The Alchemy Key.pdf - Veritas File System

Reddened the stones.
Medea set out the same way to execute King Aeson, before restoring him
to youth. When the moon shone in fullest radiance: 232
Medea, barefoot, her long robe unfastened,
Her hair on her shoulders falling loose,
Went forth alone on her roaming way,
In the deep stillness of the midnight hour.
Procne set out to find Philomela in the same way: 233
It was the time of Bacchus’ festival,
Kept by the Thracian women each three years.
Night knows their sacraments; at night the peaks
Of Rhodope resound with ringing bronze;
At night the queen, arrayed to celebrate
The rites, went forth with frenzy’s weaponry.
Vines wreathed her head, a light spear lay upon
Her shoulder and a deerskin draped her side.
Wild with her troop of women through the woods
She rushed, a sight of terror, frenzied by
The grief that maddened her, the image of
A real Bacchanal …
Moses’ sister Miriam similarly led a band of women in a ceremonial rite
after Pharaoh’s troops drowned: 234
And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in
her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with
dances.
Josephus tactfully ignored this sacrificial rite in his Antiquities of
the Jews because the Romans would have recognized it. 235 The rite was a
key sign of the sacred marriage through which the Israelites needed to
pass in order to receive the new land of Israel. It is an allegorical
initiation. The Israelites had passed the test of water. They were to face
the bitter cup of Marah. Moses was Miriam’s sacrificial king. He bore all
the guilt for past actions and died so the new king, Joshua, could emerge
into Canaan as an Israelite Tabula Rasa.
One of the familiar symbolic codes for the sacrificial king is
Orphruoeis, which means growing on the riverbank. 236 An ear of wheat
growing near a stream of water is still the familiar depiction of the initiate
in a Fellowcraft Lodge. It refers to the ritual stew of the sacrificial king in
a cauldron on a tripod. 237 In Wales, the cauldron contained both the
sacrificial king and the Triple Goddess, represented by a white horse.
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