Question: “Who are you?”
Answer: “I am a blind supplicant who comes in search of light.”

Question: “What do you want?”
Answer: “Light.”

…What is most interesting was the moment in which this Herculean man took me by the hand in order to introduce me inside of the sanctuary. Unforgettable were those moments in which the heavy door spun upon its hinges of steel and produced that mysterious note DO from ancient Egypt.

What happened thereafter —the chilling encounter with the “terrible Brother” which are the ordeals of fire, air, water and earth— can be found by any illuminated person within the memories of Nature.

[FIRE] I had to control myself as best I could while in the ordeal of fire, since I had to pass through a hall in flames. The floor was filled with steel beams burning with red hot fire. The path between those rafters of ardent steel was very narrow; scarcely was there space to place the feet … many aspirants died in this venture.

[AIR] I still remember with horror that steel metal ring nailed to a rock. In the depths below, only the horrifying precipice was shown tenebrously. Nonetheless, I became victorious in the ordeal of air.

[WATER] …If it was not for the magical conjurations, I would have been devoured by those sacred crocodiles of the lake, which always happened to other aspirants.

[EARTH] Many unhappy seekers were crunched and broken by the rocks in the ordeal of earth, but I triumphed. I saw with indifference two boulders which, while closing themselves over me, were menacing my existence, menacing to reduce me into cosmic dust.

…After passing these tests, I was welcomed into the Initiatic College: I was solemnly dressed with the tunic of white linen of the Priests of Isis, and the Egyptian Tau Cross was placed on my chest.”

When the philosophers speak of the GOLD and the SILVER (symbolized by the SUN and the MOON), from which they extract their material, they are not speaking of the vulgar gold and silver, because these are dead, while those of the philosophers are full of life.

The object of the research of the philosophers is the knowledge of the art of perfecting that which nature left imperfect in the metallic world and to arrive at the precious treasure of the philosophical stone.

Life resides uniquely in the humid radical, and in order to not fail in the work, one must divest the matter of its impurities, so as to have the core or the center, which encloses all the virtue of the mixture.

BRUTE STONE. The artist must work on the body created by nature, in which it will have joined the sulphur and the mercury, which he must separate, and then purify it in order to once again rejoin them. This body is called the brute stone.

The word vulgar designates all subjects which are not proper to the work, such that the vulgar quicksilver, the sulphur, the mercury of commerce, the vulgar gold and silver; sometimes one adds the epithet stupid (stupid vulgar) when the subject does not have life in itself.”

SECONDLY, the philosophical art is founded upon that which the imperfect metals remain as, (because all quicksilver is raw, the physical powder, which is a quicksilver, mature and cooked, and, properly, a pure fire), they can easily mature and transmute them into their nature, after having attracted from their raw humid radical (that is to say of their quicksilver, which is the only substance that is transmuted); the rest was only impurities and excrement, which are rejected in the projection.

An artist can risk undertaking the work, when he knows, through the medium of a vegetable menstrum, united with a mineral menstrum, dissolved in a third essential menstrum, with which when they are reunited one must wash the earth, and exhale it then into a celestial quintessence, in order to make their sulphur into lightening, which, in an instant, penetrates the bodies and destroys the excrement.

One designs this celestial quintessence, through the central fire of nature by the philosophers…

The philosophical material exists everywhere, but it must be sought for especially in the nature of metals, where it is found more easily than elsewhere. It is the angular stone, which can only be designated by the double triangle [the six pointed star], which also symbolizes the two hemispheres. This figure is the emblem of the motto of Hermes, who says that which is below is like that which is above. It is also the stumbling block against which the best men have tripped and fallen.”

…Upon the second of these days was born was born Ra … whom some call Apollo, and others the Elder Horus.

Upon the third day [Set or] Typhon was born, who came into the world neither at the proper time nor by the right way, but he forced a passage through a wound which he made in his mother’s side.

Upon the fourth day Isis was born, in the marshes of Egypt, and upon the fifth day Nephthys, whom some call Teleute, or Aphrodite, or Nike, was born.

…Isis and Osiris, having a mutual affection, enjoyed each other in their mother’s womb before they were born, and from this commerce sprang Aroueris, whom the Egyptians likewise call Horus the Elder, and the Greeks Apollo.”

With the same good disposition he afterwards traveled over the rest of the world, inducing the people everywhere to submit to his discipline, not compelling them by force of arms, but persuading them to yield to the strength of his reasons, which were conveyed to them in the most agreeable manner, in hymns and songs, accompanied with instruments of music.”

