The sky appears covered with stars of gold; the background is of green. But the impression is also of darkness.
An immense eagle-angel is before me. His wings seem to hide all the Heaven.2
He cried aloud saying: The Voice of the Lord upon the Waters: the Terror of God upon Mankind. The voice of the Lord maketh the Skies to tremble: the Stars are troubled: the Aires fall. The First Voice Speaketh and saith: Cursed, cursed be the Earth, for her iniquity is great. Oh Lord! Let Thy Mercy be lost in the great Deep! Open thine eyes of Flame and Light, O God, upon the wicked! Lighten thine Eyes! The Clamour of Thy Voice, let it smite down the Mountains!
Let us not see it! Cover we our eyes, lest we see the End of Man.
Close we our ears, lest we hear the cry of Woman.
Let none speak of it: let none write it: I, I am troubled, my eyes are moist with dews of terror: surely the Bitterness of Death is past.
And I turned me to the South and lo! a great lion3 as wounded and perplexed.
He cried: I have conquered! Let the Sons of Earth keep silence; for my Name is become as That of Death!
When will men learn the Mysteries of Creation?
How much more those of the Dissolution (and the Pang of Fire)?
I turned me to the West and there was a great Bull;4 White with horns of White and Black and Gold. His mouth was scarlet and his eyes as Sapphire stones. With a great sword he shore the skies asunder, and amid the silver flashes of the steel grew lightnings and deep clouds of Indigo.
He spake: It is finished! My mother hath unveiled herself!
My sister hath violated herself! The life of things hath disclosed its Mystery.
The work of the Moon is done! Motion is ended for ever!
Clipped are the eagle's wings: but my Shoulders have not lost their strength.
I heard a Great Voice from above crying: Thou liest! For the Volatile hath indeed fixed itself; but it hath arisen above thy sight. The World is desert: but the Abodes of the House of my Father are peopled; and His Throne is crusted over with white Brilliant Stars, a lustre of bright gems.
In the North is a Man upon a Great Horse, having a Scourge and Balances 5 in his hand (or a long spear glitters at his back or in his hand). He is clothed in black velvet and his face is stern and terrible.
He spake saying: I have judged! It is the end: the gate of the beginning. Look in the Beneath and thou shalt see a new world!
I looked and saw a great abyss and a dark funnel of whirling waters or fixed airs, wherein were cities and monsters and trees and atoms and mountains and little flames (being souls) and all the material of an universe.
And all are sucked down one by one, as necessity hath ordained. For below is a glittering jewelled globe of gold and azure, set in a World of Stars.6
And there came a Voice from the Abyss, saying: "Thou seest the Current of Destiny! Canst thou change one atom in its path? I am Destiny. Dost thou think to control me? for who can move my course?"
And there falleth a thunderbolt therein: a catastrophe of explosion: and all is shattered. And I saw above me a Vast Arm reach down, dark and terrible, and a voice cried: I AM ETERNITY.
And a great mingled cry arose: "No! no! no! All is changed; all is confounded; naught is ordered: the white is stained with blood: the black is kissed of the Christ! Return! Return! It is a new chaos that thou findest here: chaos for thee: for us it is the skeleton of a New Truth!"
I said: Tell me this truth: for I have conjured ye by the Mighty Names of God, the which ye cannot but obey.
The voice said:
Light is consumed as a child in the Womb of its Mother to develop itself anew. But pain and sorrow infinite, and darkness are invoked. For this child riseth up within his Mother and doth crucify himself within her bosom. He extendeth his arms in the arms of his Mother and the Light becometh fivefold.7
And be the glory for ever and ever unto the Most High God, Amen!
Then I returned within my body, giving glory unto the Lord of Light and of the Darkness. In Saecula Saeculorum.9 Amen!
(On composing myself to sleep, I was shewn an extremely brilliant:
in the Character of the Passing of the River, in an egg of white light. And I take this as the best of Omens. The letter was extremely vivid and indeed apparently physical. Almost a Dhyana.)
[Mexico, D.F.]
November 17th, 1900, Die [♄].11