And if you are unable to see the serene light that bathes the soul with understanding I admonish that you proceed no further, for we are about to broach sacred and holy things.
Where to begin? Saint Michael protect me.
TEMPLE
OF
HIGHER WISDOM
‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’
Revelation ii 17
26
Capitulum
Out of the darkness I saw the boy again, only now he stood unnaturally tall, one hand extended in my direction. His body, translucent, almost vitreous, and his cheeks flushed with love.
‘Come,’ he said, and though I did not move we seemed to draw nearer, and we became, in a strange way, united, like two spirits within one soul. I became him and he became me. Terrified, I was hardly able to restrain myself from crying out.
‘What strange thing is this?’ I asked, but I was not heard. Dominus illuminatio mea, et salus mea quem timebo? I remember having heard these words before . . . Was it Brother Daniel who, in his confused state, had said them that afternoon in the north transept? That the Lord is the source of my light, and my safety, so whom shall I fear? In a blackness that has no shadows, but is indeed the darkness of the soul, I became afraid . . . I was now a being whose past was deserting him, and whose future was not yet written.
Naked as the day I was born, standing in the midst of nothingness, my soul transported beyond the world that I had heretofore known, I met the guardian.
Assaulting my numbness, the most terrible spectral being, hideous beyond description, stood barring my way, guarding the first portal that was not physical, but spiritual. When he spoke I shuddered, wanting to look away, and yet I remained transfixed.
‘Behold! You are me,’ he said with authority, ‘and I am that which you have made! I am the angel of death, but I represent a higher life that has no end. Enter my threshold and you will be released. Enter my threshold and you will finally see!’
Then the veil was drawn and I, too, in Arcadia experienced everything! It was as though my being were an eye, and an ear, for it was through majestic sounds resounding in the vastness of space, through colours whose essence pulsated and breathed light and air and water and fire, that I perceived. Through intuitions springing up from the fountain-head of inspiration I saw . . . and there was goodness and wisdom personified in every creature, in every being. With total clarity, and transparency, I observed the sun, not as a mere reflection, but as light itself, shining from within my own being that was indeed nothing, or perhaps something that I did not as yet recognise. This light shone into the surrounds, spread open like the pages of a great book. ‘Have you sufficient oil in thine own lamp?’ Could I illuminate the darkness with my own spirit light?
I felt a bliss, which none can know whose spirit has not escaped the mortal shackles of this physical nature and I no longer feared death whose face now seemed to be joyful and beauteous beyond description. I rather welcomed it, feeling myself die of tender piety. When I finally opened my being, like the petals of a rose opens to the first limpid rays, I beheld, with great reverence, the psalms whose garments were like that of a vital thought, spinning out wondrous imaginations. From within their incandescence the martyrs appeared as offspring of these holy words, their many faces upturned toward the One, whose superhuman form of Christ invaded the universe, His being resounding in sound throughout space like a mighty trumpet!
I then felt myself arrayed like a lyre, an instrument for His music, each note a miracle of harmony and consonance. Upon me He played the seven tones of the stars, through the twelve tones of my own being!
Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritus Sanctum reviviscimus
Out of God we are born
We die in Christ
Through the Holy Spirit we are reborn.
A cup now descended from above, and from it emanated the most sublime and indescribable radiance.
‘This is the Holy Grail that exists even now in spirit worlds as a gift to humanity that he, who is purified, may drink of the blood of the Christ and eat of the body, so that it may come to be one with him in spirit. Let he who hath been chosen come forth, and drink of the blood, for he drinketh of the knowledge of Christ and the knowledge of Christ is the knowledge of God and the Holy Spirit.
At that moment the boy tore away his spirit from mine like a breath that escapes one’s lungs. His being went forth and knelt at the foot of the Christ who handed him the Grail, from which he drank.
The voice said again:
‘Let thy temple be such that it may be a receptacle, purify thy body so that it may hold within it the spirit of the Christ, that is the blood of his love, and resideth in the Grail. Make it such that all men know this and feel this in their hearts and souls and spirits. Be ye a knight of the Golden Stone.’