All admired the beautiful chest, and Typhon promised to give it to the one whose body fitted it most perfectly. One after another lay down in the box, but in disappointment rose again, until at last Osiris also tried. The moment he was in the chest: Typhon and his accomplices nailed the cover down and sealed the cracks with molten lead. They then cast the box into the Nile, down which it floated to the sea.”

The queen, having heard of this supernatural phenomenon, sent for her, and appointed her to be a nurse to one of the king’s children. Isis fed the infant by giving it her finger to suck, instead of her breast; she likewise put him every night into the fire, to consume his mortal part, while, transforming herself into a swallow, she hovered round the pillar, and bemoaned her sad fate.

It happened at length that some circumstance excited a suspicion in the queen respecting the conduct of the nurse. She secretly observed Isis, and, seeing the infant surrounded by flame, was seized with terror, cried out, and thus deprived the child of immortality.

The goddess then, discovering herself, requested that the pillar which supported the roof might be given to her. She took it down, and, cutting it open with care, took out the enclosed sarcophagus of Osiris…

She returned to Egypt, and brought the body of her husband with her. At some time after her arrival, going to visit her son Horus [the Elder], who was bred up at Boutos, she deposited the chest in a remote place; but Typhon, hunting by moonlight, happened to meet with it, and recognizing the corpse, divided it into fourteen pieces, which he scattered about the earth.”

He then asked him what he thought was the most glorious action a man could perform, to which Horus replied, “To avenge the injuries offered to his father and mother”.”

The aspirant was asked if he took part in the death of Osiris;

• after other ordeals and despite his denials, he was struck or pretended to be struck in the head with the blow of an axe or hatchet
• then he was knocked over, and covered in bandages like the mummies;
• there was moaning heard all around him;
• then the dead person seemed to be encircled by fire,

and finally returned to life.”

Now he rediscovered the truth of the alliance of the two systems (the symbolic and the philosophical): in the allegories of the monuments of all the ages, in the symbolic writings of the priests of all nations, in the rituals of mysterious societies. He sees a constant series, a consistent uniformity of principles which belong to a vast, imposing and true, whole and could only really be coordinated from this universal point of view.

The ardent desire to know will push the adept to penetrate into the sanctuary, by crossing the thorny paths leading to it, and, supported by: a strong will, a constant perseverance and unprejudiced study, he will successfully lift the veil; and the secret of these allegories, of these emblems, of these symbols, of these sacred enigmas, will cease to be a mystery for him; since the whole of nature will be unveiled for him.

Thus in these initiatic schools, the adept gave himself up to the most profound studies: mathematics, interpretation of numbers, navigation, architecture in its three divisions: sacred, civil, and nautical, etc. Privileged adepts or those recognized as worthy were initiated into the most secret doctrines and into the occult sciences.

…The occult sciences reveal to man the mysteries of his nature, the secrets of his organization, the means of attaining his perfection and well-being, [and] finally the end of his fate. Their study was those of egyptian high initiations…”

In a word, condensed fire becomes air, air becomes water, water contains earth, and in the same way the purified earth converts itself into water, the sublimated water escaping as air, and the exalted air disseminates itself into fire. This eternal rotation of ethereal emanations, of vital molecules, is depicted in Genesis, under the emblem of the mysterious ladder of Jacob, where angels ascend and descend.

This is the bright chain of gold which, according to the ancient allegory, binds all the bodies to the earth.

These are ordinarily represented by the sign of an X: the Λ expresses the effluvium of the igneous atoms from heaven to earth, and the V depicted their return towards the ethereal locations.

In fact, the luminous triangle depicted, among the philosophers, the descending movement of the igneous atoms towards the earth, because at the point of departure, they are in all their glory, in all their purity, while the black pyramid or dark triangle expresses, to the contrary, their ascension to return towards heaven; since, by leaving the globe, they are charged with all the terrestrial impurities.”

Akasha is the igneous radiation of the primordial matter. …The Alchemists say that water is the dwelling of fire. …The primordial matter is represented by the waters of genesis in all religious writings. …The oriental sages say that Akasha is a sea of fire.

This super-astral fire is contained within what the Alchemists call the Ens Seminis (the Mulaprakriti of the Indian sages). The Ens Seminis is the seed atoms of all known matter. Akasha is Primordial sound. Akash is super-astal fire. Sound condenses through the meditation of Akasha.

…Without Akasha it is impossible to solidify and materialize the sound. The different Pranas are resounding waves of Akash. These resounding waves condense themselves into the Tattvas of the ether. The Tattvas crystallize themselves into the four elements of nature: fire, air, water, and earth.

In conclusion, the chemical-physical world is the outcome of the materialization of sound. The chemical-physical World is condensed sound. We do not accept an anthropomorphic and dogmatic god, but scientifically, we accept sound as the Original Cause of the Universe…”