Why this emphasis on looking, on noticing?
In the 0=0, 1=10 and 2=9, the roles of Kerux and Hegemon vary, and are very significant in this point. The Lamp of the Kerux may be, to some extent, likened to the reasoning mind. Kerux himself, may perhaps be seen as “attention”, while Hegemon is the soul, that which guides you from within. In relying on symbols we are learning to discover that these two “lead” you to “realisation”, and to use and to trust them. They will guide you from within, and the purpose of Initiation is, as stated in the “Confession” of the newly installed Hierophant in the Equinox Ceremony, “… so to lead the Soul, that it may, by true direction…” (study it).
Symbols are evocative, they evoke response in the mind to the actual emanations from Kether. Without this practice in the use of symbols, no penetration of the veil is likely.
Consider the Knights or Princes in Tarot, they are all highly active, they refer to Yetzirah, with Yesod, Kerux, the Mind as unmodified, free from precept or preconception. As you look attentively, alertly, openly at a symbol of which you “know” nothing from outside yourself, your mind is in quite a different mode from that used in swotting from books, cribbing other people’s ideas. It is like the mind of a babe on seeing its first butterfly, absorbing every detail during its brief attention span. So with symbols, look thus, for the length of your natural attention span, about twenty minutes, then put it away and don’t think about it. Keep your attention on the daily round for this also is using concentration, just the fact that you don’t let your mind wander back hazily to the symbol. Hegemon will still be doing her job in silence within you. Trust her. Don’t jostle her, you are the candidate, let her do things her way. As time goes by you will quite naturally ‘notice’ more and more, especially when you work with the Hebrew alphabet, ceremonies, Names. Your capacity to notice and to co-relate, to synthesise will improve. The liaison between mind and soul improves – because IT wants to. You are developing inductive reason as opposed to the deductive reasoning we usually use.
A Tarot card that has been “explained” to you is all fogged up with external influence, you hear that external voice, not the inner voice of the Hegemon, who works in Silence.
Thus we come to the practical use of ‘magical’ (subliminal) imagery, for our imagery is indeed “magical” in its true sense rather than its romantic sense. If you have read or been taught a lot about an image by someone who “knows all about” it, then you will find yourself “telling” it what it means. You are daubing it with preconceptions. Our way, you treat it as brand new every time you see it and ‘listen’ to what it has to say to you in silence. You cannot talk and listen at the same time, and you cannot learn by talking. Listen. Look. Let the “teaching” rise up from within you. Only thus can you discover that “The Kingdom of Heaven” is within you. That at some level you already know, but do not realise it. You have been conditioned to learn from without, which is not “magical”. The only answer to the eternal question “What am I?” can only come this way. This is the “magic” way that Spirit descends into matter, the way you complete the process of incarnation.
Can you see now why the Order is “secret”? Why we lay so much emphasis on Silence? The process is something sacred, Holy, something we cannot desecrate with speech, the Voice of He who works in Silence and Whom naught but Silence can express. Something which can only be lived, not discussed. It is LIFE.
Life is an activity. We speak of “looking” and “listening” above, but there is a delicate balance between “telling” a symbol what it means and blankly staring at it. Always YOU are centre-stage, the actor. Perhaps we could suggest a dialogue between you, the candidate, and a symbol as used by the soul as a mirror. Not quite the usual idea of thinking or worry, more like a conversation, in which we reply spontaneously to each idea, intuitively rather than after consideration. Let ideas actually assume form, become clear cut. We intuitively “see” something in the symbolism. Something “lights up” gently in the mind.
Intuition is the “Airy” part of us. Less substantial than reason, so we do not need to “be right” or dogmatic about our kite-flying, we can afford to speculate, free of the strict demands of logic needed by the “Earthy” material mind in daily life.
The purpose of all this is that we may “see” the material universe as symbolic of the spiritual. Everything about us is a product of Life. Gradually the Livingness of everything catches our attention, is “noticed”, our own livingness grows, we feel nearer to things external, know them better, love them more, share with them the simple, natural joy of Life.
Fiat Lux
