第22章

We have now only to glance over various diverging lines of the same cosmology and the same redemption.All these allegories typified TRUTHS.They all teach the Initiate the mysteries of creation, of man's destiny and his necessary Cycle of Material Probation.Some of the most beautiful parables may be read in this light.Abraham, and the story of his wanderings in the deserts of Asia Minor; of Lot and his unfaithful wife, are to be seen still written in the heavens.Hagar and Ishmael are still there; so also are Esau and his brother Jacob; the story of Joseph and his brethren; of Sampson and his twelve labors.This is the same beautiful story.The Sun, shorn of his glory, or solar force, at the autumnal equinox, stands upon the equator between the two pillars of the temple (or light and darkness), and pulls down the temple (or signs) into the southern hemisphere.And behind this we have the eternal truth of the soul, when, giving way to the allurements of matter (Delilah), the soul is shorn of its spiritual covering, or conscience, and sinks into matter and death.And the story of David and Goliath can be read to-day as clearly as of yore.

They are eternal, spiritual verities of human nature, and record, not only the history of the human race, its mutations and transmutations, but of the individual man and the suffering and delusive joys of his material life.Aye, more! It is the record of all his past existence and a type of hiseternal destiny in the future.

Another turn of our cosmic kaleidoscope, and lo! the scene changes -- the play extended, the angles greater, caused by the revolution of our solar parent through his celestial Zodiac.As the Sun passes out of one sign into another, or, in other words, forms a different angle to his own center of force, a new dispensation is born to the world; or, rather, re-born under a new guise.The great Sun-God appears to change his nature and manifests an entirely different set of attributes.That is the way man personified this play of Nature, through his imperfect conception of the cause of this change.But to him it was, and is, a truth, and man's effort to externalize these attributes in a Divine personality was, and is, strictly from the plane of his mental development and spiritual unfoldment.

The two pictures of this Astro-Theology, as set forth in the two divisions of the Jewish Bible, will illustrate our meaning.The Sun had entered the sign Aries some time prior to the exodus from Egypt.Aries is the constellation of Mars, the fiery, destructive and warrior element, or force, in Nature, and we find the Jewish conception of God a perfect embodiment of these attributes: The Lord of Hosts, a God mighty in battle, delighting in the shedding of blood and the smell of burnt offerings, ever marshalling the people to battle and destroying their foes and the works of his own hands; a God imbued with jealousy, anger, and revenge.This was the type set up by the Jewish savior and lawgiver, Moses.

After a period of 2,160 years, we find the Christian cosmology ushered in.The Sun has entered the sign Pisces, which is ruled by Jupiter, the beneficent father.The Christ, or mediator, of the Christian Gospel was an embodiment of the joint qualities of the sign and ruling planet.Gentle, loving and merciful, His words were messages of love and peace; His work was with the poor, oppressed and fallen; he eschewed sacrifices and burnt offerings; a contrite heart was the best offering; He taught the people that God was their Father, loving all, just, yet merciful.But a strong taint of the old conception has remained with the human race, hiding, at times, the beauty of the latter concept.These are, again, the refractions of eternal truths, viewed by man from his material plane.The elements are here presented, the alphabet and its key clearly defined.Therefore, let each oneexplore this tangled labyrinth of Astro-Theology for him or herself, and work out the various correspondencies at leisure.It is enough to indicate the starry originals of all this seemingly confused mass of so-called Divine revelation in sacred books.

They, one and all, pertain to the same celestial phenomena, and the various Bibles are the outcome of man's serious attempt to tabulate and externalize this heavenly order, to record his conceptions of these starry aspects and movements with their corresponding effects upon the Earth.

Probably the purest system to us is that which may yet be derived from Chaldean sources.This sacerdotal caste were the most perfect in their astral conceptions and complete in their symbolic system of recording, and if the great work found in King Sargon's library in seventy tablets is ever translated, it will prove of priceless value to the student of these weird, but sublime, astrological mysteries.

In conclusion, as we reflect upon the fourfold aspect of the subject that we have presented in outline in these pages, the whole imagery passes in review before the mental vision.We see that the radiant constellations of the heavenly vault, with the beautiful reflection and counterpart, the shining Zodiac, are the two halves of the great Cycle of Necessity, the spiral of eternal, universal life, which binds the whole into unity, and unity into infinity.It is the grand scheme of creative life.The seven principles of Nature, or Divine Activities, are the forces producing the phenomena within seven angelic states, seven kingdoms, and, by seven planets, upon the external plane; the planets being the passive mediums of the positive spiritual forces.Upon this dual spiral, which reflects the seven rays of the solar spectrum is produced seven musical notes; one half of the spiral in sound and color being the complementary of the other half.Man, the Earth, and our solar system, are revolving, each orb in its own key, and its own peculiar ray, meeting and blending with other spirals, and the whole blending into one mighty spiral Cycle of Progressive Life, revolving around the Eternal, Infinite Ego-God, ever involving and evolving the attributes, powers and possibilities of the One great central source of Being.

It is a grand orchestra, pealing out in richest melody and sublimeHARMONY, the grand Anthem of Creation: "We Praise Thee, O God."