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And as to the consummation of at-one-ment and the state of him who makes joyful surrender of himself unto the Powers, "and thus becoming Powers he is in God," as Poemandrês teaches, some intuition may be gleaned from the same document which tells of the Host of Powers, "having wreaths (or crowns) on their heads"--that is Æons or Christs or Masters crowned their Twelve Powers, and all the other orderings of spiritual energies ( F.F.F., p. 556):
"Their Crowns send forth Rays. The Brilliancy of Their Bodies is as the Life of the Space into which They are come.
"The Word (Logos) that come out of Their Mouth is Eternal Life; and the Light that comes forth from Their Eyes is Rest for Them.
"The Movement of Their Hands is Their Flight to the Space out of which They are come; and Their Gazing on Their own Faces is Gnosis of Themselves.
"The Going to Themselves is a repeated Return; and the Stretching forth of Their Hands establishes Them.
"The Hearing of Their Ears is the Perception in Their Heart; and the
Union of Their Limbs is the in-gathering of Israel.
"Their Holding to one another is Their Fortification in the Logos."
All this is doubtless "foolishness" to many but is Light and Life and Wisdom for some few, who would strive towards becoming the Many in One, and One in Many.
But to the somewhat lesser mysteries of our ritual. All the terms must, I think, be interpreted as mystery-words; they contained for the Gnostics a wealth of meaning, which differed for each according to his understanding and experience. If, then, I venture on any suggestions of meaning, it should be understood that they are but tentative and ephemeral, and as it were only rough notes in pencil in the margin that may be rubbed out and emended by every one according to his knowledge and preference.
"I would be saved."
The human soul is "wandering in the labyrinth of ills," as the Naassene Hymn has it ( T.G.H., i. 191); is being swirled about by the "fierce flood" of Ignorance as the Preacher, in one of the Trismegistic sermons, phrases it ( T.G.H., ii. 120). The soul is being swirled about in the Ocean of Genesis, in the Spheres of Fate.
She prays for safety, for that state of stability which is attained when the worlds of swirl in the Magna Vorago, or Great Whirlpool, to use a term of the Orphic tradition, are transcended, by means of at-one-ment with the Great Stability, the Logos--"He who stands, has stood and will stand," as the Simonian Great Announcement calls Him.
In its beginnings this safety expresses neither motion nor stability, but a ceasing from agitation; the mind or anxiety is no longer within the movement, the Procession of Fate.
The tempest-tossed self cries out to be drawn apart from the swirl; while the other self that is not in the swirl would like to enter.
The self within, or subject to, the "downward" elements has to unite with the self of the "upward" elements in order to be saved from the swirling of the passions; while the "higher" self has to be drawn into the "lower," so to say, and unite with it, in order to be "saved" from the incapacity of self-expression.
"I would be loosed."
That is, loosed from the bonds of Fate and Genesis. In some of the rites the candidate was bound with a rope. In Egypt he rope symbolized a serpent, the Typhonic "loud-breathing serpent" of the passions, as the "Hymn of the Soul" of Bardaisan calls it ( F.F.F., p.477).
"I would be wounded."
Or "I would be pierced." This suggests the entrance of the ray of the higher self into the heart whereby the "knot in the heart," as the Upanishads phrase it, may be unloosed, or dissolved, or in order that the lower self may receive
the divine radiance of the higher. This interpretation is borne out by the alternative reading from a Latin translation, which may have originated in a gloss by one who knew the mystery, for he writes: "I would be dissolved"; that is, "consumed by love."
And so we continue with the mysteries of this truly "Sacred Marriage," or "Spiritual Union," as it was called.
"I would be begotten."
This is the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception, or Self-birth. "I would be begotten" as a Christ, the New-Man, or True Man, who is in verity the Alone-begotten--that is, Begotten-from-Himself-alone, or Self-begotten.
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