1nCnVqgFI

CRINOLINES, OR THE DRAGON-GARB 513
the Templars, as is shpwn by the Templar degree in Masonry. The
symbol of Knooph (Khoom also), or the Soul of the World, says
Champolliou, "is represented among other forms under that of a huge
serpent on human legs; this reptile, being the emblem of the Good
Genius and the veritable Agathodaemon, is sometimes bearded."*
This sacred animal is thus identical with the serpent of the Ophites,
and is figured on a great number of engraved stones, called Gnostic or
Basilidean gems. It appears with various heads, human and animal,
but its gems are alwaj^s found inscribed with the name XN0YBI2
(ChNOUBIS). This symbol is identical with one which, according to
Jamblichus and Champollion, was called the "First of the Celestial
Gods," the God Hermes, or Mercury, with the Greeks, to which God
Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of, and the first initiation
of men into. Magic; and Mercury is Budh, Wisdom, Enlightenment, or
"Reawakening" into the divine Science.
To close, Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin are the two aspects, male
and female, of the same principle in Kosmos, Nature and Man, of
Divine Wisdom and Intelligence. They are the Christos-Sophia of the
mystic Gnostics, the Logos and its Shakti. In their longing for the
expression of some mysteries never to be wholly comprehended by the
profane, the Ancients, knowing that nothing could be preser\'^ed in
human memory without some outward symbol, have chosen the, to us,
often ridiculous images of the Kwan-Yins to remind man of his
origin
and inner nature. To the impartial, however, the Madonnas in
crinolines and the Christs in white kid gloves must appear far more
absurd than the Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin in their dragon-garb.
The subjective can hardly be expressed by the objective. Therefore,
since the symbolic formula attempts to characterize that which is above
scientific reasoning, and is as often far beyond our intellects, it must
needs go beyond that intellect in some shape or other, or else it will
fade out from human remembrance.
• Pantheon, text 3.
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