THE CELESTIAL MAN


     Before the visible world was formed, its mold was cast. 
This mold was the Archetype, and it was in the Supreme Mind long 
before the process of creation began.  The Supreme Mind, becoming 
enamoured of its own thought, sounded the Word which moved like a 
breath through empty space and generated Fire by the friction of 
its movement.  This fire is called The Son of Striving, and is 
the cosmic Workman.  The Workman passed like a whirlwind through 
the universe and caused the substances to vibrate and glow with 
his passing, thus forming the Seven Governors, the spirits of the 
planets, whos orbits bounded the world and who controlled the 
world by the power of Destiny.  When the Workman had organized 
Chaos, the Word arose out of substance, leaving the elements 
without Reason, and joined itself to the nature of the Firey 
Workman.

     Then the unreasoning elements brought forth creatures 
without Reason, for substance could not bestow reason, since 
Reason had ascended out of it.  Then the Father - the Supreme 
Mind - fashioned a glorious Universal Man in His own image.  This 
was not an earthly man, but a heavenly Man dwelling in the Light 
of God.  The Supreme Mind loved the Man it had fashioned and gave 
over to him control of the creations and works.  The Man, 
desiring to labor, took up his place in the sphere of generation 
and beheld the works of his brother, the Firey Workman.  He 
willed also to make things, and his Father gave permission.  The 
Seven Governors, of whose powers he partook, rejoiced, and each 
gave the Man a share of its own nature. 

     The man stooped down and peered through the Seven Harmonies, 
broke through the strength of the circles, and made himself 
manifest to Nature, stretched out below.  Looking into the 
depths, the Man smiled, for he saw a shadow upon the earth and a 
likness mirrored in the waters, and the shadow and the likeness 
were a reflection of himself.  The man fell in love with his own 
shadow and desired to descend into it.  Coincident with the 
desire, the intelligent Man united itself with the unreasoning 
image, or shape.  Nature wrapped herself around the Man, whom she 
loved, and the two were mingled. 

     For this reason, earthy man is composit.  Within him is the 
Sky Man, immortal and beautiful; without is Nature, mortal and 
destructable.  Suffering is the result of Immortal Man's falling 
in love with his shadow, for being immortal, Man has the power of 
the Seven Governors, but being mortal, he is controlled by the 
rings of the Governors - that is, by Fate, or Destiny. 



     After the earthly origins, when hermaphroditic man was 
divided into sexes and he increased and multiplied in body, the 
individual soul grows and matures, or shrivels and dies according 
to its activities.  It is ignorance which kills.  If a man 
identifies only with the material part of his nature, he is 
incapable of realizing the immortality which is within him. 
After a man dies his soul ascends the ladder of the Seven Rings 
and returns to the Seven Governors their lower powers.  For 
instance, to Mars it gives rashness and anger, to Venus, passions 
and lusts, to Jupiter, its sense of accumulation and riches.  It 
ascends into the Milky Way, which is the seed ground of souls, 
there to await a return into the corporeal body. 





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