed further that we now behold Mercury as it
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