. The book of the ancient and accepted Scottish rite. es of the occult philosophy, all thekabalistic keys of prophecy, are summed up in thesign of the pentagram, the greatest and most potentof all signs. The white clove and black raven in the West repre-sent the two principles of Zoroaster and Manes, goodand evil, light and darkness; and the fourth and fifthsephiroth of the Kabala, the mercy or benignity, anathe justice or severity of the Deity. The candidate in the ancient initiations surrenderedwithout reservation his life and liberty to the Mastersof the Temples of Thebes or of Memphis; he
. The book of the ancient and accepted Scottish rite. es of the occult philosophy, all thekabalistic keys of prophecy, are summed up in thesign of the pentagram, the greatest and most potentof all signs. The white clove and black raven in the West repre-sent the two principles of Zoroaster and Manes, goodand evil, light and darkness; and the fourth and fifthsephiroth of the Kabala, the mercy or benignity, anathe justice or severity of the Deity. The candidate in the ancient initiations surrenderedwithout reservation his life and liberty to the Mastersof the Temples of Thebes or of Memphis; he ad-vanced resolutely amid innumerable terrors, thatmight well lead him to suppose that it was intendedto take life. He passed through fire, SAvam torrentsof dark and foaming water, was suspended by frailropes over bottomless gulfs. Was this not blindobedience, in the fullest sense of the word? Tosurrender ones liberty for the moment, in order toattain a glorious emancipation, is not this the mostperfect exercise of liberty itself? This is what those. KNIGHT OF THE SUN. 415 have had to do, what those have always done, whohave aspired to the Holy Empire of magical omnipo-tence. The disciples of Pythagoras imposed onthemselves a complete speechlessness for many years;and even the followers of Epicurus only learned thesovereignty of pleasure, by a self-imposed sobrietyand calculated temperance. Life is a warfare, inwhich one must prove himself a man, to ascend inrank. Force is not given : it must be seized. If the sacred Scriptures are inspired, God himselfhas told us that he makes good and creates evil. It is owing to human vanity that no man has everdared to reason with common sense on this pursues, tortures, and kills the most innocentanimals, birds, and fishes, to gratify his appetite, orfor mere pleasure. He crushes thousands of insectswithout a thought of wrong; nay, he destroys, asdoes every other animal, myriads of animalcalae andinfusoria daily, unconsciously,
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