Scorpio SYMBOL A wide, and plain, on it a skeleton; a dull, grey sky, in which an Eagle soars, full-fed, it seems, from the flesh of the skeleton. VIII REFLECTION TABLET THE EIGHTH A significant symbol to the seer, showing forth the two ultimates of life and death, of earthly things and sex. Scorpio is both the eagle of the spirit, soaring aloft, well fed with all that is worth carrying away from the earth; and also the scorpion, whose natural home is the desert. In sex, either way, life is given. Shall it be to your spirit making fat and full your immortal self, or will the other interpretation be yours? And will you leave yourself dead and annihilated, a skeleton, to the Ego, the Divine spirit? For sex is indeed the foundation of all. Raised to the region of Libra, it is power and magnetism. To the bosom it is love; to the brain it is enthusiasm. It is the promethian fire of life, the creative force, giving vigor to whatever region to which it is raised; or, lowered, to be spent with no returns, it debases and renders life a desert of dry bones. O child of Adam! Reflect on the fall of man from spirit to matter, and combine the wisdom of the serpent with the purity of the dove, and "lest ye partake of the tree of life ye shall surely die." TABLET THE NINTH Saggitarius SYMBOL A child in a shell, holding in its hand a feathered lance, is drawn by five stars, grouped in an under arc. IX REFLECTION TABLET THE NINTH The symbol of the conscious soul. The shell is the body, drawn by the five senses--stars--which form an under arc, to represent the world of material things and our relation thereto. The child, armed with the feathered lance, is the soul; riding thus, fully armed, in the shell of the body, it realizes the duality of truth; that all things are changeable; and that each thing is true upon the plane of its manifestation, while an illusion to that which is interior to its life, while the soul is in its dream state. Sagittarius represents conservatism and the permanence of crystallized institutions; but, when the spirit awakes and bursts the shell of matter, the senses, instead of being the guardians and jailors of its environment, become its servants, and the means by which, united as the one Ego, sense-perception, it races o'er the fields of Aeth--a being of life and beauty, shining in the empyrean of God. O child of Adam! Ever remember that temperament and environment constitute the north and south poles of human possibility, and that ability, combined with opportunity, is the measure of responsibility. PART 1 Here beginneth Chapter 4 of the Book which is called--"The Tablets of Aeth," wherein is transcribed the Fourth Quadrant of the Twelve Mansions. "A hair, perhaps, divides the false and true. Yes, and a single alif were the clue-- Could you but find it--to the treasure house, And, peradventure, to THE MASTER, too.