Thou mayest light many lamps from the flame of one; yet thou dost in nothing diminish that first flame. Now the Spirit of God is expressed by the Word of God, which is Adonai. For without the Word the Will could have had no utterance. Thus the Divine Will divided the Spirit of God, and the seven fires went forth from the bosom of God and became seven spiritual entities. They went forth into the Divine Substance, which is the substance of all that is." As already stated, Hermes is the Greek name for the Second of the creative Elohim above enumerated. Hence his special relation to the New Gospel of Interpretation, the appeal of which is to the Understanding. Being shown one day in vision the path we had to traverse for the accomplishment of our work, "Mary" exclaimed:-- "What a dreadfully difficult thing it is to steer one's way amidst such numbers of influences! I see a fine, bright-shining thread. It is our own path, and it is a pathway of light. But, oh! so narrow, so narrow, and all around are spirits trying to lure us from it. Here is Hermes, shining like a silver light. My Genius says that the way to get the utmost vitality on the spiritual plane is to abandon the plane of the body, and keep it quite low, by not indulging it. The time for bodily indulgence is passed with us. Abstinence, we have been told, and watchfulness and fasting are needful. And the time for the first of these has come. Nothing is gained without labour or won without suffering. Fasting and Watching and Abstinence, these are Beads and Rosary. It is a hard way and a long way, and it makes one wishful to turn back. We are not to be misled by the story, so much dwelt on to you by the Astrals, of Moses and Aaron[51]. They both were failures, who entered not into the land of Canaan. We must be patient and trust. We have to be cultivated on both planes, the intellectual and the spiritual, and not on the physical, for this draws from and saps the others."