Temple of the Grail(63)

At this point, I could see a giant eagle, ablaze with stars, so that in its luminous wake other beings followed, lured like drunken moths. The creature whose brilliance was an offspring of the celestial bodies that clot the sky, descended through the dark area of mountains possessed of such fury and determination that I felt a sudden rush of air escape my lungs. He began by darting at the loathsome creature with seven heads, whose form only now emanated from the schism. The battle had begun.

The beast curled in fury, winding its body around itself, each profane mouth emitting whole chromatic scales, shrieks, and whimpers. Craftily it dodged the eagle, but the great bird aimed at his mark with care, and in one swift slash of a long, sharp talon, he tore out the heart of the creature, whose cry of agony rose to the great heights of heaven. The dismembered parts were then flung to the four corners of the earth, and thereupon four temples appeared. From the beast’s heart, a red blood, thick with life – as though in it convulsed a multitude of reptiles, abundant in the power of transmuted creation – surged, forming a river. And I saw this river divide into two, then the two became four, each branch finding its way to one tabernacle. Along its banks, where gleaming sandy beaches wound around peninsulas, canyons, and valleys, there appeared blood-red roses whose upturned petals praised the great primordial power of the universe. Stars fell then, from the great galactic desert, burning holes through the mantle of the night, uniting with each temple. And a voice said:

‘Glory be to Manes for he has seen the power of good and evil. Glory be to Zarathustra for he has seen the sun in its divinity. Glory be to Buddha for he has experienced the starry light. Glory be to Scythianos for he raiseth the Temple to the highest summit.’

The eagle transformed itself into the countenance of a man, and brandishing a blade, with one swift move, he pierced the dismembered belly, out of which spewed forth seven books, bound in red. These he placed at my feet and with a voice like that of thunder he spoke these words:

Take these seven books, for they are the gifts of cosmic Intelligences.

For all time these books have belonged to me,

Now I must forsake them for the sake of humanity.

Be ye their guardian, that whosoever,

Out of a purity of thinking, feeling and willing

Can tread the long steady path to intelligence,

Let him eat of these books and be saved.

Suddenly I found myself falling into an abyss. Devoid of self, suffused with a sense of selfless union  , I plunged into the synthesis of the universe; expanding, growing into all that was around me, until within me I beheld unintelligible constellations, celestial deities, whole worlds residing. I was a cosmos, and all around me concealed nature became exterior form; organs were as macrocosmic satellites mapping out their course through the microcosm of my planetary being. I saw with awed reverence, a liver circumnavigate a spleen, whose own revolutions around a heart whispered astrological philosophies, profound harmonies. It was a rhythmic oscillation and vacillation, a universal school, where cosmic secrets murmured to the sweeping orbits of distant suns.

‘That which is here spread out and around thee, thou art that!’ I said to the orbs at the perimeter of my existence.

‘I am a god, and thou art my people,’ I said to the internal cosmos that I now embraced.

What was intrinsic was also extrinsic, within, and without, form became formless, and the formless embodied. Soon, Christian de St Armand would cease to exist, his sun eclipsed by the light of a moon whose effulgence was far greater than his own. Then the twelve became seven, and the seven stars appeared.





11


Capitulum


At this point I awoke, and yet I knew that I was still asleep, for before me stood the figure of Plato. You may find this curious, but far more curious was the fact that I did not find it curious at all, but quite the most natural thing.

‘Herein lies the difficulty,’ Plato said, ‘that I may never solve to my satisfaction.’

‘What is it, Plato?’ I asked.

‘I ask myself what is the meaning of this dream?’ he said, pacing my cell, long Grecian robes rustling in the still, dead of night, one slender hand cupping his chin in a remarkable manner, a little reminiscent of my master. ‘Are we to say, then, that you have dreamt a vision?’

‘A vision,’ I considered, ‘a vision of what?’

‘The battle between good and evil?’

‘Indeed, that may be so,’ I nodded my approval.

‘A vision also of a kind of knowledge . . . whose guardian you shall become . . .’

‘It stands to reason, Plato,’ said I, ‘but what knowledge is this? And why have I been chosen?’